I am on Social Security disability.  My husband (retired) pays $250 a month for the privilege of a $2700 a year deductible.  We live in Diamond Springs which is 1-1/2 hour from our HMO’s hospital.  I recently had a medical emergency and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.  Each visit to a doctor and my hospital stay reflected the total lack of interest in me or my symptoms.  I went to a cardiologist a month AFTER my hospital stay.  First time I saw a "heart doctor".  He yawned throughout the appointment.  At the end of the appointment, he told me basically there was no hope, nothing could be done to fix my heart.  Luckily there is a nurse who is head of their CHF unit who has taken great care of me.



I worked from the age of 17 until I was about 50.  I put money into health care insurance and Social Security for about 33 years.  The one area we (my husband and I) are very vulnerable is in the area of health care.  If something catastrophic were to occur (health care wise), we have the choice of either losing all my husband’s retirement money paying for health care or paying it down so we can go on Medi-Cal OR not receiving any health care.



This has been a bad year for us medical wise.  We have spent a large sum of our retirement (about $10,000) for out of pocket (not including health insurance payments) co-payments, deductibles, etc.  I have used up my drug prescription limit and now have to pay full price for another $1,000.  If you include all this plus health insurance costs, it is a cost of about $15,000.  That is over $1,000 a month for health care.  And we don’t make that much money!!!   So at some point, if I don’t die soon (I am the one costing the most), we will no longer have any retirement money.  Something really seems to be wrong with this picture.  It needs to be fixed NOW!!!



This is not fair!!!  We have both worked all our life and to be in a position now of losing retirement money vs. health care should not be an option.  I believe all Californians deserve the same health care whether Governor, Senator, Assemblyman, Joe "average citizen", children, etc.  



We can’t afford better doctors which is sad because we would like to get our health care locally and would also like to get the best health care available.  I would like the luxury of being able to choose my doctor based on his credentials and abilities NOT the price I can afford.  Very simple.  I am going to vote for the person who works VERY HARD to provide AFFORDABLE health care to retirees whether Republican or Democrat.



I don’t want to hear we (California) can’t afford it.  Why don’t each of our Senators and Assemblymen as well as the Governor kick in a bit of money, downgrade their health insurance and retirement plans to what the average person on the street has, get rid of pork barrel and costly bills, bills which are NOT needed (such as the bill to tell George Bush we don’t like the war!!), and quit getting in bed with health insurance lobbyists.



We can’t afford better doctors which is sad because we would like to get our health care locally and would also like to get the best health care available.  I would like the luxury of being able to choose my doctor based on his credentials NOT the price I can afford.  And I would also like to not worry about hitting the cap in my prescription plan (which I have done this year already).  Very simple.  I am going to vote for the person who works VERY HARD to provide AFFORDABLE health care to retirees whether Republican or Democrat.