Add to the list of reasons why it’s a good idea to have some money saved up. Add to the list of reasons to save when the getting’s good when you’re young and energetic and making some money. Add to why it’s a good idea to invest prudently so you have some money put by. Add to it because it’s as expensive as hell to be ill, especially when you’re old.
My beloved wife, saint of saints, has been ill for months now. The expense is astounding. Breathtaking. You might think Medicare pays for it but you would be wrong. We don’t know why, but Medicare hasn’t paid anything. We hope they will someday, but not yet. Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is useless.
So I get and pay staggering bills for her private light, bright, cheery room. For home visits by specialists. Yes, they do make house calls but it costs your house. For private duty nurses. For round-the-clock home healthcare to bring Alex the many glasses of lemonade she needs each day. To give her an astonishing trove of meds many times each day, and no, Medicare does not pay for that either. Meanwhile I get billed a premium for Medicare. Someday they will pay, I hope and pray.
But I keep thinking, "My healthcare is as expensive and my wife is still sick. The media talks about how bad healthcare is for the poor. As far as I can see, it’s not that great for the rich or for us upper middle class slobs.”
What would I do if I couldn’t afford round-the-clock nurses? My wife would clamber out of bed and be totally lost in our own home. What does the ordinary citizen do? Home healthcare is going to be a big business, so writes Ben Stein in The American Spectator.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, and lawyer who served as a speechwriter in the Nixon administration as the Watergate scandal unfolded. He began his unlikely road to stardom when director John Hughes as the numbingly dull economics teacher in the urban comedy, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Read more more reports from Ben Stein — Click Here Now.
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