#thank you medicare

[fandom-blackhole]

.

[laz-laz-ace-pilot]

I AM FINALLY OUT OF MY OVERDRAFT

[leaughrilke]

It’s also important to note: you can always go from Original Medicare to a Medicare Advantage plan, but there are very, very limited circumstances under which you can leave a Medicare Advantage plan, return to Original Medicare, and still have access to supplemental plans.

You know what since I’ve got a ton of new followers because my post on puberty blockers took off and people apparently want to see me rant, I’m gonna get up on my soapbox for a PSA for tumblr’s aging userbase.

Do not! Get! A Medicare Advantage plan!

Tell your parents not to get one. Tell your aunts and uncles not to get one. Tell your friends not to get one.

Why is that, you might say? Kouri, what is a Medicare Advantage plan, you might say?

tl;dr Medicare is the government healthcare plan for Americans of a certain age or with certain disabilities. It is owned, administered, and operated by the government. You are entitled, if you wish, to outsource your Medicare and have your policy run by a commercial group, such as United HealthCare, Cigna, Aetna, et cetera.

Here’s how it works: For everyone who signs up for, say, a plan that rhymes with Figna Medicare Advantage, Medicare gives Figna a certain amount of money and says ‘use this to take care of this patient’.

You can see where this is going, right? Figna says ‘sure boss! *wink nudge*’ and then shoves as much of that money into their own pockets as possible, and they do that by finding excuses to NOT pay for your medical care.

Medicare Advantage plans are pushed and marketed heavily. They’ll call you. They’ll set up stands in your PCP office to try to encourage you to buy in. They will say things like ‘with Medicare, you have to pay a 20% coinsurance, but with us you only have a 10% coinsurance’ and completely neglect to tell you that having a smaller coinsurance only matters if they approve the fucking care that you need, which often they won’t (while Medicare would have) and if your doctors are willing to accept it, which often they don’t (while they do accept Medicare).

Is Medicare perfect? Absolutely not! I've got my share of bones to pick with them. But simply put:

Medicare is government administered. It is a service. It costs the government money, which is why the GOP is always trying to cut funding to it. Medicare Advantage is corporately administered. It is supposed to make money. Which gives them incentives to deny your care and fuck you over that Medicare simply does not have.

Do not. Get. A Medicare Advantage Plan.

[elderinternetresurrection]

Btw, privatization is stealing from *you.* You are the public in "publicly owned." Oligarchs are coming in to take the things we all share ownership of as Americans, like Medicare, Social Security, National Parks, PBS and scrapping them for parts they find profitable.

The right is planning to rob us and quite literally want us to thank them for the privilege by calling it "government efficiency."

[thoughtportal]

Opinion Here’s how to get free Paxlovid as many times as you need it

When the public health emergency around covid-19 ended, vaccines and treatments became commercial products, meaning companies could charge for them as they do other pharmaceuticals. Paxlovid, the highly effective antiviral pill that can prevent covid from becoming severe, now has a list price of nearly $1,400 for a five-day treatment course.

Thanks to an innovative agreement between the Biden administration and the drug’s manufacturer, Pfizer, Americans can still access the medication free or at very low cost through a program called Paxcess. The problem is that too few people — including pharmacists — are aware of it.

I learned of Paxcess only after readers wrote that pharmacies were charging them hundreds of dollars — or even the full list price — to fill their Paxlovid prescription. This shouldn’t be happening. A representative from Pfizer, which runs the program, explained to me that patients on Medicare and Medicaid or who are uninsured should get free Paxlovid. They need to sign up by going to paxlovid.iassist.com or by calling 877-219-7225. “We wanted to make enrollment as easy and as quick as possible,” the representative said.

Indeed, the process is straightforward. I clicked through the web form myself, and there are only three sets of information required. Patients first enter their name, date of birth and address. They then input their prescriber’s name and address and select their insurance type.

All this should take less than five minutes and can be done at home or at the pharmacy. A physician or pharmacist can fill it out on behalf of the patient, too. Importantly, this form does not ask for medical history, proof of a positive coronavirus test, income verification, citizenship status or other potentially sensitive and time-consuming information.

But there is one key requirement people need to be aware of: Patients must have a prescription for Paxlovid to start the enrollment process. It is not possible to pre-enroll. (Though, in a sense, people on Medicare or Medicaid are already pre-enrolled.)

Once the questionnaire is complete, the website generates a voucher within seconds. People can print it or email it themselves, and then they can exchange it for a free course of Paxlovid at most pharmacies.

Pfizer’s representative tells me that more than 57,000 pharmacies are contracted to participate in this program, including major chain drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens and large retail chains such as Walmart, Kroger and Costco. For those unable to go in person, a mail-order option is available, too.

The program works a little differently for patients with commercial insurance. Some insurance plans already cover Paxlovid without a co-pay. Anyone who is told there will be a charge should sign up for Paxcess, which would further bring down their co-pay and might even cover the entire cost.

Several readers have attested that Paxcess’s process was fast and seamless. I was also glad to learn that there is basically no limit to the number of times someone could use it. A person who contracts the coronavirus three times in a year could access Paxlovid free or at low cost each time.

Unfortunately, readers informed me of one major glitch: Though the Paxcess voucher is honored when presented, some pharmacies are not offering the program proactively. As a result, many patients are still being charged high co-pays even if they could have gotten the medication at no cost.

This is incredibly frustrating. However, after interviewing multiple people involved in the process, including representatives of major pharmacy chains and Biden administration officials, I believe everyone is sincere in trying to make things right. As we saw in the early days of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, it’s hard to get a new program off the ground. Policies that look good on paper run into multiple barriers during implementation.

Those involved are actively identifying and addressing these problems. For instance, a Walgreens representative explained to me that in addition to educating pharmacists and pharmacy techs about the program, the company learned it also had to make system changes to account for a different workflow. Normally, when pharmacists process a prescription, they inform patients of the co-pay and dispense the medication. But with Paxlovid, the system needs to stop them if there is a co-pay, so they can prompt patients to sign up for Paxcess.

Here is where patients and consumers must take a proactive role. That might not feel fair; after all, if someone is ill, people expect that the system will work to help them. But that’s not our reality. While pharmacies work to fix their system glitches, patients need to be their own best advocates. That means signing up for Paxcess as soon as they receive a Paxlovid prescription and helping spread the word so that others can get the antiviral at little or no cost, too.

{source}

[vijayasuresh]

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[akiizayoi4869]

Trump supporters. When your taxes start going through the roof and your groceries get even more expensive (thanks to Donald Trump's tariffs policy), when you suddenly have to pay an arm and a leg for medication and basic care (this is thanks to the GOP's plan to take away Social Security and Medicare), when your female relatives are bleeding out on the floor, dying from complications due to a pregnancy (this is because of the abortion ban in some states), when LGBTQ rights are taken away (this is because the GOP hates all minorities, and yes, this includes you guys), when you begin to get deported because you are an undocumented immigrant (this is thanks to Donald Trump's mass deportation plan), and so on and so forth, please do not come crying to the people who voted for Kamala Harris, because we have zero fucks left to give. This man told you time and time again what he was going to do if he won the election and got a second term in the white house. And you cheered. Because you more than likely had no idea what he was talking about. Not that I can really blame the vast majority of you for being stupid, our education system is a joke and has failed a lot of people in this country (but that's another discussion for another day.) So, we have two things to say to you guys:

We told you so

You get what you vote for

[irawhiti]

hi, it was just my birthday so i'm gonna ask straight up if i can get some money to make up for the fact that apparently cancer tests are not covered by medicare. i don't wanna get into too much detail but i might have cancer and i would kind of really appreciate some money to get some food as well.

if it means anything i'm a homeless trans person of colour and i'm currently living with someone who tried to kill me a few months back. i wish i was joking but i'm scared for my life right now. i lost 20 kilos since i moved in with them which has made me dangerously underweight. my bmi is 17 which like i hate bmi, this just gives you a basic idea of my situation and malnourishment right now.

i just don't want to have cancer haha and if i do (which it looks like i do.) i just would like some money to eat or at least buy like, hospital grade nutrient powder like hospital sustagen so i don't actually die from malnourishment which is a legitimate concern right now as a homeless person. my laptop has also finally fully bricked itself so i am going to have to take out almost my entire fucking savings just to remain hireable and stable.

pāypāl.me/hoodypet please specify it's for irawhiti as this is a friend's paypal.

thank you so much.

[bruceewayne]

wanted to make an updated post. so im new to the state and need to find a job but haven't been able to do so yet.

So i have no income but my bank is giving me these maintenance fees on my checking and savings account and it's killing what little funds i have. checkings account is $12 and savings is $8 a month. total of $20 a month which I can't afford to pay. like at all. it's a joke. they're taking my money every month when no money is being put into that account to sustain that. it feels awful.

I also haven't gotten a response to my ebt/medicare application so i have no idea what im gonna do about that.

and then my dumb cards have minimum payments that are killing me because like i said i have no income.

im just trying to survive right now and I don't even buy anything these days. even food i refrain from buying. i just piggy back off my mom and grab a few things when we go grocery shopping. cause I don't wanna be a burden on her either. but at least i can have some food for the week.

so if anyone can help me with some donations to keep my bank accounts from being empty i would greatly appreciate it!! i know times are rough for everyone. so of course no pressure or anything! And i can also take commissions for icons/headers!

tldr; my bank accounts have maintenance fees which I can't afford because i have no income. and i have minimum payments on cards I don't use anymore but still need to pay off. i can make icons for commissions! donations greatly appreciated! just trying to survive.

💓🙏🏻 bless everyone who reblogs and helps. thank you. and i totally understand if you get tried of seeing these let alone reblogging them. i promise when i get a job i will pay it forward as much as i can because God knows i understand now what it means to be in this situation.

ca$happ

PP

k0-fi

[creations-by-chaosfay]

An automatic payment is going through on Monday, and it'll leave us with $20 until July 1st. It's not enough because we need a few things.

Kitty litter - Cacoa needs both her litter boxes flipped. They have about two inches depth each, and it needs to be twice that.

Laundry - we use the laundromat to wash our clothes, and dry them at home. I have just a week's worth of underwear.

Food - our fridge is getting bare. My husband is diabetic and nearly out of food he can safely eat. One of my medications causes constipation and watermelon is the single greatest treatment to fix and prevent it (I take supplements and hydrate all day). Oh, and we're nearly out of protein options.

Fuel - we need to put fuel in the car; currently we have half a tank of gas.

Medication - Medicare won't cover two of my allergy meds because they're cheaper over-the-counter. I'm out of one and nearly out of the other. Without my allergy controlled, my asthma gets significantly worse, and I develop sinus and ear infections. Those infections require antibiotics, and I have a long list of antibiotic allergies.

Please consider purchasing my work. It starts at $0 for digital downloads, and everything in my shop comes with the option to pay more.

I have several options for donating if you're more comfortable with that. For PayPal, you need to mark it as a gift.

This won't be so bad once my husband has a job, but thus far no luck. I won't be opening commissions; burnout is too close, and my hands and wrists are a wreck right now.

Any help is welcomed right now. I have small quilts, quilt tops, original paintings, stock and resource material, and tutorials in my shop.

Thank you!

[soberscientistlife]

Hello! I don’t know if you ever take post ideas, but I just found out today that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) signed into law by President Biden in 2022 1). Eliminates the Medicare donut hole starting in 2025 and 2). Allowed lifetime prior authorizations for Medicare patients. That is so amazing! I haven’t heard anything before today about getting rid of the donut hole and it’s so important for those 65 and older. I’m thankful for it being signed into law and will again be voting blue in November! Cheers!

Read about the Reduction Act of 2022

[linguisticparadox]

Anyway did you know the current Parkinson's medication they give is literally the same thing they were giving over 50 years ago. Did you know it requires SWALLOWING and the only option if you develop impaired swallowing from The Disease That Impairs Your Swallowing is to start crushing it and adding it to applesauce and when that stops working the only thing left is to have a fucking tube surgically installed leading to your stomach. Did you know there is not even a version that can be given by IV!!!! There WAS an oral disintegrating tablet but the manufacturer fucking discontinued it. 🙃

And this medication has to be given MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY (there is an extended release version but it is prohibitively expensive so we only give it to dad before bed. Fun fact it does not last until morning!) and it loses effectiveness over time until eventually it just stops working.

(There is a new continuous subdermal pump version but it only just got FDA approval in the US and it will be at least 10 months before it's covered by Medicare, you know, the insurance that probably like 99% of Parkinson's patients in the US* rely on???????? Also iirc it's the same medication just a new delivery route so the issue of developing resistance still applies!!)

(Did I mention that Medicare also does not cover the cost of a nursing home lololol and THOSE AREN'T FUCKING CHEAP.)

Did you know Parkinson's can cause dementia symptoms including loss of executive functioning to the point that sufferers lose the ability to make decisions, which leaves them vulnerable to abuse? And that the medication does not help the cognitive symptoms???

Did you know patients' breathing remains intact so what kills them is usually smth like aspiration pneumonia, bedsores, or a serious fall?

Thank god for Michael J. Fox btw, it fucking sucks he has to deal with this but he has done SO MUCH to get new research funded, which is probably why we're just now having new breakthroughs like the pump or discovery of biomarkers that can be used to diagnose the disease before symptoms manifest.

Anyway I know there are a lot of causes needing our attention now but if you can it would be cool if you donated to the Michael J. Fox Foundation here:

* This is hyperbolic, I don't feel like looking up the actual number (if they even track it). Parkinson's mostly affects old ppl and in the US old ppl have Medicare ok.

Also all of this is possibly specific to the US but that's where I am and we are not moving to a Whole New Country just to squeeze a couple more years of misery out of my dad. ✌️

[mugiwara-lucy]

Well, what GREAT news to wake up too!!!!

Now while this is great news, I will reiterate what I’ve been saying for the past four months since Kamala stepped in…

DO NOT GET COMPLACENT AND THINK WE’VE WON!!! YES this puts us near the finish line but we are NOT there yet!! Unless we ALL do our part and VOTE all of this is meaningless!! Make Phone Calls, Send Emails/Post Cards, Knock On Doors and most of all V-O-T-E!! Get as many people as you can to vote for Kamala be it your friends, cousins, parents, grandparents, old friends from high school and college, coworkers, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, stepchildren (if they’re 18 and over) and the list goes on and on but every vote counts!

Because IF Kamala loses because we got overconfident and complacent at the end like we did in 2016 and we get Trump; you WILL get RFK Jr in charge of food and health, primarily WOMEN’S HEALTH.

You will ALSO get our Economy regressing to the point where we have a SECOND Great Depression namely due in part to Trump’s taxes and “biggest mass deportation in history!” plans. Immigrants are a VITAL part of our economy and if you deport ALL of them as well as him wanting a TWO THOUSAND PERCENT Tariff on imported goods? We WILL be in a trade war.

You will also get an excessively aggressive police force who Trump promises to give immunity to and says he will make STOP AND FRISK MANDATORY.

You will also get ELON MUSK running the government like he does Twitter. We all know he FUCKED UP Twitter, now imagine his dumb ass in our GOVERNMENT.

You will also have the ACA, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security revoked.

And the WORST of this? PRESIDENT JD VANCE WILL be a thing since we all see Trump and how awful he looks. NO WAY IN FUCK does he make it four years. Trump would be even MORE horrific in his second term but Vance would be CATASTROPHIC.

And that’s not even getting into all the Project 2025 bullshit.

Don’t want any of that?

ALL GAS AND NO BRAKES UNTIL WEDNESDAY!!!

Thank You 🙏

[giantkillerjack]

Hey, y'all! Can someone please please tell me about the process for finding the right motorized wheelchair??

I've needed an electric wheelchair for years, and I've finally gotten the right prescription and the wheelchair-accessible housing I need.

But now I need to pick a wheelchair, and I STILL don't even know where to start.

The main issue is that I have no way of trying out different models of chair, and so I have no way of knowing what will and won't hurt my back - and so I ALSO have no way of knowing if I need a custom wheelchair or not.

I live in the United States in a major metropolitan area, and my insurance will ONLY pay for one chair, so as far as I know, it needs to be the right one on the first try. (Unless there's a trial-and-return policy? I have no idea. I have Medicare and Medicaid.)

I feel like there must be some kind of specialist who can help me find the right chair, but no healthcare provider I've seen has had that kind of expertise.

Where do I find these people? What do I do?? How can I find a place that allows me to try out different chairs?? Literally any advice is appreciated. Thank you in advance. <3

[tavolgisvist]

When he [Bob Eubanks] hired me he was the man who promoted the Beatles in LA. I was never really sure he liked them, but the hell, he was getting rich at the Hollywood Bowl. There were many other deals going. One of the drivers, after the first Bowl show, handed the Beatles towels to dry their sweat. He later cut up the towels, encased half-inch squares of towel in plastic, and sold them for five bucks each. The driver was really a radio station newsman. I guess he’s got turned on by now, but in those days he wasn’t very cool. It was all deals then. Anyway, I got to know Eubanks during our first American visit, with the Beatles in 1964, and he said whydoncher work for me buddy, we’ll get rich? So our family of six emigrated.

...

Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Beau Brummels, Joe and Eddie and Jerry Naylor. Plus the Beatles, for though I wasn’t working for them any more they were the love of my life and Bob Eubanks figured that with a love like that you know it can’t be bad. ‘I’m going to have you fly to the Bahamas,’ he said, the night we arrived in Los Angeles, 70,000 miles from England and intending to set up home. ‘Tonight?’ ‘No. Next week.’ Gee, thanks. Maybe we can get a house, find schools, buy some furniture, get used to the heat and, all in one week, fly to the Bahamas. And, also, he said, why didn’t I fly to Sacramento, see Paul Revere and the Raiders, make friends, sign them up and go on stage to say: ‘Hi. I’m Derek Taylor, used to work for the Beatles. I’m now working for Paul Revere and I’m flying to the Bahamas next week to see the Beatles make their new movie and I’m going to take them your love and also the good wishes of Paul Revere and the Raiders.’ I guessed this must be how things work in America, so I did it. I made friends with Paul Revere, signed them up and went on stage and made my speech. Later that night, I went to the motel where Revere and company were staying and he showed me how you could put a match to a fart and there would be green flame. I quite liked the guy. I liked the group too. They were good and they did well. They were all young then (all but Revere and Mark Lindsay who had seen a lot of hard service here and there), and full of hope of taking over from the Beatles. ‘Are we good enough?’ they asked and it was tough to answer ‘No’, so one just hedged and mumbled and begged the question. The next week I flew to the Bahamas with Dave Hull, squarest disc jockey at KRLA, an amiable short-hair who believed that Medicare had to be the worst thing to happen to America since the New Deal. We arrived in Nassau to find the Beatles just leaving for dinner in the town. They were less than glad to see me, old pal in radio drag with a tape-recorder over my shoulders. ‘This is Derek Taylor, reporting from the Bahamas. I have with me Ringo Starr of the Beatles. Hi Ringo. Nice to see you again.’ ‘Hi Derek. Nice to see you again. What are you doing with a microphone under my famed nose?’ What indeed? Bob’s idea was that I would use my relationship with them, my friendship even, and get interviews which would be unique: ‘Not merely interviews, but rather … conversation between friends’ was the slogan we would use to sell the tapes, once they had been cut up, packaged and prepared for use on radio stations. A scale of charges was drawn up – $50, $100, $200, depending on the wattage of the station. None of this was to be communicated to the Beatles. All they were to know was that Derek was doing a little gig for KRLA to get Prestige Publicity some working capital. Before the family and I had arrived in Los Angeles, there had been dozens of commercials on KRLA: ‘Derek Taylor is jetting to town. Derek Taylor? Wow. Yes, folks, Derek Taylor is coming to KRLA.’ Also, above my glamorous name, letters had gone to every showbiz celebrity in town, announcing my coming. Oh, yes, it’s all true. * Paul was very mean in the Bahamas. I mean, mean. Who is to blame him? Not I. Not me.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said when he saw me. ‘Bloody hell, Derek. You with a tape-recorder asking us questions?’

Oh yes, me with a tape-recorder. The thing was what was the thing I was? Their friend or a journalist or their ex-publicist Brian Epstein’s ex-personal assistant or a puppet of Bob Eubanks or a man in search of a career in American radio or what? The answer is I didn’t think there was any choice. I didn’t know about things like that. I mean I wouldn’t rob an old woman with one leg and a blind dog, and I wouldn’t take a bribe and I wouldn’t rape my sister but I would do many, many things if I was told to because that was the way it had always been. I would write a list of Forty Fab Facts you didn’t know about the Beatles and sell them. I would allow myself to be offered to Lloyd Thaxton of Hollywood as a television link man, I would do so many things which now would be quite ridiculous. I would, even, have the extraordinary cheek to turn up in the Bahamas with a tape recorder to interview the Beatles. It was as well I did it then; I couldn’t do it now. God, I must have been brave or daft or something I’m not sure any more. Brian had slipped out of the Bahamas before I arrived. A good idea. We hadn’t been very close since the previous year, 1964, when I had resigned in the Riviera Motel near Kennedy Airport. It was a shame because we lost valuable talking-time and he hadn’t very long to live and many, many people with whom Brian had trouble have their own regrets that their patience was not more extensive and, of course, patience was what you needed with Brian because he could be, if not impossible, then unbearable, and sometimes impossibly unbearable, but many of the people I like most are absolutely terrible. You too? Good.

We were down on the beach at Paradise Island (you reached it by ferry from Nassau; in those days it was owned by Huntington Hartford, later Howard Hughes) and it was a fantastic rich man’s folly with a casing like a palace out of Ben Hur, quite empty, safe doors swinging open, phones out of order – open to wind and water. The beaches that were Paradise, empty but for Beatles paying gold for the privilege, and an army of savage extras, one of whom was Murray the K, disc jockey lately become fifth Beatle and anxious to appear in a movie with them. (‘For the image, man.’) Down on the beach at Paradise Island, Dave Hull had one recorder and mike, I had another. He had given me his mike: ‘This will put more oomph’ (oomph, for Chrissake?) ‘in your voice,’ he said, showing me. ‘Moooore ba aaaaasssss sound, like, deeeeeep.’ OK Dave, I can dig it. The mike was faulty and I popped p’s in the breeze.

We split up between the Beatles. I took John first; caustic John who was really nothing of the sort. He pulled a couple of desultory put downs and then gave me as good a tape as you’ll get if you are asking questions like: ‘Whereja buy your boots?’ and ‘Do you enjoy filming?’ and ‘How old are you?’ of someone you know at least as well as your brother, and maybe better. George told me about going to a family wedding in Liverpool.

Paul decided not to be mean any longer – guessing, correctly, that life was bad enough without rubbing my nose in it – and talked about song-writing (‘we can carve Paul’s up into twenty pieces,’ said Dave. Let’s see, twenty by $100, that’s 2,000 bucks) and Ringo said it was great to be married, a quote you can read even today. It comes up as fresh as ever. That evening we had dinner in the open air, along a fine table laid with white linen and silver from a graceful pantry. I was invited with one of those, ‘Don’t tell a soul, man, just give Dave and Murray the slip, like come alone,’ and it was a nice time. Dave and I flew back to LA next day. Bob Eubanks met us at the airport with press photographers, a frown creasing his handsome, suntanned mask. ‘Hi buddy. Get the tapes?’ ‘Yeah man; got the fucking tapes. Lost me soul, tho’, lost me soul.’ He seemed very glad to hear it. Gayle and Cecil were waiting back at 6290 Sunset, Joan and the kids were at the airport with Bob and by the time we arrived home in Nichols Canyon, where we had just scored a house before I flew to the Bahamas, I was needed in the office to write about my thrilling experiences with the fab Beatles in the sun-drenched Bahamas. I thought maybe I was really earning the stinking $215 a week and Joan wondered if any money could make up for the changes she was having to go through. A few days later, Bob Eubanks and his team of mailers, tape-editors and salesmen were ready to market the tapes, segmented, trailered, packaged. Beatlemania would do the rest. An ad was placed in Billboard. Disaster … No one wanted the tapes, at all. But these, we said, were conversations between friends, we said. No deal, said the thundering silence. And Brian Epstein, through his lawyers in New York, threatened vengeance in the worst way. ‘I back down,’ I told Bob. ‘You stay where you are,’ said Bob. ‘We won’t have hands to count the money.’ Forget it. I backed down and out of Beatle tapes. Also, I never had the lust for gold again. Money doesn’t talk, it swears* and Hollywood is a town of many temptations. I left Bob Eubanks a few weeks later, taking with me 2½ per cent of the Byrds who were then grossing a few hundred a month and Paul Revere and the Raiders who had been paying Eubanks $750 a month but who asked me would I take $350 a month on account of they weren’t all that well heeled (they were in fact very well heeled), and I may not be able to do the job as well without Bob behind me. OK, OK, I’ll take it. This was the middle of 1965. The Byrds’ epoch-making Tambourine Man had been released and it had made Number 1 in the US and was about to do the same in Britain. Revere had yet to have a hit, but they were good on stage. The Byrds and Revere were both Columbia Records and they didn’t really enjoy each other’s music though they shared the same producer, Terry Melcher. Serving them was therefore like walking on a tightrope. It was like pedalling backwards on a one-wheeled cycle with a puncture, body all aching and racked with bennies, between ‘Revere: the finest performing group in North America, Oregon’s answer to Liverpool’, and ‘America’s best group’ which is what I thought about the Byrds then and still do, mostly. When, later, I picked up the Beach Boys, who also wanted their publicist to write ‘best’ and ‘greatest’, it became more a matter for a clever thesaurus than a tired, tired biped with twenty clients and five children.

...

In those days, and the more I write, the further off and the further out they become (remember the McGuinn glasses and David Crosby’s cape?) – in those days there was the Beatles and everyone else and as we flew to Britain, Michael Clarke, Byrd drummer, was asking, did I figure they would get to meet the Beatles? Since ‘These Are Not Merely Interviews, These Are Conversations Between Friends’, the last thing I wanted to do was run into the Beatles! Yet, all the pre publicity to the tour suggested that the Beatles would be intrigued to see what the Byrds were like. So a meeting was unavoidable. On our first night in London, I stayed in the hotel, the Europa in Grosvenor Square. Mike went out with Gene and David (I think they all went out) and at about 4 a.m. Mike woke me and said, ‘We met them, we actually got to meet the Beatles. Paul said “hi” and George wants to see you.’ Oh yeah? Next night it happened that George and John came to Blaises where the Byrds performed to a room no bigger than the one you’re sitting in now, on a stage insufficient to carry all the drum kit. They played louder than anyone else had been known to play, even in Madison Square Garden they were bloody loud, and Blaises or blazes, they were going to tune up and belt the music out. I thought they were marvellous and I think John and George did, but some of the English smirkers smirked and you only need a few English smirkers in a half lit room to feel pleased you’re not proud to be English. Upstairs in Blaises, after the set, John and George sat at a long table and invited us in. Boy, were they big-time then – I’d forgotten. It wasn’t them at all, it was the situation. They were absolutely IT. John sat at the centre of the table, George at the head and they sent for wine for free. It came and we arrived with it. ‘Thanks for the tapes,’ said John, very loud. ‘Which tapes?’ I said, very soft. ‘You know which tapes,’ said John, still very loud. ‘True,’ I said, a little louder, knowing that was the end of that. So it was. We all left, again in that under-the-breath ‘come alone’ way, John grabbing bottles of wine to wave goodbye by way of goodbye to Jim Carter-Fea, then owner of Blaises, By Appointment, Host to the Beatles. We went round to Brian Jones’s apartment where we smoked some hash and some grass and as there was no food in the place and, after the wine had finished, no liquid excepting a half-bottle of milk, solid as chalk, we went out for hamburgers and then went home.

*Bob Dylan

(As Time Goes by Derek Taylor)

(Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI)

[anexperimentallife]

Help a disabled, neurodivergent, interracial family get back to the US for medical treatment

After three bouts of COVID and other medical issues over the past six years here in the Philippines, my health has deteriorated to the point at which I'm worried I won't get to watch my little girl grow up unless I can get back to where I can use my Medicare and VA benefits for various surgeries and treatments.

Unfortunately, even with all y'all's help, @thesurestthing and I are still in debt from the two-year ordeal of fixing our daughter's stateless status, so we can't do this on our own. My little sister started a fundraiser for us, and there are a couple of other ways to help, as well. If you can't help, please reblog. Thank you! (The PayPal link takes the lowest fees, but whatever works for you is best!)

If you want more details, they're under the cut:

Six years ago, while still grieving the deaths of my adult sons and a painful breakup, I moved from the US to the Philippines with just what I could carry, in large part because it's actually possible to survive here on the pittance US disability pays. I had kind of given up on life and figured I would sort of drift off eventually. I wasn't going to kick my own bucket, mind you; I just wasn't going to try very hard to keep living. And I figured I'd just pass away someplace beautiful.

Soon after I got here, though, @thesurestthing (also American) started messaging me from the states, told me she was going to come to the Philippines and be my girlfriend (even though I told her no at first), and eventually joined me here. We had a baby under lockdown, and got married.

So now I had something to live for. (And most of y'all know the drama with the error on El's birth certificate that left her stateless and took almost two years and a lot of money to get fixed.)

But I have had health scare after health scare over the past few years, including three bouts of COVID (some of you remember the month I spent hooked up to an oxygen machine), two bouts of pneumonia, a persistent two-year foot infection that took surgery to clear up (and is going to require another surgery to keep cleared up), damage to my heart and scarring in my lungs from long covid, a literal hole in my throat that is growing bigger, a spine injury, joint injuries, osteo and rheumatoid arthritis, a traumatic brain injury that affects my memory and concentration, adhd, bipolar disorder, autism, and other issues.

(Not even getting into the dental stuff--Hope to be able to get that done before we go back, here where it's cheaper, because Medicare doesn't cover that.)

I'm terrified that I won't be alive to watch my little girl grow up unless I can get someplace where I can use my Medicare and VA health benefits.

An old friend of mine is a social worker and on the school board in a small Minnesota city with its own VA clinic, and has offered to help us get settled in there, but we still have to find a place to live (suitable for a couple that includes a physically disabled adult, and who have a toddler), some basic household goods, some cheap used transportation, and need to survive for a couple of months while Zoey looks for work.

Given our situation in general and the fact that right now my disability is our only income, we're probably looking at having to pay at least six months (or possibly an entire year) of rent up front in order to get anyplace to lease to us.

We can't stay with friends because every single stateside friend we have with a spare room also has a cat--and I have an anaphylactic allergic reaction to cats, meaning that I will literally die if I'm around a cat for too long. I've had to go to the ER because I slept in a room that had a blanket in the corner that a cat had momentarily lain on. The only way I can be around cats is if I'm on massive doses of immunosuppressive drugs, which, well... The whole issue here is that I keep getting deathly ill, so suppressing my immune system even more is a non-starter. Oh, and Fel D 1, the protein secreted in cat dander, saliva, and waste, can stay even on hard surface for up to two years, and even longer on porous surfaces.

Again, if we weren't still in so much debt from El's birth certificate debacle, we might be able to do this at least mostly on our own. But as things stand, we can't do it on our own. We need your help.

If you read all of this, thank you very much. And again, if you can't give, please reblog.

For more medical details, check my Rob Gets Medical tag. For more details about Eleanor's birth certificate saga, check my Baby El tag.