u/IDontStealBikes

Thanks to everyone who responded to my request for help the other day, even if it was to chastise me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/medicare/comments/1vjc5rq

Based on that help, I've called SHIP, I've called Medicare, I've called my state's Medicaid, I've emailed several govt people and even written to the governor.

All I found was help applying for financial help with Medicare Part D, drugs. Don't know if I'll get it. But medications only cost me about $30/month.

The other day I got a bill from a specialist doctor appt a few weeks ago. $114. Needless to say I can't afford that. I applied to that hospital's financial aid dept. If they can't help I won't be able to pay.

Also had a specialist refuse to refill a cholesterol medication. I guess it's because I can't afford to go back and see them again. It's been 12 months. I'll just have to do without.

So, I still have Medicare I can't afford to use. Between premiums and gap insurance and 20% copays, you clearly have to be affluent to use Medicare. My state's income limit for Medicaid is $994/month, which I could meet if I lived in my car. Perhaps someday, I hope.

So still basically screwed in the great American health care system. Best country in the world. Best healthcare in the world. I have to escape, but can't go abroad until my 16 yo cat dies.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

I went on Medicare about a year ago and was dropped from Medicaid about six months ago. As a poor person I have been shocked that I can't use Medicare at all. The co-pays and deductibles are too much, and additional Medicare plans are way out of my reach.

I really thought Medicare was universal health care for seniors. Covering everything. But it does not cover teeth, eyes, and I don't know what else. I've search and search for a therapist and not one takes Medicare.

Medicaid was the best insurance I've ever had. I purposely kept my income low at about $18k/yr to qualify for it. But now the income limit in my state for Medicaid has been reduced to $1330/mth. My rent is more than that!!

Medicare is the worst insurance I've ever had. I can't even use it. It has been a disaster and, while I did not like the USA before this, I really hate it now. The poor just are supposed to die and leave.

I received $15.85 from the Walmart Weighed Groceries Settlement Fund. The check bounced! Anyone experience the same? Are there any options at this point? It's enough to be annoying but not enough to get all worked up about....

Edit: The check may have expired, quickly! See

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassActionSettlement/comments/1veu0ln/comment/p1rpox6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Is there a simple elevation map of the AT, one that allows one to zoom into a scale of a mile or less? Not dominated by advertisements, not at a coarse scale, something I can use to follow a hiker going south to north? Thanks.

My 16+ year-old cat Oliver is showing signs of stiffness in the morning and evenings and is really lumbering around. It breaks my heart, even though I’m 66 and have my problems with pain, maybe that’s why it breaks my heart even more. Is there anything I can do for him? He has diabetes, which I treat with insulin, but he’s otherwise healthy and active, not as active as he was of course, but he goes outside every day and lays under a bush near the porch, he never ever leaves the yard, and he comes in and out to check on me as I work. He’s my third cat, but I’ve never had one who’s lived this long. Is there anything I can do for him without medication? With medication? Thank you for any help.

Can sue-a-side ever be part of a healthy life plan? Is it a legitimate question someone can try to address reasonably? Can someone decide they're had enough, not because they're terminally ill but because they're getting old, are poor, are in a great deal of chronic pain, are very lonely and/or simply no longer see any reason to think anything will be any different, despite the propaganda therapists and doctors and society feeds us.

Not asking for tomorrow. But am asking for the future.

Can anyone give me tips for preparing chorizo? I keep reading that it's supposed to "brown up," but no matter how long I keep it in the pan it always looks like red vomit.

I’m 66M. I have a lot of chronic pain and I don’t know how much I can work any longer. Im a writer and it hurts to sit at a desk. I have bad neck pain from spinal stenosis. I have tailbone pain from a broken coccyx 43 years ago. I have depression. I’m really struggling and absolutely broke. I haven’t had a haircut in three years and my shoes are seven years old and don’t support my arthritic feet. I don’t know how I’m going to live much longer. But I applied for disability, but couldn’t reply in 60 days because they wanted so much information about doctors and therapists from states I left a long time ago. I didn’t see any possible way to reply to them so I let it go. Now it seems like I am fucked forever because I didn’t reply in 60 days. But I can’t work much longer. I’m in too much pain. It seems like the government wants me to become homeless. I don’t think I would survive very long if I was homeless. I could live in my car for a couple of weeks, but that’s about it honestly. I don’t want to live that much to put up with all that. My Social Security only pays 99% of my rent and that will drop further when my rent goes up again in a month or any day now. I am just losing the ability to get by on a very basic level. Like electricity and water and Internet and the like. My car is pretty much shot, 26 years old, more problems every month, at some point soon it will be undrivable, the brakes have been scraping for 24 months now, and I can’t afford to get them fixed, or even looked at. And there is a strong smell of gasoline when I first start the car first thing for the day.

What I’m trying to say is I am losing the ability to survive in the US. I never expected this before because I was always a gifted student and I got a PhD in physics. I never used it and now it’s too late of course. Now I’m old and none of that matters. I have a lot of depression and mental illness and I’m alone and have nobody to depend on. I don’t know how to make friends so please don’t go there. It wouldn’t matter anyway. I’m too ashamed of myself to make friends. And it’s too late.

How is an American supposed to survive at this point? I thought of moving to a cheaper country, but I can’t afford that either and I would be completely alone and so I would be depressed.

I wish I was Trump and could cheat my way into a fortune .

How does a passkey differ from a password?

Why is every site (seemingly) asking me to establish a passkey when I already have a password?

Wish I had played hockey, but it wasn't a thing when I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania.... So when players are all piled into a scrum in front of the net, trying to somehow influence the puck (if they even know where it is), what are they saying to each other? It's looks like a jungle in there. Or what are they saying just after the whistle blows the play dead? Or there's a goal? ... Does your coach tell you to just throw yourself in there, even if you don't know where the puck is? Is there some unpleasant business going on at the bottom of the pile? Honestly it looks kind of fun. Thanks.

Why hasn't serious depression been evolved out of our genome. I'm not thinking of very serious depression that requires being put in an institution, though maybe my questions applies to that. I'm thinking of depression where the owner becomes an alcoholic, or a drug addict, or isolates, who doesn't respond to normal treatments for depression, who avoids social interactions, who doesn't/can't marry or have children, etc.

Depression seems like a major flaw in the brain, an unwanted piece of an extremely complex machine. Why hasn't evolution gotten rid of this flaw?

I have a burning sensation in my mouth from, I assume, heartburn. If I intimately and deeply kiss someone, would they notice or feel the burning sensation?

I have a burning sensation in my mouth from, I guess, heartburn. If I intimately and deeply kiss someone, would they notice or feel the burning sensation?

Added: the burning sensation is in my cheeks and pallet and tongue, but nothing in my throat. I’ve had this now for about a month. I have the same thing 20 years ago that last a couple of years. A doctor then told me it was heartburn, but didn’t prescribe anything. The sensation went away on its own and I don’t know why. I don’t know why I would have it again now.

Today I was talking to a T-Mobile customer representative. I asked about her name and she said she was in the Philippines. We talked about the Philippines for about five minutes and she told me about her life there. Not 15 minutes later I started saying ads for Filipino dating in my Yahoo Mail. I don’t recall seeing such ads before, ever.

Did T-Mobile really let someone listen to my phone call and sell that information? Or record and transcribe that my phone call and sell it to an advertising company? If so, I consider that a serious breach of my privacy and security. I’m going to write to the CEI of the company, but I doubt they would admit it if it’s true.

For anyone who hiked the AT, or part of it, with a romantic partner: did you have fights or serious disagreements along the way?

Can anyone please suggest a simple MS Word template for a novel? Nothing complicated, or proprietary, or AJ (can't post the real name, how dumb). Just a simple little template. Thanks.

(Here I am adding words to meet the dumb word requirement here. Seems ridiculous, doesn't it?)

66M, never married. I don't have a problem attracting women on OLD, many write to me and correspond. My problem is I have no money, none for retirement, and only enough income to get by, zero left at the end-of-the-month, and am on food stamps, can't work like I use to (self-employed) so after a week or so of correspondence I give in to my anxiety about this, and bluntly state my case and say goodbye.

There are just too many things wrong with me now, and much more than money. I keep hoping it won't matter to someone but I just can't give it a chance. I wouldn't even respect a woman who was really interested in me.

But I'm dying of loneliness. Literally dying, I can feel it. I think a good relationship could save my life. Not kidding at all. It's been 26 years. As is I know for a fact that I won't live for many more years. Because I don't want to. Being alone is no life. But I still have to work and have never been good at meeting people or finding my way into groups. I just can't do it, and never could even in high school.

I'm hopeless, right. I think so and am planning accordingly. Some people, a few, just aren't capable of society.

Why is GDP growth measured by the change in the real GDP Quantity Index and not by the change in GDP or real GDP?

Why is GDP growth measured by the change in the real GDP Quantity Index and not by the change in GDP or real GDP?

In the last few months I thought I saw several pricing errors made by the self-checkout registers at Safeway in Keizer. A few days ago I decided to make a big deal out of it. There were at least three items I thought had been overcharged based on the prices I remembered on the shelves, and I had an attendant come over and go through them. Sure enough, all three items had been overcharged and by the time he and I were done--took about 10 minutes--$12 came off my bill. About 18%.

This, plus my prior suspicions, tells me to be suspicious of Safeway (in Keizer, at least) overcharging on several items. I'm going to write to government agencies when I figure out which ones, with a copy of all the redactions/corrections on my last receipt, and I'm going to keep a very close eye out on prices on the shelves, maybe even taking pictures of them when I take an item.

I'm wondering if anyone else has found similar problems.