A crisis to me is something I'm loosing sleep over, and it's come to that.
It took two years of of a battle to get caught up on filing my taxes only to be threatened with a $4,000 Health Insurance bill from our friends in Victoria. No amount of form filling & email messages, even as high up as the Premier's office, got me anywhere. I'm now completely retired, living on about $1,300 a month from government pensions (that includes the supplement). After paying bills & rent, that money runs out by the 10th of each month. My $500 bank overdraft gets used each month, which I end up paying the bank interest money on.
A recent letter informed me that the Health Bill will be collected by garnishment. This is a bill I cannot afford to pay. I'm already eating all the K.D. my body can handle, I can't afford to see a dentist, I gave up on trying to keep a car on road 3 years ago, my apartment rent goes up in September and my enjoyment of life has nose dived to the point that I'm starting to doubt my willingness to put up with this existence much longer.
The latest chapter unfolded with a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency in Surrey, informing me that they have been deducting $166.82 a month from my pension cheques this past year without my knowledge and without my consent. That $2,001.84 is close to what my Income tax refund should be this year. Which all means that, by this method, they are able to siphon off funds from my pension cheque and collect the debt that way. My blood continues to boil.
Perhaps I'm getting the treatment I deserve and I've just turned into a cranky, belligerent angry ka-mudge-in. As I believe the end of the world is coming very soon anyway, I'm not going to storyboard and script a public suicide quite yet. I publish these thoughts here, not to attract the attention of the Vancouver Police Suicide Prevention Squad, but more to further underline the value of a good dental plan.