To the editor:
The new health care legislation has ill senior citizens in a quandary. We can no longer afford prescribed and needed medicine. I am not the only person with diabetes, macular degeneration, anxiety, and arthritis. Until recently we could purchase needed prescribed medicines with the help of EPIC. In last week’s mail I heard that a certain pharmaceutical company will no longer participate in the EPIC program. My Preferred Care costs have risen. I am charged for a mammogram that used to be covered by my insurance.
Those of us who live alone on a fixed income have to stretch that to cover rent, utilities, needed insurances, food and prescribed and very needed medicines. This is all I have after more than 50 years of hard but poorly paid work. Many people have to put medical costs on a charge card and pay what they can as soon as a check arrives. Do you know how many elderly people cannot afford to pay the minimum monthly charge?
I recently went to the Office of the Aged for some kind of assistance. I found out that I fall between the cracks; I am far from rich and not poor enough to get any assistance. I was told I get special help from Social Security and yet when I went to the pharmacy I had to pay the same price I always was asked to pay.
Is this what our country has become? A nation of elderly debtors? This is a nationally horrendous predicament. We ask for advice and advocacy.
Clara J. Nowak
Canal Street
Palmyra
