The Marvelous Patric

dear blog,

Right now, I'm at Moorhead. I'm attending a graduate fair, representing my school. It is my job to tell people why they should pick SCSU over any other school.

I really don't know what i'm doing.

I went to SCSU because I live there. Sure, they gave me a great assistantship, so I guess I can talk about that. But, the programs? Yeah, i really don't know anything.

In other Patric news, it's Fallcon this weekend. That's like my favorite show. I love going there, it's a lot of fun. I don't expect to sell much, given the economy sucking like a blackhole.

Life is very busy. School and work take up a lot of my time. The rest goes to drawing FNS and the various house projects. The siding and roof is done, but now Rock is working on a three-season porch. I hold things. Last friday, I put a stormdoor on the front all by myself. That was interesting, but it worked out okay. It came with instructions, so I wasn't just trying to figure stuff out.

I think school is going well. I like two out of three classes. The one I don't like is terrible. It's supposed to be about technology and english, but all the material we've read (so far) is so horribly outdated. These things were written in the early 90s, predicting stuff that happened already three or more years ago. We weren't told it was an online class, but it is. And, it's using a MOO for it's online, which some may remember from, well, the early 90s. I've come to the conclusion that our teacher is at the very least incredibly lazy, if not incompetent.

The election is like a month away. As is probably obvious, I love Obama. Please vote for him. We can't take another four years of a leader who has no idea what ordinary people are going through. McCain thinks $5000 a year should be sufficient for medical costs. My mom spends more than that in just a couple months on prescriptions alone. Obama is right, we need to look out for each other. We need to be our brother's or sister's keeper. We are all in this together. We need to help each other. You want morality? Tell me, how is it moral to allow people to have to choose between medicine and food? How is it moral to give a tax break to the top 5%, and allow the poorest of the poor to loose their homes? How is it moral to say babies must be born, deny them health care and education, but then send young people to die in another country?
Voting for Obama is a moral choice. Frankly, I wouldn't vote for John McCain even if Satan himself was running against him.

Current Location: concordia college, moorhead, mn

dear blog,

today, i have seen the joy of Medicare Part D first hand. Or perhaps its second hand, as its my mother who is really experiencing it. As readers may know, my mother spent two and a half days in the hospital, in which time she got some new medicines, in addition to her already heroic intake of prescriptions. When my mother went to get her medicine today, her pharmacist had a print-out waiting for her. It's march 31st, and my mother is only hundreds of dollars away from the Part D cap.

Allow me to really explain what this means. Thanks to Bush's Medicare Part D, there is now a cap on how much insurance companies (any and all) will pay on prescription medicine every year. You're probably thinking, "If there's a cap it must be really high." Nope. The cap is less than $3000.

Think about this. By the end of the third month of the year, my mom has already reached the cap. She has nine months to go. Even if we assume she will need less medicine (because, hey, older people are known for going on less and less meds), we could safely extrapolate a cost of $2000 for every three months of the rest of the year. That means, assuming a low end for cost, my mom is expected to pay, out of a fixed income, $6,000 for medicine she needs to live out of her own pocket.

My mom is a fairly healthy and energetic person. The kinds of medicine she is on are what keep her that way. They are treatments for RLS, liver problems, stomach problems, Reynolds Disease, and various other weird things. Because my mom still feels pretty good, she does have a part time job. But, let me assure you, the few hours she works a week in no way will cover her prescription costs over the next nine months.

The fact that my mom, who has worked and payed taxes all her life, at 72 years of age cannot get the medicine she needs to live is at the very least wrong. I would actually say that it is immoral.

Current Location: work

Dear blog,

Today is Super Fat Tuesday. Obviously, i'm interested in politics. And, I'm a Obama supporter. While I could write about why, I think there's a post at Aint-It-Cool-News that says it very well.

Current Location: home office
Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Dig - Incubus