By Joan Worthington
Buffalo, NY – Larry and his wife, Susan, always paid their bills on time. Larry earned good money in a lifetime of factory jobs, construction, and landscaping. Susan wrote the checks and addressed the envelopes because Larry could barely read and write. He explained, "My parents kept me busy working. That didn't leave me much time for school."
Their financial system worked fine. They could pay costs of their second floor flat on the West Side, and always had a spare $20 or so if one of the five kids needed help until payday.
Then Susan got sick -- and sicker. To supplement their Medicare insurance the two signed up for Medicaid. Larry's Social Security payments were above the income limits so they had to pay a premium of over $300 to keep the extra coverage.
Eventually Susan had to go to the hospital. She died. By that time Larry had developed severe emphysema from a lifetime of smoking. He said, "The doctor told me I would die if I didn't quit, so I did quit. But -- too late."
Then Larry himself was in and out of hospital and his grandkids picked up his mail and paid bills. They rotated the job, and a couple of payments were missed. When Larry returned home from the hospital he received a double bill, and overdue bill, from Medicaid. That was heavy-duty debt and Larry got mad. He called the Medicaid office and said, "Cancel it!" They did. Then the medical bills started rolling in -- for his oxygen, his medications, his home nurses.
Larry started calling the phone numbers on the bills, and he lost it. He swore at unfortunate billing clerks on the other end of the line. Larry, the neighborhood helper everyone described as "easy to talk to," became the nemesis of the Accounts Payables people. One transferred his call to the social worker, which set up payment plans and referred Larry to cost-savings programs. He whittled away at his debts month by month.
Until the lift chair broke.
Larry lived day and night in his wife's old lift chair. He even slept in the tilted-back chair because lying flat compresses the lungs. The chair had push buttons and an electric motor to lean the back down and lift the feet up. Another button would reverse the direction and hoist Larry half way to his feet where he could push himself the rest of the way up.
One morning he awoke, pushed the button, and nothing happened. He was stuck like a turtle on it's back. Eventually he managed to turn over, crawl back out of the chair, and call for help.
The chair was too old to be repaired. Larry had to sleep on a standard easy chair after that. It kept him sitting straight upright, a difficult position for deep sleep. He would awaken after a couple of hours and have to hoist himself back up.
Medicare pays part of the cost of new lift chairs, if the doctor can sign that the patient needs the lift mechanism to stand up. Larry didn't need it to stand up. He needed it to lie partway back, enough to sleep deeply.
A new chair would cost around $600. That was just about Larry's complete monthly income once he paid his Medicaid premium.
A medical supply store had a consignment chair for half price. Larry's pal, his14-year-old grandson, went with the social worker to test the chair for size and comfort. He decided it would fit grandpa. A charity agreed to cover the cost.
After that Larry slept the night through. Even so, time had taken its toll and his body began to fill up with fluid. He was back in the hospital before the year ended. "I've had enough," he told his nurse. By the day he died, all his debts had been fully paid.
Listener-Commentator Joan Worthington is a social worker. The couple she described were her clients.