I stopped at Mr. T’s coffee shop on the east side of Mansfield. “I have no healthcare,” Richard told me. “My doctor bills are $60 and they, Medicare, pays $15. We definitely need some healthcare reform.”
Glendale’s a World War II vet (Coast Guard). He tells me that being in the VA system, he’s had no problems with healthcare. He had a heart attack six years ago with a quadruple bypass but, “now,” he said, “I'm doing fine.” He’s been retired for 23 years, gets his medications from the VA and also receives Medicare and retirement benefits. “I hope they get that healthcare in this country worked out, there’s so many people without it,” he said. This is a man who fought for freedom; has his fight been in vain?
On a hot afternoon, Jane’s store, ‘Munchies,” was a godsend. After downing water and ice cream, I asked her if she had any healthcare stories. She didn’t offer any, but did say, “I hope something gets done for everyone to have some healthcare insurance without hardship ... especially for our seniors.”
I met Linda at the drugstore during one of my regular visits for antibiotic ointment. People often wonder why I buy five or six tubes at a time. She told me she’s OK now but previously had Aetna as her health insurance carrier. “It was a real problem,” she said, as no providers in her vicinity were covered: “There was no choice, I had to go all the way to Columbus for my care.”
On this hot afternoon, along the long road east of Mifflin, I began getting desperately thirsty. A generous family answered my knock and I spoke with three generations of whom the oldest, Clara, told me her story. She described a situation with Aetna (Medicare supplemental plan) where her husband had gotten an infection and required a ten-day course of antibiotics—ten pills. “But Aetna would only authorize four pills at a time,” she told me. This meant that for each time, in order to fulfill the full ten-day course, they had to drive forty minutes. That made three round-trips in total. Such a “ridiculous expense and hassle,” she said.
Dave has Type I diabetes (insulin-dependent) after suffering a bout of pancreatitis a few years ago. “Coverage keeps dropping and the cost keeps going up,” he said.
I had just entered Mifflin, when a woman sitting on her porch waved and asked, “Are you the doctor in the newspaper?”
She stood up holding the newspaper in her hand as I answered, “Yes,” and approached the steps to her home.
She offered me water. “That’s incredible, I was just reading about you—what karma.” And we talked about healthcare. “The high deductibles in health insurance are ridiculous,” she said. “There's a lack of coverage, and you need to keep changing plans to get a decent rate.”
