Maggie's Farm

The physical therapy area of health care is rife with rip offs. When my husband broke his shoulder, he found a therapist near our house and spent four months going to him every week. When he stopped, because the therapist told him there was nothing more he could do for him, we've continued to have four more months of billing from him, because the therapist had not yet finished draining off the Medicare assigned funds for his broken shoulder. I would have stopped it, because they continued to bill me as well, but I couldn't find a way to do it. This is one of the ways that billions of dollars get wasted with single-payer health care.

Marianne

Jerry ... What this is, is a realization by two elderly folks in their 80s that it's a lot of work and hassle to try to correct Medicare on anything. Also, for 80-plus-year-old folks, taking issue with the Medicare people would draw their attention to us and God knows what they'd do, since our 'pull dates' are already stamped on our foreheads. The whole thing is quite Kafka-esque. And extremely exhausting. However, if the Therapy outfit continues this for one more month, I'll probably have to do something.

And Jerry, I've been a good citizen for longer than you've been alive. If I were fifty again, I'd don my armor and saddle up my white horse and charge the blockhouse. But with the dreadful shadow of Obamacare looming over this picture, I've reluctantly decided to keep a low profile and hope they don't notice me and put me on The Death List.

I'll leave it to you young whippersnappers to fight the battles. I just don't want the death panels to get my correct address.

Marianne