I have read some of the letters from your readers about the TennCare situation in Tennessee. My sister is on TennCare until the July 21, then she is cut off. She got her death notice from the governor a few weeks ago.
Sure there are people that abuse the system, there always will be, but my sister will die because the government cut her off from the liver transplant that she needs, the expensive medicine she needs to keep her platelets high enough so she won’t bleed to death.
She never was a drinker, she got the bad liver from Hepatitis C, which came from a blood transfusion in her teens. She didn't cause all this bad health by drugs, drinking etc. Drug addicts can get help over and over if they can't kick the habit, sexual predators can get Viagra. Yeah, they abuse the system too, and they keep doing it.
Are we going to turn in to a Hitler's kind of government, where only the fittest are kept and the week and infirm are done away with? The abusers will go on to some other way of getting their way without any responsibility, but my sister will be dead before her time.
Her husband has Alzheimer's. Who will take care of him, and explain to him why she isn't with him when he looks and looks for her and can't find her? Can you truly ask yourself, "How would I feel if I received one of those letters from the governor and had no way on God's green earth to pay a thousand dollars a month for insurance?" The exact cost is a few dollars less than a thousand, if you a nit picking. If they could afford those payments, they wouldn't need Tenncare.
I wrote the governor a letter. His answer stated that their other priorities such as education, public safety, and job creations would suffer. They aren't allowed to appeal if they can't afford the medicine or because of bad health. Only two kinds of cancer are covered for women. If you are a single mother with kids or are pregnant, you can get it. Go figure.
Lorene Jones
W. Melbourne, Fla.
XPUTTPUTTJONESX@aol.com