Mary Jane Christian has little to complain about. In fact, she is downright optimistic about everything. 

Even with major surgeries in recent years, the 83-year-old widow is content with her health-care coverage. Christian, who lives in Rock Island, feels fine and said she had to pay little out-of-pocket expenses for those operations. 

“I have had some surgeries, like having my gallbladder removed,” she said. “But not sicknesses. I just had things removed. The good Lord has watched over me. Even with surgeries, I bounce back.”

On July 14, she had a kidney removed after a cancerous tumor was discovered. Two years earlier, she had an upper lobe of a lung removed. She said her Medicare and supplemental insurance covered the lung surgery, and she has yet to receive a bill from the July operation.

Her supplemental health insurance costs Christian an extra $197 a month. She receives Social Security and a $132-a-month pension, “which doesn’t cover my insurance.”

She pays $6 and $4 a month for her prescriptions. It used to cost her much more, she said. 

She keeps an eye on the health-care debate just to see what is going on, but she has not been dwelling on it.

“I am so satisfied with what I have,” she said. “I hate to change. I don’t like the idea of them telling me I have to change, not as long as I am doing so well.

“To be honest, I haven’t been worried about it. I don’t see any sense in worrying. It won’t get one anywhere.”

Christian lives with her daughter and son-in-law, where she moved 10 years ago. She lived most of her life in Pennsylvania and then retired with her husband, John, in Florida. He died in 1997. Two years later, she moved to the Quad-Cities at the invitation of her daughter.

“She told me after my husband passed away, ‘Mom, we’re ready when you are ready,’” she said. “It started getting expensive living by myself in Florida.”

But she has no complaints. She volunteers at her church and enjoys helping out at the Project Now senior meal site in Rock Island. She loves her life and living in the Quad-Cities.

“I am pretty much self-sufficient. I take care of myself,” she said. “I suppose if I was living by myself, it would be tight scraps.”

And because there are so many health-care plans being debated, Christian said it is difficult to know how things may change for her and her health insurance coverage.

“How can we really judge what is going to be good for us?” she asked. “If they would just leave me alone, I am fine.”