GERIAT -TRICKS

GenderGappers 2006 – 021

GERIAT - TRICKS

Monday, May 15th will live on as a day of infamy, when our Nation’s senior citizens were forced at the point of an economic gun to sign up for drugs that many neither want nor need. Medicare Part D was not a choice – it was coercion pure and simple.

Well, not so very simple. Few people aside from the Big Drug Companies that wrote it even understood it. It was forced down the throats of our older and most vulnerable with dire warnings and political threats.

Vermont’s Republican Lite Gov, Dubie, demanded that everyone who knew of a senior who had not signed up should “take them by the hand” to do so. He did not add “sign up for the biggest drug rip-off of all time”. He didn’t care if a senior needed drugs or not – he ordered that each must pick a plan and pay through the nose.

The threat that followed right behind the sign up order was clear. If you did not sign up by the deadline you would be fined every month until you capitulated to this horrific assault on seniors.

Never mind if you do not understand this atrocity called Part D, you must sign up or face a stiff penalty. The whole program is fine print but you have no choice.

Well, yes, there is some choice. You can choose what company and what plan will be used to screw you. You are forced to pay for it even if you do not want or need it.
Perhaps you use diet and exercise to keep yourself healthy. Perhaps you find alternative medicine more efficacious. Perhaps you’d like the right to use your discretionary funds for something other than force-fed drugs.

Fergetaboutit, if acupuncture keeps you feeling young and vital or relieves your pain without the mind clouding effects of drugs. It’s the drug company’s bottom line that is important.

Seniors don’t get to choose what works best for them – they just gutta choose drugs. It’s the American Way. Forget how good you feel after chiropractic treatment. Bush’s idea of a health plan for seniors is to keep them drugged and penniless.

It’s no concern of the Repugnant Congress if Herbal medicine or Meditation does more for you than any drug. Sign up for drugs that can carry you off the planet quicker – leaving your money to the drug companies.

Never mind that you selected a plan and pay into it only to find out that the drugs you now need are not on the list – tough, but it’s the law rammed through to placate the drug companies who contribute so greatly to the Bush Administration’s coffers.

So all you younger folk with parents forced to comply, make sure Congress dumps this cruel law or prepare for worst to come. Like the recent news that arthritis drugs contribute to cancer.

Or if that doesn’t scare the Hell out of you, read this article by January W. Payne –

“New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon.

Among other things, this means all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/15/AR2006051500875_pf.html

DO YOU GET THE PICTURE YET?

The argument that everyone shares the burden so those in greatest need get their drugs is specious. If money is needed, then tap into the huge surpluses of the over paid fat cats of the military/industrial complex with their off-shore accounts to beat taxes – more than enough there.

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