The Squeaky Wheel DOES get the Grease.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

OK, I’ve posted before in the depression threads pointing out that I am disabled because of depression – bipolar – with attendant disorders and am on medication. Sometimes I don’t think so well – which, unfortunately can be seen in some of my posts. Since becoming disabled I have fought a hard and steady battle to survive economically and decided that our government has little regard for the poor and disabled and once one becomes a member of those ranks, one is considered subhuman which goes beyond racial and religious considerations. My battle to recover using the Social Service system has been one of intense frustration and discouragement, finding that help is limited in quantity and quality and that the system is poorly run for the most part and over taxed.

As I have said before, the government has no problem granting funds to Glacier National Park for a three million dollar outhouse in a remote ‘ecologically sensitive’ area that only the most determined hikers will ever poot in – but they have a big problem with granting money for medications, housing and food for the disabled and poor.

Now and then I hit a manic stage where I think remarkably clearly and have a fire in my belly and a goal in sight and a rage against the fact that American Citizens in the richest and best nation in the world can starve and die in the streets like animals.

Some time ago, in an effort to get an abscessed tooth fixed, I burned up my computer writing e-mails to every senator and congressmen and congressional committee that I could find plus did research on all existing Social Service programs, studied the local disabled and poor and checked their options – which I found appalling. As for me, no one would pull my tooth and an abscessed tooth does not go away. To keep it short – it CAN kill you but Medicare and Medicaid do not consider it life threatening and will not cover it.

I got few responses. Just the normal automatic ‘the Senator has received your e-mail and is interested in the contents and will look into it’ response and then, oblivion.

When my medication was stopped because Medicare decided that at $801 a month I made too much money for free prescriptions, it took me ages to find an alternate, free source by going through illegal means. Then my therapy was restricted due to budget cuts for mental health. Then the GOOD therapist I had was terminated along with others because of cost cuts. Yet, reports all over told how we are in the best financial shape since the good old days of the 60s and we have more millionaires and billionaires than ever before.

People in general are making more money than ever before and have more investments than even in the 1920s, plus are buying more toys and construction is up even with the high cost of housing.

Yet, because I am disabled and poor, no one would pull my tooth. No dentist would even set up a payment plan.

I had to follow a hidden and almost impossible to find trail of phone numbers to locate social help – they don’t like to make those numbers easy to find, and found I was either making too much money or did not qualify for some reason.

So I wrote to the Senators, Congressmen and Committees again, but this time with real mail. My letter was 10 pages long and went into gritty detail about how we 40 million American poor, disabled and starving are essentially fucked.

Within 6 months, the Governor of the State of Florida, the late Honorable Lawton Chiles, ordered Social Services to get my tooth fixed. Social Services decided to get them all fixed, and did. (Not very well, but I now have plates and a dispute with the cheap dentist over a tooth he wrecked and wants me to pay for.) I got back into therapy by discovering a little loop hole in the system no one told me about. LIHEAP paid my $400 back power bill, I started on government food (a whole $8 to $10 worth a month). and my letter even reached Senator Kennedy in the Social Security Committee and they responded – sort of.

I did get some free medication from a drug company, but only 1 prescription, then they cut me off without bothering to tell me.

Then, I lost my home of 10 years because I could not pay the rent, moved in with my family and remained quiet for a time as the manic episodes dwindled and depression oozed in. Things piled up. I needed to get the wrecked tooth fixed. I needed medication sources more secure than the illegal one I have, plus I needed to be upgraded to new medications that work better. I needed better therapy. I was very aware of the plight of other disabled people I know who are reduced to living out of dumpsters or going whoring to get rent and food money.

So, I burned up the trusty computer again when a mild manic stage hit me and started sending out letters to everyone. Social Services contacted me and they will be meeting with me tomorrow to get my tooth fixed because Senator Patsy Kurth sent them a copy of my 13 page letter with instructions to look into it. Plus they wish to discuss the many other complaints I listed. (I’d print the letter here, but I don’t think it would fit.)

Progress. I made THEM listen to me but I need HELP! I can work and present the plight of us to them until the depression closes in and then I have to drop out for weeks or months. Plus I need all of you disabled out there to go to the Government Mailing sites and start sending in YOUR letters with YOUR stories of difficulty, abuse, neglect and financial problems. (http://www.governmentguide.com/state/statehp.adp?type=aol) Sorry, I don’t know how to make a link yet.

Bill Gates is worth over 41 BILLION dollars and he pays a single million to charity. Corporate welfare is in the billions to companies which do not need it at all – like Walmart and Burger King as well as Pepsi and Coke.

Most depressives and disabled will NOT write because they feel their voice will not make a difference. It will. I have been encouraged by the Mental Health center to keep writing. (They have not had a budget increase since 1985 plus President Jimmy Carter – the Great Humanitarian – cut the mental health budget in the 70s and no one has bothered to restore it.)

So, make your squeaky voice heard. I did and I am getting some results but there is only me so far, though I write for several hundred others, and there are 40 million of us. The more who write in, the better. DO NOT E-MAIL. E-mail is not often read – because it is so cluttered with SPAM, so easy for nuts to bug congress and such that real mail is always paid attention to.

There are more sites to contact the government on the web with easier listings of mailing addresses.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease but I’ve only placed a drop on it. You tired of being treated like some sort of human garbage? Then write in. Medicare dropped me because I make too much money. Through some yelling and phone calls, I managed to discover an emergency Medicaid fund that I can apply for. It will not give me medications but it will stop the State from taking out that $45 from my check each month for hospitalization and might get me some food stamps. (Every little bit helps.)

Start writing.

What? Me worry?’

2

Whew! Rainbowcsr, with all the work and effort you put forth to get what you want, I’m surprised you call yourself disabled.

3

Rainbow, this is awesome! You deserve a lot of kudos. And remember folks, you don’t have to be disabled yourselves to write a letter to your representatives telling 'em that you don’t like the way the system (doesn’t) work.

I have one little nit to pick with you, though, Rainbow. Your message is powerful, and you make your point. Digs like this:

make you lose credibility in my mind. First off, Bill Gates is a private individual who has earned his money. Secondly, whether your $41 billion figure is correct or not, most of it is tied up in the company, which makes it not liquid, and not really usable. Finally, your “only one million to charity” is simply not correct. Bill Gates and his wife have set up a charitable foundation which they fund now, and to which all of their money except $5 million (or maybe it was $10 million) per child (I think they have two kids) will go upon their death.

Don’t detract from your powerful message with comments like the quoted one which is neither relevant nor accurate.

Good luck to you – you sound like a winner!

-Melin

4

MERLIN:
Thanx. I heard somewhere that Gates only donates a million to charity, and with my odd memory, I don’t recall where.

I bring up people like Gates to demonstrate the great rift between the haves and the have-nots and, yes, I understand that much of his wealth is tied up in the business. Sentinel posted an excellent post concerning the rich and the poor – in response to an OP concerning them, which indicated the difference in how the very wealthy think in comparison to the ‘common’ man.

I recall now, the post is concerning who is more giving, the rich or the poor. The poor won. I’ve had rich people treat me like crap while I’ve had disabled and poor folks offer me a place to stay, shared their food with me and even gave me gas money when I had none, though they had barely any themselves.

The whole thing is that the wealthy are industriously working single mindedly to find more ways to get more money and tax cuts from the government, taking from needed social programs, in order to get more money than they could ever spend in a life time – and the government is listening to them and ignoring us.

I just had my meeting with the guy from Social Services. He will be engineering the further repair of my teeth, was not aware of the limitations of available therapy and is going to look into that, asked about and accepted my opinion concerning New Horizons Mental Health Clinic, is checking into Medicaid concerning getting me medication or is going to tap into state funds, MIGHT get me funds to pay all of or some of the $2500 in bills I accumulated in having to be evicted from my last home, told me to keep hammering out letters and mentioned that my name is now known in various offices of the Social Services. (I get a BIG mouth when manic.)

If 1/3 of what he says comes through, I’ll be happy. Especially about the teeth and pills.

I still need people to write to their legislators with their stories because the more that get heard, IN THIS ELECTION year, the better. Plus, in about 24 to 48 hours, my manic stage will pass and I’ll lock up for a time and get ‘stupid.’

You’ll probably know it by my posts.

What? Me worry?’

5

Rainbow, good luck. I know the excellent dentist I used to work for would’ve helped you. He frequently set up payment plans for his elderly and/or fixed-income patients.

Again, good luck.