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pan, I am sorry for you, and at the same time, relieved that you are not facing any imminently life threatening illness, such as cancer of the lung or other cancer.

What I know of you is only what you have volunteered in your posts on this forum. I am motivated by recent personal experience and by what I know of you here, and by my usual "frankness", to lay the following out to you. Please do not take it personally. I admire you for what you are doing with your life, and I take the same side here on almost all of the issues that we discuss.

My wife, at about your age, before we were married, was a single mom after divorcing, with two pre-teen sons and no strong skill set. With some financial support from retired, upper middle class parents, and her own part time retail job, she successfully completed nursing school and achieved an R.N. level.
About a day after graduating, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent an almost immediate mastectomy and forced her rapid recovery and entered her new profession, saddled with a heavy medical debt because she lacked health insurance coverage. Her circumstances delayed breast reconstructive surgery for at least a year later than it should have begun.

My wife seems at least as proud and independent and hard working as you seem commited to being. We knew each other much earlier in our lives, reunited (via classmates . com) after being out of contact for 27 years, and we married a few years ago. Four months later....my wife suffered a sudden and massive stroke that left her unable to speak and paralyzed on the right side. Thankfully, she enjoyed total medical insurance coverage, but she lost her $50k annual income and was reduced to receiving 30 percent of what she formally earned, and is now on SSI disability, which pays less than 25% of her former earnings. Some incidental medical bills have gone unpaid, and I do not fret about her credit status....we had not merged our credit histories when she was stricken, and she will not qualify for credit now, with her low income.

As proud as my wife is, Pan....she has found herself in circumstances where she has had to seek help from her parents. Life deals many of us some shitty cards, and.....these posts prompt me to advise you to lean on your family in your time of need:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=37

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...9&postcount=28
and...to quit smoking.

There does need to be reform in the health insurance coverage and in medical provision payment schemes, but, until there is, we must rely on the comfort and support of our families, if we are fortunate enough to have that option.
We grow up, we try to be independent, but in the end, almost all of us will find ourselves, if we live long enough, under the financial or emotional care of our children, who will, as we decline, even make key decisions for us. We are always our parents children and they are always our parents.

Should we all not have to turn inward for help from our families, if they possess the resources to help, before we turn to the government or to charitable alternatives, first, especially if we are motivated primarily by pride?
(This is a general question, Pan, I do not pretend to know your circumstances well enought to direct the question to you.....)

Don't we owe, a "family first" approach, to all of those in similar circumstances who have no family, or family with the means to potentially help? Should our bankrupt government or inadequate funds for indigent patients, or a system that pays the medical bills of the uninsured, but puts further upward pressure on the costs of those who are lucky enough to have
health insurance, be asked, or worse....compelled to pay the medical bills of those who don't exhaust the option of seeking help from family first?

Isn't part of the problem of the cost to society of caring for the elderly, the fact that, unlike in past generations, family balks at it's former, universally accepted obligation to provide such care?

This may not be the best time to discuss this with you, Pan....but....you brought it up....I have no hostile or even opposing history with your POV on other issues, I am as liberal/left tilting on societal issues as anyone has been here, and I've seen sudden medical crisis up close, so I can empathize. You have just had a tough break, you don't deserve it, but you are in better circumstance, from what you've previously posted, than the majority of folks in your shoes.