Dear Lydia, a Pro-Healthcare Reform Message

    
I received an email from my friend Shon. He was being harassed because someone didn't like his support of healthcare reform. He IMed me and asked me to send her a letter telling her why I support it. Below is the letter. (Her name has been changed.)

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Dear Lydia:

You sent a message to a friend of mine commenting on his support for healthcare reform. I, too, support healthcare reform, and I would like to share my story.

I have been a working stiff since I was 11 when I started babysitting. My family is like a lot of middle American families, we struggle to get by. My mom worked various jobs as a cashier, Catholic school secretary, running an in-home day care, and as a biller for a medical billing company. Now she works as an administrative assistant for a hospice. None of those jobs offered health insurance (including her current one). Luckily, my dad worked for a grocery store in produce and his union provided insurance. (Now, he is a janitor in a school, and still provides the health insurance.) So we all had coverage.

Then, I grew up and was no longer covered by my father's insurance. I ended up working different jobs trying to find my way. I worked mostly in youth service or education jobs and was only lucky enough to get insurance when my employer provided it. When an employer didn't provide it, I went without. It wasn't because I didn't want health insurance. It was because I couldn't afford it. Not only couldn't I afford it, but I had serious back problems in high school, am clinically diagnosed with ADHD, and have a heart murmur. All of these so-called "issues" (aka pre-consisting conditions)  increase the price of my premiums.

I have been lucky. I haven't needed serious medical attention since losing my health insurance again last July 2009. Recently, I developed a cold along with a very serious fever of 101.4. I panicked. I didn't know what I was going to do. I could go to the emergency room, but that didn't seem worthy of a trip to the emergency room or seem to me to qualify for the financial burden of an emergency room visit. I waited and my fever reduced but stayed at 99.4 for three more days. I had to see the doctor. If noting else to rule something more serious out.

I live in San Francisco, and we have a public health system here. Instead of running to the emergency room or to urgent care, I decided to see if I qualified for the program first. I make about $3000 a month before taxes. Luckily, I squeaked in as a qualifying participant. After a little explanation of cost (it will cost me $450 every three months plus $20 for urgent care visits and $10 costs for doctors visits and $200 for any overnight admittance to the hospital regardless of how long I stay or what services I receive), I went home for the evening because I was exhausted.

I returned the next day for urgent care. I waited. I waited a fairly long time (from the time I entered until I left it was about 6 hours). I saw a nurse practitioner; I got a chest x-ray because they thought it might be pneumonia (it wasn't); I got my prescriptions. I left with only having to pay $37 out of pocket for everything including the medications.

Before becoming uninsured, I had Kaiser. I developed a similar sickness and had to go to Kaiser's urgent care. I had to pay a $30 co-pay, and $20 for prescriptions. I waited in the waiting room for two hours. Once I was admitted, I waited in my room for another hour. I only saw a nurse practitioner. I never got a chest x-ray. My employer covered the monthly healthcare bill of $300 per month.

When comparing these two systems, I actually prefer the San Francisco option. It is just as simple or just as complicated depending on how you look at it. It provides the same level of coverage, arguably better. I got well in the same amount of time. And it costs less.

This is what healthcare reform is about. It is about ensuring that all Americans have access to healthcare. It is about making it affordable. It is about making sure that someone with a simple case of the flu or a cold doesn't get worse and drain the system. It is about reform.

I believe this isn't the complete answer, but I believe that doing nothing is way, way worse. I know that this will help a majority of Americans. Including you.

Peace,
Jason

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Women's Health in Healthcare Debate

  
Last night, I was watching The Rachel Maddow Show, and Melissa Harris-Lacewell was a guest on a segment related to women's health and religious bigotry. While watching, I was dumbstruck by the provision to not fund women's reproductive health in the current healthcare reform bill proposed by President Obama.

Here is the segment I watched:

It seems to me that this may just be a first step in repealing healthcare rights disguised as reform. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don't seek out hidden messages or back room shenanigans and try to find out how the government is pulling the wool over my eyes. But this made me take a huge pause because here is a concrete example of how easily it is to take something away through compromise, and it exemplifies everything that is wrong with our current political structure.

Everyone has a different perspective on what good policy is. Everyone has a different perspective period. But there are some things that should be non-negotiable in my mind's eye. If we are talking about healthcare reform, we should be talking about healthcare reform for ALL people. Abortion is legal. Let me reiterate that: abortion is legal. In fact, the Supreme Court ruled on it.

And yet, here women are caught in the crosshairs of political expediency and "coalition building" to move a piece of policy forward that Republicans don't even support and will never support. It seems like an abject failure of government to not create policies that are in line with what is currently legal. I don't care who the president happens to be.

A converse example of this is when Bush Administration lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee wrote memos legalizing torture. Torture is illegal. Once again, torture is illegal. Yet the Bush Administration found a convenient way to make everything they did legal: issue a memo reinterpreting the law.

All of this interpretation, reinterpretation, and re-imagining of policy is on one level understandable. There is always room to interpret something differently than someone else. It is how pluralism works. However, if healthcare includes your body, it should cover all aspects of your body including reproductive organs. And, if the law states that abortion is legal, it should be legal in all iterations of policies around healthcare. Conversely, if a policy is already written that outlines what torture is and states that torture is illegal, an executive memo shouldn't be able to quickly overwrite that policy.

I worry that this encroachment on women's reproductive rights are just the tip of the iceberg. I worry about what else might be chipped away. I worry that my family that is HIV positive will see their rights whittled away with a simple justification of, "Hey, you could've prevented contracting it in the first place." I worry that my family that has depression might be told "You're mental health isn't covered because your brain is different." I worry that my family that is sick and dying will be told "You can't end your life because that's immoral." These all seem like far-fetched ideas. But so does removing organs from a healthcare bill.

Organs that already have laws protecting them.

For more information on the current healthcare bill as related to women's health, read Ann Nueman's "Rationing, Abortion Funding Are Back: Debunking “Pro-Life” Criticism of the Health Care Bill."

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Death Panel Advisors

Loved this. It is really quite amusing. Take a moment and watch. If you're not laughing, you're a part of the Death Panel.

Death Panel Advisors - watch more funny videos

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Health Care Updates

Alright, so it is time for some more info on the health care "debates" that are going on right now. I am amazed and inspired by the fact that the left is finally organizing, questioning, and reporting. There already is enough in the blogosphere/news media that I don't need to go into depth or detail about the policy or debates. Instead, I offer you a list of links to help you engage in the debate depending on what suits you.

Health Insurance Reform Reality Check - Want to know the official Whitehouse position on health care reform? Follow this link and find lots of direct responses to the lies being propagated by the right.

YouthNoise Blog on Health Care - Know a youth who has an opinion about health care reform? Check out YouthNoise, a great organization that empowers youth voice through the blogosphere, and encourage them to sound off on their hopes, dreams, fears, and opinions about health care reform. Health Care reform WILL affect our youth.

Huffington Post Health Care Big News Page - Want to know where to go for all of your news on health care? Well check out this Huffington Post link. Want to know what other citizen's are thinking? Read the comments on any of the posts. They are most insightful.

Pam's House Blend - Great reporting/summaries/commentary on the intersection of healthcare and LGBT issues. Definitely a blog to keep on your radar.

Rachel Maddow - Like the reporting by Rachel Maddow below? Then keep abreast of all that she is reporting with this link. She has daily updates on what is happening in this "debate". Don't miss her fabulous reporting.

And last... A piece of the absurd from John Stewart:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Gun Show - Barrel Fever
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

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Health-Care "Debate"

There is a growing hullabaloo around the so called health-care "debate". As it turns out, this isn't really a debate. The opposition's tactics are aimed at intimidating the American public through lies, half-truths, hidden agendas, shouting, and false protests in an effort to halt any conversation or debate from happening. They are airing ads that say health-care reform will lead to death panels or forced sex changes. They are corporate lobbies masquerading as grassroots movements all aimed at keeping the status quo and money in the hands of big business, insurance companies, and pharma.

And they have been excellent at getting their message across. Now, they have "real folks" showing up at town halls across America with the sole purpose of shouting down the conversation. Some of those protesters are saying things like "I don't want socialized medicine" but when asked what heath-care they say "Medicare and I like it." This is evidence that the fear and intimidation they are using is seeping in to the public's consciousness whether we like it or not.

Rachel Maddow is doing excellent investigative reporting laying out what actually is happening in this so-called debate. She has done exposes uncovering who is financially contributing to these "grassroots efforts" (spoiler alert: it's corporations making bank off the current system and a number of folks with ties to Bush and Cheney). She has aired segments that directly counter the lies of "Death Panels" and "Mandatory Sex Changes". She is giving air to facts that need to be heard.

My concern is that her message and her reporting is falling into the hands of the already converted, those that already know that this "debate" is a sham. I believe others, specifically our friends and family that may be swayed by the yelling and lies, need to hear her reporting. They need some education to counter the fear.

I have pulled together some of the segments I have found to be helpful in unearthing and learning about what is going on below. These are just a smattering. There are plenty more at http://rachel.msnbc.com.

Take a look and pass this on to others that might need some information about the current shouting match. Let's take back the story and make this a debate.

An overview of who is pulling the strings at these protests.

Here is a link to Recess Rally as mentioned in this video clip.

Here is a follow-up clip to the previous one with an interview of Tim Phillips.

Here is a clip connecting the dots of the health-care "debate" to the Bush administration.

Here is a clip making the linking the current right wing rhetoric and escalating violence.

Here is a clip showing how profitable the current health insurance companies are and why they put profits ahead of patients.

Here is an interview with the head of the AARP countering the rights current scare tactics aimed at seniors.

Here is more investigative work on FreedomWorks one of the orgs protesting against health-care reform.

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