My 84 year-old mother has a bad back. She’s way beyond surgery, and her doctors are just trying to manage the pain. So every six weeks or so she goes back to the pain doc and he tries something else—a shot of cortisone this time, a nerve block the next, radio frequency ablation on the third visit (you’ll have to google it, I’ve got a word limit . . .). There is always something else to try.
She’s weary of the pain and becoming convinced that her case is hopeless. Yet my frugal mother also worries about the cost—“I can’t believe that Medicare keeps paying for all of this. I get these bills for thousands of dollars—but at the bottom, it says I owe $2.11.” As her son, I’m delighted that Medicare keeps paying and I hope that this process of trial-and-error eventually produces a solution.
Consolidating local governments in New York is a hot topic across the state. Proponents maintain consolidation is a way to make local governments more efficient and less costly. Opponents argue that services will be cut, local representation will be lost, and savings will be minimal at best. Every week, I receive calls from local government officials across upstate asking what is involved in studying how to share or consolidate services. Almost invariably, the caller starts out by saying, “I’m not necessarily in favor of dissolving or consolidating, but I feel it is my responsibility to the taxpayers to look at every avenue to reduce our local taxes.”