HEALTHCARE REFORM ISN'T JUST ABOUT HEALTHCARE

Having just been through a health problem myself I have been thinking about those who have no insurance at all and what would happen to them in my situation.  I have a painful condition in my face and jaws which flares up sometimes. I can usually manage it with OTCs and ice as it is a mild form of Atypical Trigeminal Neuralgia. I realized I had a dental infection, but no dental insurance. I thought I got rid of the infection three times. I use certain foods and dental hygiene techniques to do this. It finally got bad and I was in excruciating pain. I had to have antibiotics. I am on Medicare and the doctors in Alaska often refuse us so I had quit looking for one a while back. I got lucky and a clinic two blocks away takes Medicare. The doctor also impressed me as he is really intelligent. He even knew all about workplace bullying and even knows the tactics the hospitals use on nurses. What are the chances of me finding him? I had to see a dentist and it will end up costing over $2000 in the end. They will let me pay it off, but good grief. I was in a lot of pain even after the root canal. The dentist was not happy to have a TGN patient. We have pain when most dental patients don't because it is a nerve condition. The pain is almost gone now. I had thought I was feeling bad because I had my PTSD triggered, it was mainly just the infection. The dental problems started after the wrongful imprisonment, I have never had these problems before.


I am in recovery from prescription pain medication addiction(many would say it is not addiction because I have real pain, but I think that is BS), but every few years I am confronted with a situation in which I have to take pain pills. This was one of them. I generally do everything I know to keep from taking them. I know in great detail what narcotics do to our bodies. They change the personality, stop stem cells from migrating to the brain to form memories(that is why people on drugs get stupid), lower the pain threshold and more. Since I am already addicted it takes only a few days of pain pills and I go into withdrawal when I stop taking them. I have to weigh the amount of pain I am in with the pain of having to go through withdrawal from the narcotics. So, I am now in withdrawal and know all the things to do to get through it. It is a mild withdrawl so it is mainly just unpleasant. I got an email today from a woman with TGN who had some teeth pulled and the dentist would not give her pain meds because she was not suppose to have pain. I told her to go to the ER or her regular doctor and told her all my pain control tricks which include some foods, but she really needed immediate relief. Dentists need to learn about TGN or refer the patient to their MD.

This health care bill is not what I wanted, but it has come to be a symbol of hope for me. Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao went against his party and voted for the bill because the people in his district in Louisiana need it. I am sure the people in that district are happy to have him. A republican who makes decisions for the people he is working for instead of some other agenda, now that is something to give us all hope. I have been in mourning for single payer healthcare. I watched our healthcare system ruined by insurance companies, drug companies, and healthcare companies. Even now in Alaska the hospitals are fighting to keep on requiring nurses to work overtime. Forced overtime is unsafe. They are also using a workplace bullying tactic of writing bad evaluations for those who call in sick, like when they have the flu and then get rid of nurses who call in sick more than the allotted amount. That is being done down here on the Peninsula you know where someone went into a hospital and shot his supervisors. I don't know of a bigger clue of a problem than that. Can you imagine catching one virus after another because in your job you are exposed to everything that goes around and then getting fired for being sick? When people are bullied they start to call in sick as bullying does decrease the effectiveness of the immune system. They know this of course, they know exactly what they are doing.

I know that the political conditions coupled with the hold the corporations have on our country prevents a sweeping reform of healthcare. That is why Senator Weiner withdrew his bill. Hopefully he can try again at a later time. At least now more people can get some help. Our government is really controlled by corporations. They are the invisible government. Even this bill is a miracle. A lot of legislators fought tooth and nail to try and get as much covered, as many covered as possible, and take as much control as possible from the insurance companies, drug companies, and other leachy health care industries. The problem is we will still be at the mercy of the insurance companies and they are gaining a ton of new customers. How convenient for them. It also will set back women's rights if it passes the Senate. They had to eliminate elective abortions to get it passed.

I am seeing the process more as a beginning of the changes in our country, not just for health care, but for many areas we need to change. It tells me the tide is being turned in this country. With all that we have lost from Ronald Reagan until George W. Bush, the loss of our humanity seems to be the least talked about. The human cost in suffering is immeasurable. The mentally ill forced into the streets and prisons, millions without health care, military veterans denied care for health problems caused by their service, our civil rights eroded, prisons filled with people who in many cases should have never been arrested(their civil rights denied in many ways including lack of health care), the quality of education decreasing, lies told to us by corporations because our regulatory agencies were owned by them, the Geneva Convention being ignored so people could be tortured in our name, the decrease in research which would have advanced our society, and lies told to us to get us to follow like sheep are just a few examples of the results of allowing corporations to control our government. Getting this bill passed as watered down as it is, is about taking the control of our resources and our liberties back from corporations just as much as it is about getting all Americans access to health care.

Hell, we have allowed them to control our prison system, that is insane. We have allowed them to influence what we eat to the point of mass obesity. The government should start the process of getting the cost of fruits and vegetables low. If they have to put taxes on junk food products like soda so be it. Do it and do it now. That and some other changes will help reduce health care costs.

Sarah Palin in a pathetic move invokes the "death panels" again. Yea Sarah, like you or your ghost writer read the bill. Her Facebook commenters are stocking up on supplies for the revolution and still don't have spell check.

Michele Bachmann wearing that lei to tell a story of people who flew from Hawaii to come to Washington D.C. to complain about the "government take over of health care" is hilarious. I guess that says it all doesn't it? Does she know Hawaii has a state law that all employers have to supply their employees with health care? Do these people from Hawaii even know this? Teabaggers, they don't surprise me anymore. Aloha.