Bill LaCroix: In Favor of Kids and Their Cochlear Implants

Sunday, August 17, 2014

In Favor of Kids and Their Cochlear Implants

The tax warriors are at it again, and this time it’s personal. We have an eight-year-old daughter who was born deaf and has two cochlear implants which allow her to hear. The reason she has these implants and the necessary technical support that goes with them is that we have fought, fought, fought our insurance providers over their attempts to classify cochlear implants as “hearing aids” and therefore not medically-necessary and therefore none of their concern. They are, of course, correct. Health insurance providers are concerned with making maximum profits, not with childrens’ health. Duh. But that’s the system that’s been forced on us and our kids and trying to wriggle out of their ethical responsibility to cover cochlear implants (a relatively new technology to Pleistocene-era insurance executives who have a tendency towards cannabalism) has been common-scheme robbery for them for a couple decades.

Now it appears that Medicare and Medicaid bureaucrats are feeling the political clout of this hopefully-soon-to-be-extinct species, executes mafiosus, and are giving this sham a try themselves. “In Order To Save Money” (makes you want to kneel down a pray just thinking about it, doesn’t it?) This proposed rule change, to declare certain cochlear implants “medically unnecessary”, would make this technology that should be as universally accessable as cell phones virtually inaccessible to most deaf and hard of hearing kids who depend on Medicare and Medicaid for their healthcare needs.

Yes, I’m overreacting, and no, I don’t have all the factoids right at the tip of my brain ready to do battle with some corporate shill. But anger is a legitimate response to the barrage of crap these bastards keep throwing at us in the name of “austerity for the poor” and below’s all you need to effectively broadside them with your public comment about how they spend your public dollars! A relatively-technical but far-reaching issue like this probably doesn’t get too much response from an unaware public, so even a handful of aware responses could make a difference. My goal is to generate ten.

Please take a minute and visit helpnowhearalways.com and use their link CMS' comment site and ask CMS to reject rule change #CMS-1640-P. Pass it on.

My Comments to the Center for Medicaire/Medicaid Services (CMS)

“Regarding CMS-1640-P: My eight-year-old daughter has two cochlear implants and, because of that, can hear. We had to fight, fight, fight with our (various) insurance providers to force them to admit that cochlear implants are not superficial "hearing aids" and therefore not in need of their coverage. I see this proposed rule-change as yet another example of the heartless heavy hand of a soulless industry that should have been banished in 2009 in favor of Medicare-for-all/ Universal coverage, a solution to this despicable healthcare train wreck we suffer under that a large majority of American taxpayers still favor. If you adopt this rule-change, our daughter will suffer, we will suffer and thousands of kids born deaf will never get the chance to hear because their parents simply can't afford this readily-available technology.

As always, the "tax warriors" who wish to impose restrictions like these on citizens favor political expediency over reality and I, as the parent of a deaf child, am getting heartily sick of it! If taxpayers are the only concern in this rule change, as it must be because the kids sure aren't, please consider how much more money it's going to cost to keep thousands of lower-income kids deaf.

Medicare and Medicaid managers: Do your jobs! Quit wasting time and resources with this political pandering to the Crazy Right. Why are you forcing parents like us , who clearly have enough on our plates due to all the local tax-warrioring in our school districts that provide little to no services to our child in order to "save money", to even comment on this nonsense. It's a no-brainer. You work for us and you owe it to the kids to reject this see-through rule change.”

No comments:

Post a Comment

Why I Blog

Thoreau and Emerson had a discussion in May of 1846 about the Mexican War--our first war that set us on the course we still track today. Conquest of nation-states and the inevitable Imperialism that follows. Emerson counseled his friend that we can supersede the transgressions of a well-meaning State by the Muse. Thoreau wasn't so sure that the State was so well-meaning or that the Muse alone would be enough to supersede it. But he tried both the Muse and "other means" to our everlasting benefit. Civil Disobedience, in the American sense, has always been his child, in large part because he raised it to the level of Literature. "Other means" requires the Muse to be lasting and effective, and vice versa. How would anyone know what the hell you were talking about otherwise, let alone emulate what you're trying to do?

The problem with Progressives today, I think, is that we have been in the habit of letting other people--Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, Sun Myung Moon--tell our stories for us, people who do not mean us well. We haven't plugged our muse into our political discourse very much, and that's a big mistake. Mark Twain didn't make that mistake, and he was among the first American writers to use the new-fangled typewriter. Why do we children of Twain, Emerson and Thoreau make that mistake now with our new-fangled computers?

For all its faults, Corporate America understands that people are story-based critters, like it or not, and I think we progressives should like it. By definition, people make many important social (read: political) decisions based largely on who's the best storyteller. It’s in our nature, and Corporate Media is a classic example of how Nature abhors a vacuum. We’ve collectively created a cultural ‘narrative’ vacuum by allowing ourselves to be so easily entertained by—Corporate Media! And Nature hates that. She’ll allow the same garbage responsible for that vacuum (Corporate Media!) to be sucked in and to rattle around until it ruins our cognative motors before she’ll let that sad state of affairs stand. I'd ask any "America Firsters" stumbling on this blog and reading this far to consider: Rupert Murdoch is from Australia. Sun Myung Moon, now-deceased but whose creatures, the Washington Times and UPI still walk the face of the earth, was from Korea. The Koch Brothers, of course, were from the sheikdom of Texas. All of them were, and the living ones still are, so obscenely rich they apparently believed they own America simply because they paid for it, and we collectively let them define who among us are “real Americans”?! C'mon!

Although it helps to strive toward the goal, progressives don't have to be great writers, and I'm not claiming to be one. We simply have to acknowledge that we have the better stories and we’re sitting on our best ones. Our truest ones. Multi-national billionaires have better versions of American Liberalism and Progressivism than the real ones told by real Americans? Us? We shouldn't put up with that. Why do we?

Like any historic attempt, we need to find our Voice. Significant action will come only after our contemporary, progressive political muse matures, which it hasn't yet. Not to paint with too wide a brush, but too much of our positions have been framed in intellectual, almost-didactic prose, which, if you don't identify as an intellectual, means boring. Not all of it, just a whole lot of it, but never mind. If history's still a guide--and I hope it still is--there's hope, because when any progressive movement's Muse matures, it generally becomes the baseline for much of Western Civilization’s meaningful and therefore lasting literature. For example, "Mein Kampf" is still in print but I'll bet you'd have to turn over a lot of rocks to find someone to call it 'literature'.

So, this blog. It's a call, I suppose, to elevate our critical modern discussions out of Fox-news-landia back to where intelligent, caring Americans can find their feet and fight back, either with the Muse, by other means, or both. It’s not up to some politician to change the narrative. That’s up to us. So by definition we still have as good a chance as we ever had. Don't lose hope. It’s always been this way. At least in literate societies.

In other words, like Emerson advised and Thoreau partially agreed with: stories matter, and may the best Muse win.