Health Insurance and Health Care Issues

The reason so many people and children are uninsured is that they either can't afford to pay the premiums of 30-50 dollars a week, or they do not qualify forMedicaid or Peachcare. These are the reasons my daughter and I are uninsured. I can't afford to pay $50 a week so my daughter and I will have a $20 co-pay if we need to go to the doctor and %10 off medication. I keep getting turned down for Medicaid and Peachcare for her.

In addition, because there is something wrong with the way Medicare and Medicaid pays doctors and hospitals, the doctor's offices here in Claxton are no longer taking Peachcare or Medicaid patients. Evans Memorial closed its Labor and Delivery department and laid off nurses because Medicaid only paid partial bills, which meant the hospital couldn't afford to keep that department. Now, women have to go a minimum of 30 miles to an OB-GYN, if they can. Many people in this town have no money, no jobs, and no vehicles, and there is no public transportation.

I have to wonder if anyone in government considers people that live in a poor, small town in the middle of nowhere when they make proposals and bills that will not help the people in these small towns.

If Medicare and Medicaid pay the doctors and hospitals properly, so many nurses wouldn't lose their jobs, and small towns, especially rural ones, won't lose so many doctors and their services.