Gabby Giffords was released from the hospital yesterday. She’ll be living with her husband in Houston while continuing outpatient rehab. She will also have 24-hour home health care worker assistance.
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boudicca
She must have great health insurance. Glad to hear she is doing well.
kd bart
What’s Cantor and Ryan demanding that she give up in order to pay for the 24 hour home health care?
paula
This is good news. I know from first hand experience that she does have great insurance.
My mom, at 57, was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. While having a surgery to remove the tumors she had a brain aneurysm that burst. She was in a coma for months and came home after five months in a diaper and a stomach feeding tube. My father could not get any assistance because they made too much money (30,000/yr) but to little to afford health insurance. The hospital, doctor, and misc bills were staggering.
He could not get any help with diapers, Ensure nutritional drink, or anything. A part-time health aid would have been enormously helpful. Luckily I lived nearby.
He was so sad and disappointed. He realized that if he were to die, my mom would get the assistance she desperately needed. My dad, a veteran, had clogged arteries which he was scheduled to have a procedure to clear them. He didn’t. He had a massive heart attack and died.
My mom got the assistance and lived eight more years.
This experience made me passionate about health care for all.
jon
@kd bart: I think by Republican math, she has to keep more of her income. She may be a Democrat and may be in need of a lot of medical care, but she’s still rich.
Violet
Damn that government insurance. It totally sucks. No one should have to live with coverage like that.
Oh, wait….
I’m really glad she’s well enough to leave the hospital. Modern medicine and rehab treatment is really amazing.
Violet
@paula:
I’m so sorry. That is such a sad story and a real illustration why we need health care for all.
PurpleGirl
@boudicca: She’s a member of Congress. She has great insurance.
I’m happy she’s been released from the hospital. Now she can continue rehab in a more natural and realistic home setting and really learn how to get around.
PurpleGirl
@paula: What an awful story. I hope your life is better now.
Linda Featheringill
I forgot to say: Hooray for Gabby!
In the pictures recently released, she looked happy. That is terrific. I’d love to see her come back and raise hell but if she can be happy instead, I would welcome that too.
Does it have to be either/or? Do we know?
Cacti
Arizona to Texas…
Out of the sewer, and into the toilet.
PurpleGirl
@Linda Featheringill: It’s hard to say because head trauma is very variable and specific to each person. No two events are the same or have the same results. We will only know in time how much she recovers. But what she has achieved to date is amazing.
Mnemosyne
@boudicca:
I wonder if this would be covered by worker’s comp insurance since she was literally on the job when she was shot. When I tore my ACL at work, worker’s comp took care of everything, including the surgery and payment for the 3 weeks of work that I missed. But California has a pretty strong worker’s comp system and I don’t know if this would count as federal or state worker’s comp. I have a feeling that worker’s comp in Arizona is pretty sucktastic.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Technically as a federal employee, she would be covered under federal comp, just like I would even though I’d rather go with Washington’s cause it’s pretty damn good. If she makes the claim.
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne: I don’t believe there is a federal level Workers’ Comp program. And I have feeling that anything Arizona has won’t be as good as California.
She’s a sitting Representative, her care is covered.
ETA: Remember we’ve been saying that all we want is the kind of coverage Congress for everyone.
ETA2: Ah, Yutsano to the rescue with the federal employee information. Thanks.
trollhattan
@paula:
Dear lord, what an awful set of events, and what a trap for your father. I can’t understand how complete medical care is something that must be divvied up according to class.
El Cid
Other potentially good news — bearing in mind a number of similar announcements before, even from Qaddafi himself:
Given that I’m not in an actual decision-making capacity, I’ve been more interested in trying to understand the situation, including all sorts of extended ramifications.
But I think if this occurs, and is followed by fairly stable unity, Obama and others will (and should) receive a lot of credit for this. Particularly given the decades of US policy targeting Qaddafi as an official enemy, and at best accepted warily back into fairly normal international dealings.
Likewise for people who backed the effort but only those who worked hard on understanding the situation and making a decision on a rationale of dangerous risks versus urgent gains. Just jumping on an anti-official-enemy bandwagon to justify a particular action is easy, and more comfortable. Well, for many.
No chicken counting before eggs hatch, though. Plus, I think it would be a bad idea for Qaddafi’s sake to stay there, or to trust elections. Though I like the idea of him being tried, I’m more worried that he’d maintain a base of power, somehow, even though so seriously weakened.
[Clearly, elections or not is not ours or NATO’s to make.]
El Cid
Our poor are so much richer than the poor from other countries that they have the luxury of being fat, whereas those others who know real poverty don’t.
The article is all made up by libruls to get our Good Patriot Conservative Americans to look down on McDonalds and the buffet lines at Golden Corral and also the family sized bags of Tyson All White Meat Or Something Chicken Nuggets and try to get us to serve free range organic bean sprouts and sugar-free brie to every lazy brown person in the world.
El Cid
My intertubes machine is f***ing up. The obesity comment was for a completely different blog, and I didn’t post in any of the Balloon-Juice pages. Hmmmm.