I just read that Social Security recipients won’t get a cost of living increase for the next two years. Big deal? YES, it is a big deal. Because all of us baby boomers are getting close to receiving the benefits we’ve paid into all of our working life. And then there’s me, who receives Social Security Disabilty payments. Until 1999, I was a RN, and a good one, if I can say so myself. I saved a lot of lives, as a critical care RN, Flight RN, and an oncology RN. I worked hard and did my best during the seventeen years I was an active nurse, but after the birth of my son, my then-minor case of lupus became disabling, and I had to quit working. I spent three long years fighting for benefits that I paid into for working since I was sixteen.
As I said, I’m one of the lucky ones. In my short time as a Home Health Nurse, I saw people who had to decide between food or medicine. And thanks to Congress, the premium for the Medicare Pharmacy program will rise from $28 to $30 a month. So let me do some math: A person on Social Security gets an average of $1,153. Now, subtract the monthly prescription premium of $360 and you end up with $730 a month. Plus, if a recipient uses Medicare Part B for doctor’s visits, that premium is expected to rise as well.
$730 a month! To pay rent or mortgage, utilities, phone service, plus doctor’s visits and tests that Medicare won’t pay for. It’s no wonder we see so many patients who are in crisis and admitted to ICU’s. Talk to them enough and you’ll find that they haven’t taken their medications, such as insulin, or antihypertensives, or a slew of other medications that they simply could not afford. I’ve have always said, since my first day as an RN in ICU, that if Medicare paid for medications for Social Security recipients, it would solve the overcrowding of Intensive Care Units and Emergency Rooms.
$730 a month! Could you survive on that amount a month? I know I couldn’t. And one woman, Barbara Kennelly, who was a Connecticut congresswoman, now heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. Kennelly would like to see Social Security recipients to raise the monthly payment by 1 percent to a one-time payment of $150. It will be funded by increasing the amount of Social Security from your income. Don’t forget! It’s your money in the end, or at thirty-eight when you suddenly become disabled. I would give anything to go back to work—especially with the going hourly salaries of RNs these days!
