Sooner or later in just about every debate over national health care reform the issue of waiting times for services comes up. A widely held belief is that in the U. S. we don't have to wait for our care, at least not as long as citizens of other developed nations who have some form of universal health coverage. In light of that notion, I found this report from Ezra Klein enlightening.
America’s waiting times are the worst in the developed world
By Ezra Klein
Any discussion of waiting times must begin with the observation that France, Germany, Switzerland and many other developed nations manage to combine universal access to care with rapid access to care. It’s an unfortunate quirk of international health-care policy that Canada and England, the two countries that do struggle with waiting times, happen to be the two nearby, English-speaking countries in the sample, and so our impressions of government-run health-care systems are disproportionately influenced by their experiences.
That said, it’s important to understand that America also struggles with waiting times. Someone who can’t afford to go to the doctor, or can’t afford to purchase an elective surgery, waits. In some cases, they wait forever. In some cases, they’re killed by the delay. But we don’t count them as having “waited” for care, and so they don’t show up in measures of American waits. But which would you prefer? A three-month delay for an elective surgery? Or no surgery at all?.
To read the entire report click here.
Reactions?
Showing posts with label health care disparities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care disparities. Show all posts
Monday, May 23, 2011
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Help getting in the water. . .
Not long ago I received the following note from a friend I've known for a long time. He is a father. His oldest son is battling cancer of the brain.
I found his note moving. His awareness of others around him, even as he assists his own son in the fight of his life, is inspiring.
As I read his words and got in touch with his heart, it occured to me that health care reform is all about making sure everyone has what they need to "get in the pool."
John 5 tells about the healing at the pool of Bethesda. I know exactly what that must have looked like. When you sit in the lobby of the MD Anderson Brain and Spine Cancer Institute, you see men and women, boys and girls of all ages and races from all over the world professing every belief imaginable. They are being pushed in wheel chairs by family. They are being helped on canes and crutches by friends. They all have in common a deeply held belief that they can be healed if they can just get into the “pool”. How sad to have waited 38 years because he didn’t have someone to help him into the pool.
I now know some of what the Father in Luke 15 felt: “… we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”
A good way to spend part of this day might involve my spending time remembering those who still need a hand toward the healing they desire so very much.
I found his note moving. His awareness of others around him, even as he assists his own son in the fight of his life, is inspiring.
As I read his words and got in touch with his heart, it occured to me that health care reform is all about making sure everyone has what they need to "get in the pool."
John 5 tells about the healing at the pool of Bethesda. I know exactly what that must have looked like. When you sit in the lobby of the MD Anderson Brain and Spine Cancer Institute, you see men and women, boys and girls of all ages and races from all over the world professing every belief imaginable. They are being pushed in wheel chairs by family. They are being helped on canes and crutches by friends. They all have in common a deeply held belief that they can be healed if they can just get into the “pool”. How sad to have waited 38 years because he didn’t have someone to help him into the pool.
I now know some of what the Father in Luke 15 felt: “… we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”
A good way to spend part of this day might involve my spending time remembering those who still need a hand toward the healing they desire so very much.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Side-By-Side Comparison Tool for Health Reform Bill
Check it out here.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
My young friends and "health insurance"
United States House of Representatives
Committee on Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Testimony of David Null
My name is David Null and my family’s insurance story begins in 1999. My best friend and I finally came to realize what we considered the American dream; we started our own company together. Our baby, Tatum, was now two and my wonderful wife, Sherry, quit her job teaching so we could raise our family at home.
We employed 12 and had group health coverage sponsored by the company. We were doing well, life was good. But like many Americans, 9/11/2001 hit our company hard. Contracts got cancelled, our business plummeted and we were forced to discontinue our group coverage within 6 months. That’s when we had toswitch to the individual policy market. Business was bad but we knew the value of insurance and didn’t want to go without, although sometimes we did. Three times in 5 years we were unable to continue coverage without lapse because of decreased business in the 9/11 aftermath. We’d lose coverage for a few months and then we’d get a good contract and get a new policy.
January of 2005 I found myself shopping for health insurance again. We had been without insurance for about 3 months when our youngest daughter, Hannah, fell in the bathtub and split her chin. A quick trip to the ER for a liquid bandage cost us almost $800. It served as an excellent but costly reminder for the need to be insured. So I began the search for another policy.
Sherry and I spoke at length to an insurance agent at our dining room table. I explained an event in detail to the agent when my mother had become deathly ill suddenly. Her intensive care had cost nearly $200,000. I explained to the gent, “I don’t mind paying for the doctor’s visit for the head cold. We can handle that out of pocket. It’s the big “Oh, no!” like what happened to my mother that I need to protect my family from financially. Something like that could bankrupt us.” The agent told us, “You’re a very savvy shopper and this is the policy for you. By the time you factor our negotiated rates and what the policy pays out, you’ll hardly have to pay anything.” The way he explained it, it sounded like we were getting what we asked for, protection from being bankrupted by the $200,000 example I gave him. Our premiums were affordable at $320 a month, about $100 less than what we paid just before for insurance. I was under the impression my savings were due to not having significant office visit coverage like I asked. We felt relieved to be protected again.
March of 2005, just three months later. We started out for Sea World for Tatum’s first spring break, she was seven. Tatum had been sick to her stomach a little but we left thinking she’d be better the next day. She was a quick healer and always the picture of health. We had been in the hotel only hours when she looked at us with canary yellow eyes. We knew something was very wrong and immediately headed home to see the doctor the next morning. We didn’t realize until we arrived home that Tatum’s condition had deteriorated so much that her peaceful sleep in the truck was actually her slipping into a coma. We rushed her to the hospital and before the sunset that day we were told she would require a liver transplant within days to possibly save her life, if they can keep her alive that long.
Tatum laid in the ICU clinging to life. Her brain swelling from the poisons accumulating that her liver normally removes. The doctors told us she was the sickest kid in the hospital and they struggled constantly just to keep her alive. She had only days at best to live. In the midst of all this, the transplant department administrator came to me and said we needed to talk about insurance and walked me to a council room. As we walked I thought to myself, “Aren’t I glad we picked up that policy when we did. Wonder what he wants to talk about”. We sat down and he proceeded to explain that my insurance had a 25,000 max and Tatum had reached that after the first night. She had no more insurance from this point forward and its hospital policy to collect a $200,000 deposit to proceed. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Could this be true? Surely it’s a mistake because this is the big oh no I was buying protection from. Now my precious child lies just down the hall struggling for her life. Suddenly, not only were we facing the possible death of our child but now the financial death of our family at the same time. How could this be happening to us when we have insurance for this?
Thankfully, the hospital CEO agreed to proceed without any guarantee of payment. Tatum’s life is most important to the hospital and we’re grateful for that humanity. Miraculously, within two days a donor had been located. A loving family, who lost their daughter Angela, graciously donated her liver to Tatum so she could keep living. Tatum received her transplant with probably less than 48 hours to live.
Once Tatum was stabilized, the hospital helped me apply for Medicaid and we were narrowly approved. The coverage was retro active so they covered the entire transplant. Tatum’s bill for the first stay of 21 days approached $600,000 and our so-called hospitalization policy only covered about 1/10th of that cost.
Even with insurance, this left a balance we could never bear to payback, it would have bankrupted us. Our insurance had failed us. We were clearly relieved that Medicaid covered the entire cost. Tatum and our finances both had near death experiences. Although, we didn’t know at the time what going on Medicaid was going to mean to our family. Our daughter had been on total life support for a week and now our finances would be going on life support for the next two years.
Post transplant is also medically expensive. Her blood labs were $4,000- 6,000 a month. Her medicine over $1,000. CT scans and liver biopsies were the norm. The first sign of rejection was cause for 3 days inpatient for IV treatment. Nine months post she developed a complication of the anti-rejection medicine and developed a cancerous like infection. That required 7 weeks in the hospital with IV treatments daily. That treatment caused her to need another monthly IV treatment that was several thousand dollars for each bag. We never knew what the next day would bring but we knew for sure we can’t afford even one day without insurance.
We began to look for insurance that would help cover her post transplant expenses so we could get off Medicaid. We thought Medicaid was there to help people who couldn’t afford insurance or their medical bills. Then I was told by insurance agents to “not waste the time, paper or ink filling out an application with Tatum on it because they won’t even accept it.” We were learning Tatum was blacklisted from individual policies. Getting a corporate sales job for group coverage didn’t seem like an option for me. I’d make too much during the waiting period for company insurance and we’d get dropped by Medicaid, leaving a gap we couldn’t cover. Sherry is a teacher and schools do most their hiring just once a year. Additionally, our family was instructed by the hospital to self quarantine from public for infectious reasons. Teaching is a sure way to bring home a virus that could put Tatum’s life at risk due to high immuno-suppression. We now had no where to turn. We were somehow stuck on Medicaid. Not because we couldn’t afford insurance, we thought we had insurance when this started. It was simply that the insurance industry would not make a policy available to us in the individual market.
So, in order to keep receiving health care for Tatum we had to voluntarily drop our income to near poverty to satisfy Medicaid requirements. The allowed monthly income limit on Medicaid was a shocking $1,613 a month for a family of 4. This barely allowed us to cover our mortgage, most utilities and some food bills. That’s under $20,000 a year. This meant I would frequently have to pass on work because I’d make too much for Medicaid. It was even suggested that we might fair better financially if we got a divorce.
Those were tough times and we found ourselves in the red every month. Many expenses went on credit waiting for a day when we could afford to make the money to pay it back. Interestingly, with Medicaid we never incurred any cost for her healthcare. We’re very lucky; we actually have no debt related directly to medical bills. The high cost of staying on Medicaid is on the backside, trying to survive financially on less than $20K a year. We took on tremendous debt, eliminated our savings and retirement and put our growth on hold trying to survive while she got the healthcare she needed. All because we didn’t get the insurance coverage we specifically asked to have.
After two years Tatum began to reclaim her new normal life. Her immune system and new liver were getting along much better and she was on a bare minimum of immuno-suppression. There were now more good days than bad so her mother could return to teaching, group health coverage and an entirely different insurance experience.
I found it interesting when we transitioned to group coverage; Tatum was accepted with open arms and without question. They wouldn’t give us the individual application and yet on the group application, all we had to do different was check a couple ‘yes’ boxes and write ‘liver transplant’ in a blank. Next thing we knew we had insurance cards in hand. The insurance cost deducted from Sherry’s paycheck is actually reasonable and identical to other co-teachers. Our rates have remained that way for three years now. Under group coverage we’re treated like we don’t have a preexisting. It would appear individual policies and group policies exist in completely different universes.
Her mother and I are thankful Tatum’s physical recovery is quicker than our finances. She’s growing, thriving and giving back. She regularly appears on behalf of Children’s Medical Center, the Southwest Transplant Alliance and is active in supporting her favorite charity, Make-A-Wish. Her life has been a joy and inspiration to many. We’d do it again for her sake. We’re thankful Medicaid was there for us to provide the protection that nobody else would. We’re equally thankful to be off Medicaid.
We do hope our testimony illustrates for you how the Hospitalization and Surgical policy in question here today was obviously worthless at actually protecting anyone from financial disaster with its ridiculously low maximum caps. Through all this, we’ve learned the languages of policies and agents can be confusing. In spite of both being college educated, we didn’t recognize or understand at the time that $25,000 maximum for “Misc Hospital Expenses” meant the total of the medical bill. We thought it literally meant misc hospital expenses. Even today we still find the wording a little counter-intuitive and misleading.
While policy language can be confusing, we asked in very simple terms, for a policy that would protect us from the big “Oh, no!” We ended up with a policy that would do no such thing. We trusted the agent was matching our needs to his product. He was not. His policy was saving us only 25% compared to our last policy but the $25,000 cap was 1/40th the coverage ($1million). No college degree is needed to see that’s not a good deal. Obviously not a policy with the consumer in mind.
While our testimony should be labeled “Grossly Under-insured”, we’ve since learned that even traditional $1 million policies are sometimes no challenge for long-term life threatening illnesses. Maybe 10 years ago it was sufficient. Today it’s very possible that $1 million will still leave you under-insured. They estimate that transplants, nationally, average somewhere in the ¾ million dollar range, plus post transplant expenses. Had we started our experience with a million dollar policy, we’d be close to maxing it out now, if not already. If that ever happens, my wife will be forced to move to another school district with a different insurance
provider or I must give up self-employment and take a corporate job. Only time will tell.
Most importantly, we’ve learned that being under-insured really is the same as being uninsured. They both lead to the same end. Unfortunately, we’ve learned that if your American dream is to be self-employed, the insurance companies can make it your nightmare. Under-insurance certainly impacted our lives. God has carried us through and we trust He will continue to do so, and we’re glad. We’ve certainly learned from this experience and are trying to move on.
It would seem like the story ends here but it’s actually just the beginning for Tatum.
Under-insurance isn’t the biggest tragedy of our story if you ask me. Tatum’s story encompasses another shortcoming of the health care system that you need to do something about so people like Tatum can be truly free. Without health care reform from Capitol Hill there will be more challenges for a grown up Tatum and those like her.
What will continue to sadden Sherry and me is the issue of blacklisting on the individual market, for life. That carries a lot of ramification behind it that most of us never consider. We’re lucky because Sherry’s dream has always been to teach and with that career choice we have access to group coverage. But that’s not every bodies dream. Does this mean Tatum and those like her, will be required to dream of corporate work for group coverage or marry into it. What if they get laid off? Small companies will certainly find reason to not hire her, or her husband, if they find out she’s transplanted because it will torpedo their insurance rates. Will
Tatum and her husband be forced into the Medicaid trap too, not because of finances but because of policy unavailability? Her career options to access affordable health care in the future are tremendously effected simply because the industry has designed it. Is that really fair? Is that American?
Consider this. When Tatum was four, she and her mother went to New York City. Tatum visited Ellis Island and stood transfixed on Lady Liberty, our American symbol of freedom and beacon to the world. Tatum even got herself a Lady Liberty costume. She was told Lady Liberty stands and invites the world to come to the land of opportunity, where anyone can follow their dreams. And yet Tatum, a born and bred American citizen, might not get to share in this dream through no fault of her own. Simply because the insurance industry has developed a system that won’t allow it. Our Tatum has so much potential, but for now, she doesn’t have full access to Lady Liberty’s promise to pursue her dreams. She can’t pursue little girl dreams to be an artist, or have a dress shop, a restaurant or self-employed in any fashion that requires individual coverage.
When she asks me what she should be when she grows up, I can’t tell her the same thing you probably told your kids. Right now I can’t tell her she can be anything she wants and you need to fix that. Do I tell her Lady Liberty does not stand for her too because the insurance industry has made it so with underinsurance and preexistings? Do I tell her the government before her today, a government for the people, by the people, refuses to take the steps to also protect her rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
What do we tell her? Tomorrow our family plans to see with our very own eyes our Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights. A true privilege and honor as an American. These documents were bought and upheld with the blood of men for all of us. What do we tell about her place in those? What do we tell her?
In closing, while my purpose today is to testify and answer your questions as an American citizen, I also come to pose just one question to the very distinguished committee as a father. Which of you, will commit yourself today to be able to look Tatum in the eyes and tell her, that you will be helping lead the way and you will see to it that when she grows up she’ll have affordable access to adequate healthcare, regardless of her occupation, and that today she too can start pursuing all her American Dreams?
We sincerely pray that God bless you and guide you. And God bless America.
Thank you.
To read a story on David and Tatum's powerfrul testimony click here.
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Thursday, August 27, 2009
Very useful resource on impact of health care reform
If you would like to evaluate the impact of Congressional bill, H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, on a congressional district-by-district basis click
here.
The imformation that you'll find is amazing!
Here's what I found about U. S. Congressional District 5 represented by Jeb Hensarling (R-TX).
America’s Affordable Health Choices Act would provide significant benefits in the 5th Congressional District of Texas: up to 13,400 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees; 8,600 seniors would avoid the donut hole in Medicare Part D; 700 families could escape bankruptcy each year due to unaffordable health care costs; health care providers would receive payment for $84 million in uncompensated care each year; and 167,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high-quality, affordable health insurance.
• Help for small businesses. Under the legislation, small businesses with 25 employees or less and average wages of less than $40,000 qualify for tax credits of up to 50% of the costs of providing health insurance. There are up to 13,400 small businesses in the district that could qualify for these credits.
• Help for seniors with drug costs in the Part D donut hole. Each year, 8,600 seniors in the district hit the donut hole and are forced to pay their full drug costs, despite having Part D drug coverage. The legislation would provide them with immediate relief, cutting brand name drug costs in the donut hole by 50%, and ultimately eliminate the donut hole.
• Health care and financial security. There were 700 health care-related bankruptcies in the district in 2008, caused primarily by the health care costs not covered by insurance. The bill provides health insurance for almost every American and caps annual out-of-pocket costs at $10,000 per year, ensuring that no citizen will have to face financial ruin because of high health care costs.
• Relieving the burden of uncompensated care for hospitals and health care providers. In 2008, health care providers in the district provided $84 million worth of uncompensated care, care that was provided to individuals who lacked insurance coverage and were unable to pay their bills. Under the legislation, these costs of uncompensated care would be virtually eliminated.
• Coverage of the uninsured. There are 188,000 uninsured individuals in the district, 27% of the district. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nationwide, 97% of all Americans will have insurance coverage when the bill takes effect. If this benchmark is reached in the district, 167,000 people who currently do not have health insurance will receive coverage.
• No deficit spending. The cost of health care reform under the legislation is fully paid for: half through making the Medicare and Medicaid program more efficient and half through a surtax on the income of the wealthiest individuals. This surtax would affect only 1,990 households in the district. The surtax would not affect 99.3% of taxpayers in the district.
Visit the website and check out the impact of this comprehensive plan for health care on your own congressional district. Let us hear your reactions. There is so much misinformation and fear out there. We need more factual analysis.
here.
The imformation that you'll find is amazing!
Here's what I found about U. S. Congressional District 5 represented by Jeb Hensarling (R-TX).
America’s Affordable Health Choices Act would provide significant benefits in the 5th Congressional District of Texas: up to 13,400 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees; 8,600 seniors would avoid the donut hole in Medicare Part D; 700 families could escape bankruptcy each year due to unaffordable health care costs; health care providers would receive payment for $84 million in uncompensated care each year; and 167,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high-quality, affordable health insurance.
• Help for small businesses. Under the legislation, small businesses with 25 employees or less and average wages of less than $40,000 qualify for tax credits of up to 50% of the costs of providing health insurance. There are up to 13,400 small businesses in the district that could qualify for these credits.
• Help for seniors with drug costs in the Part D donut hole. Each year, 8,600 seniors in the district hit the donut hole and are forced to pay their full drug costs, despite having Part D drug coverage. The legislation would provide them with immediate relief, cutting brand name drug costs in the donut hole by 50%, and ultimately eliminate the donut hole.
• Health care and financial security. There were 700 health care-related bankruptcies in the district in 2008, caused primarily by the health care costs not covered by insurance. The bill provides health insurance for almost every American and caps annual out-of-pocket costs at $10,000 per year, ensuring that no citizen will have to face financial ruin because of high health care costs.
• Relieving the burden of uncompensated care for hospitals and health care providers. In 2008, health care providers in the district provided $84 million worth of uncompensated care, care that was provided to individuals who lacked insurance coverage and were unable to pay their bills. Under the legislation, these costs of uncompensated care would be virtually eliminated.
• Coverage of the uninsured. There are 188,000 uninsured individuals in the district, 27% of the district. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nationwide, 97% of all Americans will have insurance coverage when the bill takes effect. If this benchmark is reached in the district, 167,000 people who currently do not have health insurance will receive coverage.
• No deficit spending. The cost of health care reform under the legislation is fully paid for: half through making the Medicare and Medicaid program more efficient and half through a surtax on the income of the wealthiest individuals. This surtax would affect only 1,990 households in the district. The surtax would not affect 99.3% of taxpayers in the district.
Visit the website and check out the impact of this comprehensive plan for health care on your own congressional district. Let us hear your reactions. There is so much misinformation and fear out there. We need more factual analysis.
The Moral Code of the Health Care Debate
Thoughts to ponder, especially for people of faith:
With all of the shouting, the fear, and now what often looks like hatred -- we are in danger of losing the moral “core” of this health-care debate. That core, quite simply, is that many people are hurting from a broken health-care system. They include the 46 million who have no health insurance, but also the many who do but don’t get what they need and simply can’t afford good health...
People of faith need to be the steady, moral drumbeat driving the debate and keeping our politicians accountable. This is a critical and long-overdue opportunity to fix a broken and inequitable system, which must not be derailed either by powerful special interests or by those, on any side, who just want to score political points. It is up to all of us to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Jim Wallis
Sojourners
Read the entire text of Wallis' comments from 8-20-09 here.
Central Dallas Ministries, along with a number of other organizations and churches in the Dallas Metroplex, will be sponsoring the Justice Revival with Jim Wallis, November 10-12, 2009 in Market Hall. Watch for more details!
With all of the shouting, the fear, and now what often looks like hatred -- we are in danger of losing the moral “core” of this health-care debate. That core, quite simply, is that many people are hurting from a broken health-care system. They include the 46 million who have no health insurance, but also the many who do but don’t get what they need and simply can’t afford good health...
People of faith need to be the steady, moral drumbeat driving the debate and keeping our politicians accountable. This is a critical and long-overdue opportunity to fix a broken and inequitable system, which must not be derailed either by powerful special interests or by those, on any side, who just want to score political points. It is up to all of us to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Jim Wallis
Sojourners
Read the entire text of Wallis' comments from 8-20-09 here.
Central Dallas Ministries, along with a number of other organizations and churches in the Dallas Metroplex, will be sponsoring the Justice Revival with Jim Wallis, November 10-12, 2009 in Market Hall. Watch for more details!
Friday, July 31, 2009
What some United Methodists are doing concerning health care reform. . .
Go here to check out what groups of United Methodists are up to in regard to the health care reform debate.
Love to know what you think!
Monday, July 27, 2009
Waiting for a doctor's care. . .nothing new here
Forgive me for not being too sympathetic. But, I find the barrage of TV ads concerning the evil health threat posed by the Obama health care reform plan laughable.
For the past 15 years I've been surrounded by countless friends who have had to wait and wait to receive the health care they needed to stay alive. Due to delayed treatment and diagnosis, many of my friends died.
Why?
Simply because they were poor, uninsured and unable to pay for the care their conditions demanded. Too young for Medicaid, too poor for private insurance and too sick to be effectively treated by the MASH approach of the Emergency Departments of local hospitals, my friends had to wait.
They waited on charity--on folks like me to beg for free treatment.
They waited on disease severity to reach a point where the ER might lead to hospitalization.
They waited for admission to Parkland where everything is over crowded beyond belief.
So, you'll understand if I'm not moved by the concerns of the well off, like myself, who get the best of care because we can pay to buy private health insurance. I'm certainly not concerned with the pain of the insurance lobbyists.
I say provide coverage for everyone. Let all of us pay something based on ability. Let everyone receive the care needed.
Frankly, if I have to wait on my brother or sister to go first, I'm ready to do so.
In every other developed nation on the planet this willingness to share and to wait, just a bit, results in far better national, public health outcomes than are realized in the USA at a fraction of the per capita cost.
We need to read the Golden Rule as we consider what is needed in health care reform. And, even more, we need to remember one another.
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For the past 15 years I've been surrounded by countless friends who have had to wait and wait to receive the health care they needed to stay alive. Due to delayed treatment and diagnosis, many of my friends died.
Why?
Simply because they were poor, uninsured and unable to pay for the care their conditions demanded. Too young for Medicaid, too poor for private insurance and too sick to be effectively treated by the MASH approach of the Emergency Departments of local hospitals, my friends had to wait.
They waited on charity--on folks like me to beg for free treatment.
They waited on disease severity to reach a point where the ER might lead to hospitalization.
They waited for admission to Parkland where everything is over crowded beyond belief.
So, you'll understand if I'm not moved by the concerns of the well off, like myself, who get the best of care because we can pay to buy private health insurance. I'm certainly not concerned with the pain of the insurance lobbyists.
I say provide coverage for everyone. Let all of us pay something based on ability. Let everyone receive the care needed.
Frankly, if I have to wait on my brother or sister to go first, I'm ready to do so.
In every other developed nation on the planet this willingness to share and to wait, just a bit, results in far better national, public health outcomes than are realized in the USA at a fraction of the per capita cost.
We need to read the Golden Rule as we consider what is needed in health care reform. And, even more, we need to remember one another.
.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Texas Values
Wick Allison, conservative journalist and Editor in Chief of DMagazine here in Dallas, has an interesting comment on his blog relative to the multi-billion dollar budget surplus that Texas enjoys these days. . .especially in view of the horrid living conditions facing our state's most vulnerable citizens.
Makes you think. What are "Texas values" these days?
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Makes you think. What are "Texas values" these days?
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Friday, September 05, 2008
Don't count the uninsured: problem solved!
Almost 50 million Americans enter each new day without health insurance coverage of any kind. That fact concerns the vast majority of health care and public health experts.
But, not everyone agrees.
Like President Bush, some people believe that since emergency departments across the nation cannot refuse to treat anyone who shows up in their waiting rooms, everyone enjoys health care "coverage."
This includes Dr. John Goodman (PhD, not MD). Here's what the good professor has to say about the uninsured:
"The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American [even illegal aliens] as 'uninsured.' "
Steve Blow did a feature column in The Dallas Morning News on Goodman last week. Read his entire story here.
Goodman has been a high level advisor to politicians who make decisions about health and wellness issues in our nation.
When I first read Blow's report, my mind shifted immediately to patients who come to our Community Health Services building here at Central Dallas Ministries.
I can't forget one hard working father who battled kidney stones. Uninsured, he went to the ER of a major hospital in town. The hospital treated him with pain killers and antibiotics. They never hospitalized him because they didn't have to. The law requires treatment on an emergency basis, not ongoing treatment for "self-payers" like him. By the time he reached our doors he was in the midst of end-stage renal failure.
We went to work to get him a kidney transplant and helped negotiate the rate and raise the cash to pay for the procedure that saved his life, sent him back to his family and to work. We were glad to help. But our response is not a replicable model for health care.
Sadly, our friend's case is not all that unusual. Emergency rooms were not designed to serve as "medical homes" to millions of uninsured Americans.
Then, what about prevention? You know, regular checkups that often lead to early detection. What about medications that can extend life and control the chronic conditions so many of us suffer with.
From a cost benefit analysis, this preventive strategy saves everyone lots of money.
Dr. Goodman, you've got to be kidding!
We need to do much, much better. All we lack currently is the will and the courage.
.
.
But, not everyone agrees.
Like President Bush, some people believe that since emergency departments across the nation cannot refuse to treat anyone who shows up in their waiting rooms, everyone enjoys health care "coverage."
This includes Dr. John Goodman (PhD, not MD). Here's what the good professor has to say about the uninsured:
"The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American [even illegal aliens] as 'uninsured.' "
Steve Blow did a feature column in The Dallas Morning News on Goodman last week. Read his entire story here.
Goodman has been a high level advisor to politicians who make decisions about health and wellness issues in our nation.
When I first read Blow's report, my mind shifted immediately to patients who come to our Community Health Services building here at Central Dallas Ministries.
I can't forget one hard working father who battled kidney stones. Uninsured, he went to the ER of a major hospital in town. The hospital treated him with pain killers and antibiotics. They never hospitalized him because they didn't have to. The law requires treatment on an emergency basis, not ongoing treatment for "self-payers" like him. By the time he reached our doors he was in the midst of end-stage renal failure.
We went to work to get him a kidney transplant and helped negotiate the rate and raise the cash to pay for the procedure that saved his life, sent him back to his family and to work. We were glad to help. But our response is not a replicable model for health care.
Sadly, our friend's case is not all that unusual. Emergency rooms were not designed to serve as "medical homes" to millions of uninsured Americans.
Then, what about prevention? You know, regular checkups that often lead to early detection. What about medications that can extend life and control the chronic conditions so many of us suffer with.
From a cost benefit analysis, this preventive strategy saves everyone lots of money.
Dr. Goodman, you've got to be kidding!
We need to do much, much better. All we lack currently is the will and the courage.
.
.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Diabetes and race
One of the realities that we have encountered in our work among our inner city neighbors is a rather obvious disparity in treatment, access and outcomes when it comes to health care options and delivery. Health care professionals have recognized these disparities that cut along class and racial lines. The Baylor Health Care System, one of our most important and committed partners in the city, has an entire department devoted to addressing disparities, the Office of Health Equity that is led by our friend and CDM Board member, Dr. Jim Walton.
The lead author of the study said in an interview that he attributed the differences less to overt racism than to a systemic failure to tailor treatments to patients’ cultural norms. The problem, said the author, Dr. Thomas D. Sequist, an assistant professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, may be that physicians do not discriminate in the way they counsel patients.
“It isn’t that providers are doing different things for different patients,” Dr. Sequist said. “It’s that we’re doing the same thing for every patient and not accounting for individual needs. Our one-size-fits-all approach may leave minority patients with needs that aren’t being met.”
For instance, he said, counseling black or Latino patients with diabetes to lower their carbohydrate intake by cutting rice from their diets may not be a realistic strategy if rice is a family staple.
“We may be listing fruits and vegetables that are part of one person’s culture but not another,” Dr. Sequist said. “We’re not really giving them information they can use.”
In the study, which was published Monday in The Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. Sequist and his colleagues examined electronic medical records of 6,814 patients with diabetes. All were treated from 2005 to 2007 by at least one of 90 primary care physicians with Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, which has 14 walk-in health clinics in eastern Massachusetts. Each doctor treated at least five white patients and five black ones.
The researchers looked at three standard measures of effective diabetes control: blood pressure, LDL cholesterol levels and hemoglobin A1C, which reflects blood sugar. Though similar proportions of black and white patients took each test, fewer black patients adequately controlled their levels on all three measures. The glucose test found, for example, that 71 percent of white patients and 63 percent of black ones were adequately controlling their blood sugar levels.
Socioeconomic factors like income or insurance status explained 13 percent to 38 percent of the racial differences, the authors calculated. But they found much larger racial disparities — from 66 percent to 75 percent — in patients who were treated by the same doctor. Adjusting for clinical differences among patients did not change the findings.
“Racial differences in outcomes were not related to black patients differentially receiving care from physicians who provide a lower quality of care, but rather that black patients experienced less ideal or even adequate outcomes than white patients within the same physician panel,” the study concluded.
To attack such disparities, the authors recommended that doctors and other members of the health care system learn more about minority communities and that patients receive better education about diabetes and how and why it must be controlled.
“Our data suggest that the problem of racial disparities is not characterized by only a few physicians providing markedly unequal care,” the authors wrote, “but that such differences in care are spread across the entire system, requiring the implementation of systemwide solutions.”
I'd love to get your reactions.
.
The issue is a very serious concern. That's why Kevin Sack's recent report in The New York Times (June 10, 2008) caught my eye. What he reports is serious. Rather than summerize it, I'll just let you read the entire article, "Doctors Miss Cultural Needs, Study Says."
________________________________________
As researchers ponder growing evidence that blacks have worse outcomes than whites in the treatment of chronic disease, they often theorize that members of minorities suffer disproportionately from poor access to quality care. Now a new study of diabetes patients has found stark racial disparities even among patients treated by the same doctors.
The lead author of the study said in an interview that he attributed the differences less to overt racism than to a systemic failure to tailor treatments to patients’ cultural norms. The problem, said the author, Dr. Thomas D. Sequist, an assistant professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, may be that physicians do not discriminate in the way they counsel patients.
“It isn’t that providers are doing different things for different patients,” Dr. Sequist said. “It’s that we’re doing the same thing for every patient and not accounting for individual needs. Our one-size-fits-all approach may leave minority patients with needs that aren’t being met.”
For instance, he said, counseling black or Latino patients with diabetes to lower their carbohydrate intake by cutting rice from their diets may not be a realistic strategy if rice is a family staple.
“We may be listing fruits and vegetables that are part of one person’s culture but not another,” Dr. Sequist said. “We’re not really giving them information they can use.”
In the study, which was published Monday in The Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. Sequist and his colleagues examined electronic medical records of 6,814 patients with diabetes. All were treated from 2005 to 2007 by at least one of 90 primary care physicians with Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, which has 14 walk-in health clinics in eastern Massachusetts. Each doctor treated at least five white patients and five black ones.
The researchers looked at three standard measures of effective diabetes control: blood pressure, LDL cholesterol levels and hemoglobin A1C, which reflects blood sugar. Though similar proportions of black and white patients took each test, fewer black patients adequately controlled their levels on all three measures. The glucose test found, for example, that 71 percent of white patients and 63 percent of black ones were adequately controlling their blood sugar levels.
Socioeconomic factors like income or insurance status explained 13 percent to 38 percent of the racial differences, the authors calculated. But they found much larger racial disparities — from 66 percent to 75 percent — in patients who were treated by the same doctor. Adjusting for clinical differences among patients did not change the findings.
“Racial differences in outcomes were not related to black patients differentially receiving care from physicians who provide a lower quality of care, but rather that black patients experienced less ideal or even adequate outcomes than white patients within the same physician panel,” the study concluded.
To attack such disparities, the authors recommended that doctors and other members of the health care system learn more about minority communities and that patients receive better education about diabetes and how and why it must be controlled.
“Our data suggest that the problem of racial disparities is not characterized by only a few physicians providing markedly unequal care,” the authors wrote, “but that such differences in care are spread across the entire system, requiring the implementation of systemwide solutions.”
_______________________________
.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Pain and class
This from TIME magazine and CNN:
Millions of Americans in Chronic Pain
Friday, May. 02, 2008 By KATHLEEN KINGSBURY
Nursing a migraine today? New research shows you're not alone. More than a quarter of Americans suffer daily pain, a condition that costs the U.S. about $60 billion a year in lost productivity. And how often you're in pain depends largely on the size of your paycheck.
Americans in households making less than $30,000 a year spend nearly 20% of their lives in moderate to severe pain, compared with less than 8% of people in households earning above $100,000, according to a landmark study on how Americans experience in pain. The findings, published Thursday in the British journal The Lancet, also found that participants who hadn't finished high school reported feeling twice the amount of pain as college graduates. "To a significant extent, pain does separate the classes," says Princeton economist Alan Krueger, who authored the study along with Dr. Arthur Stone, a psychiatry professor at Stony Brook University.
Krueger notes that the type of pain people reported typically fell on either side of the rich-poor divide. "Those with higher incomes welcome pain almost by choice, usually through exercise," he says. "At lower incomes, pain comes as the result of work." Indeed, Krueger and Stone found that blue-collar workers felt more pain, from physical labor or repetitive motion, while on the job than off, which at least offers hope that the problem can be mitigated. This finding "emphasizes the need for pain preventing measures [in the workplace] such as better ergonomics," wrote Juha H.O. Turunen, a professor of social pharmacy at Finland's University of Kuopio, in an accompanying commentary to the report.
People with chronic pain also worked less, the new study found, costing U.S. businesses as much as $60 billion annually. These conclusions are in line with previous studies on productivity lost to common pain conditions, including a 2003 report finding that nearly 15% of the U.S. workforce's output was diminished by ailments such as headaches and arthritis. What's new in Kruger and Stone's study, however, is the level of detail with which the researchers were able to chronicle the lives of Americans in pain. With the help of the polling firm Gallup, they asked nearly 4,000 survey participants to diarize their daily activities over a 24-hour period. From these personal accounts, the researchers saw the impact pain had on people's emotional states. Though participants said interacting with a spouse or friend lowered their pain, those suffering chronic pain tended to socialize much less. They also spent a lot more time watching television�about 25% of their day compared with 16% for the average person.
Pain also appeared to be a major driver of healthcare costs. Krueger and Stone found that Americans spent about $2.6 billion in over-the-counter pain medications and another nearly $14 billion on outpatient analgesics in 2004, the most recent data available. But in these numbers, too, there may be a distinction between the haves and the have-nots. A 2005 study in Michigan showed that minorities and the poor have less access to such drugs than wealthier Americans because local pharmacies don't stock enough pain medications such as oxycodone or morphine.
"Those [pharmacies] in white ZIP codes were more than 13 times more likely to have sufficient supplies," says lead researcher Dr. Carmen Green, an anesthesiology professor at the University of Michigan. "I have patients who have to drive 30 miles or more just to get their pain medications."
One characteristic that pain doesn't seem to distinguish is gender: according to Krueger and Stone's study, men and women were nearly equally likely to find themselves in pain. Another is age. People reported more aches and pains as they got older, though surprisingly that pain tended to plateau from ages 45 to 75. "Maybe people reach a point in their career where they move up the ladder into a desk job," Krueger says. "Or maybe they've just learned how to cope with the pain."
.
Millions of Americans in Chronic Pain
Friday, May. 02, 2008 By KATHLEEN KINGSBURY
Nursing a migraine today? New research shows you're not alone. More than a quarter of Americans suffer daily pain, a condition that costs the U.S. about $60 billion a year in lost productivity. And how often you're in pain depends largely on the size of your paycheck.
Americans in households making less than $30,000 a year spend nearly 20% of their lives in moderate to severe pain, compared with less than 8% of people in households earning above $100,000, according to a landmark study on how Americans experience in pain. The findings, published Thursday in the British journal The Lancet, also found that participants who hadn't finished high school reported feeling twice the amount of pain as college graduates. "To a significant extent, pain does separate the classes," says Princeton economist Alan Krueger, who authored the study along with Dr. Arthur Stone, a psychiatry professor at Stony Brook University.
Krueger notes that the type of pain people reported typically fell on either side of the rich-poor divide. "Those with higher incomes welcome pain almost by choice, usually through exercise," he says. "At lower incomes, pain comes as the result of work." Indeed, Krueger and Stone found that blue-collar workers felt more pain, from physical labor or repetitive motion, while on the job than off, which at least offers hope that the problem can be mitigated. This finding "emphasizes the need for pain preventing measures [in the workplace] such as better ergonomics," wrote Juha H.O. Turunen, a professor of social pharmacy at Finland's University of Kuopio, in an accompanying commentary to the report.
People with chronic pain also worked less, the new study found, costing U.S. businesses as much as $60 billion annually. These conclusions are in line with previous studies on productivity lost to common pain conditions, including a 2003 report finding that nearly 15% of the U.S. workforce's output was diminished by ailments such as headaches and arthritis. What's new in Kruger and Stone's study, however, is the level of detail with which the researchers were able to chronicle the lives of Americans in pain. With the help of the polling firm Gallup, they asked nearly 4,000 survey participants to diarize their daily activities over a 24-hour period. From these personal accounts, the researchers saw the impact pain had on people's emotional states. Though participants said interacting with a spouse or friend lowered their pain, those suffering chronic pain tended to socialize much less. They also spent a lot more time watching television�about 25% of their day compared with 16% for the average person.
Pain also appeared to be a major driver of healthcare costs. Krueger and Stone found that Americans spent about $2.6 billion in over-the-counter pain medications and another nearly $14 billion on outpatient analgesics in 2004, the most recent data available. But in these numbers, too, there may be a distinction between the haves and the have-nots. A 2005 study in Michigan showed that minorities and the poor have less access to such drugs than wealthier Americans because local pharmacies don't stock enough pain medications such as oxycodone or morphine.
"Those [pharmacies] in white ZIP codes were more than 13 times more likely to have sufficient supplies," says lead researcher Dr. Carmen Green, an anesthesiology professor at the University of Michigan. "I have patients who have to drive 30 miles or more just to get their pain medications."
One characteristic that pain doesn't seem to distinguish is gender: according to Krueger and Stone's study, men and women were nearly equally likely to find themselves in pain. Another is age. People reported more aches and pains as they got older, though surprisingly that pain tended to plateau from ages 45 to 75. "Maybe people reach a point in their career where they move up the ladder into a desk job," Krueger says. "Or maybe they've just learned how to cope with the pain."
.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Health Care Focus
The Hillary Clinton campaign created a media stir over the past couple of weeks when Ms. Clinton told a story about a woman who was denied health care because she couldn't pay. As the story unfolded, she was accused of distortion of the facts and of outright falsehood.
I recommend Paul Krugman's comments in today's edition of The New York Times. Krugman clears up the nature of the facts, demonstrating that the candidate did not tell a lie. She and her staff could have worked a bit harder to get the details of the case clearer before using the story.
More to the important point, Krugman illuminates the tragic stories of health care failure in the United States among the uninsured, working poor. Clinton's point as well.
Must read essay in my view:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/opinion/11krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin.
.
I recommend Paul Krugman's comments in today's edition of The New York Times. Krugman clears up the nature of the facts, demonstrating that the candidate did not tell a lie. She and her staff could have worked a bit harder to get the details of the case clearer before using the story.
More to the important point, Krugman illuminates the tragic stories of health care failure in the United States among the uninsured, working poor. Clinton's point as well.
Must read essay in my view:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/opinion/11krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin.
.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
New partnership means better access to better meds for the working poor in Dallas
Last Wednesday, Central Dallas Ministries (CDM) and CommuniCare, a non-profit organization in South Carolina, unveiled an exciting new partnership that will bring new prescription medicine benefits to thousands of low-income patients.
All of the major pharmaceutical companies in the United States have "indigent patient" medication programs that offer free medicines to low-income patients who qualify. The challenge with these programs has been with the procurement process. Until now, the process involved a physician or other medical staff being required to complete a rather long and tedious application every time a medication was prescribed. The time and administrative paper work requirement made the programs difficult to use, especially for clinics like ours that serve thousands of patients with a limited staff and few volunteers.
CommuniCare, under the leadership of Ken Trogdon, has worked hard over the past several years to develop a relationship with all of the major pharm corporations and a new process of accessing the indigent drug program. Thanks to CommuniCare, now our patients will need to qualify for such programs by means of one annual application and a $20 registration fee. One form and one fee for any and all prescriptions from any of the companies with the programs--huge improvement!
The outcomes for CDM and our patients are exciting. State of the art medications will now be available to patients at no cost beyond the registration fee, a fee we pay when patients cannot. We will achieve significant cost savings that will allow us to purchase more medications that are affordable and treat more patients in our clinic.
Beyond the benefit to CDM, as the new process is perfected here, we hope to "roll it out" across the Dallas area among our indigent health clinic partners.
This new development promises to have major positive consequences for the uninsured working poor men, women and children who come to us for care, as well as for our other partners who face similar challenges.
We are grateful to our partners at CommuniCare who are moving outside the state of South Carolina for the first time in this new initiative. As Ken says, "If we can make this work in Texas, we can make it work anywhere in the nation."
Thanks also to Dr. Jim Walton, Vice-President of Health Equity for the Baylor Health Care System and CDM Board member, for his tireless efforts in seeing this new partnership become a reality.
To view a WFAA Channel 8 television news report on our press conference announcing the new partnership just click on this link:
http://www.wfaa.com/video/index.html?nvid=232336&shu=1
.
All of the major pharmaceutical companies in the United States have "indigent patient" medication programs that offer free medicines to low-income patients who qualify. The challenge with these programs has been with the procurement process. Until now, the process involved a physician or other medical staff being required to complete a rather long and tedious application every time a medication was prescribed. The time and administrative paper work requirement made the programs difficult to use, especially for clinics like ours that serve thousands of patients with a limited staff and few volunteers.
CommuniCare, under the leadership of Ken Trogdon, has worked hard over the past several years to develop a relationship with all of the major pharm corporations and a new process of accessing the indigent drug program. Thanks to CommuniCare, now our patients will need to qualify for such programs by means of one annual application and a $20 registration fee. One form and one fee for any and all prescriptions from any of the companies with the programs--huge improvement!
The outcomes for CDM and our patients are exciting. State of the art medications will now be available to patients at no cost beyond the registration fee, a fee we pay when patients cannot. We will achieve significant cost savings that will allow us to purchase more medications that are affordable and treat more patients in our clinic.
Beyond the benefit to CDM, as the new process is perfected here, we hope to "roll it out" across the Dallas area among our indigent health clinic partners.
This new development promises to have major positive consequences for the uninsured working poor men, women and children who come to us for care, as well as for our other partners who face similar challenges.
We are grateful to our partners at CommuniCare who are moving outside the state of South Carolina for the first time in this new initiative. As Ken says, "If we can make this work in Texas, we can make it work anywhere in the nation."
Thanks also to Dr. Jim Walton, Vice-President of Health Equity for the Baylor Health Care System and CDM Board member, for his tireless efforts in seeing this new partnership become a reality.
To view a WFAA Channel 8 television news report on our press conference announcing the new partnership just click on this link:
http://www.wfaa.com/video/index.html?nvid=232336&shu=1
.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Health Care, Justice, Profit and Racism
"The fact that we don't have universal healthcare is racist."
Vijay Prashad, Associate Professor of International Studies, Trinity College and author of Keeping Up With the Dow Joneses
"The fundamental issue is that we cannot continue to have a healthcare system with profit as its primary goal and expect it to help people become healthy."
Praxis News & Notes (Fall 2003)
The Praxis Project, Washington, DC
Vijay Prashad, Associate Professor of International Studies, Trinity College and author of Keeping Up With the Dow Joneses
"The fundamental issue is that we cannot continue to have a healthcare system with profit as its primary goal and expect it to help people become healthy."
Praxis News & Notes (Fall 2003)
The Praxis Project, Washington, DC
Monday, September 17, 2007
Illness, care and life
The weekend has been a bit unusual. It's also been frightening at times.
It all began Saturday morning. I'd been out for a haircut and had just arrived at home, ready to settle in for some college football, when my mom called.
She reported that she thought my dad was having a stroke. I told her to call 911 immediately and that I was on the way.
When I arrived at the ER in Richardson, my dad was dealing with a nurse and was very confused about where he was and what was happening.
Thanks to a couple of really attentive doctors and some good nurses--especially true of one of his nurses who became his advocate the moment he made it out of the intensive care environment of the ER--my dad "came back" over the course of the next 24 hours.
Now we understand his problems. He likely suffered a mild heart attack, possibly earlier in the week. Compounding that reality are carotid arteries that are 77% and 98% blocked. Surgery could be indicated. But then, my dad is 87-years-old.
Today we will move him to Baylor's hospital in Plano so that his surgeon can evaluate him and they can decide what, if anything, to do next.
Friends have been coming and going since he entered the hospital, mostly from his church and his neighborhood.
He has and will continue to receive lots of care from many people. The nature of his recovery will depend, at least in part, on this caring connection with others, both personal and professional
Illness and life just go together. As life unfolds, illness just shows up. We can count on it.
Care is another matter.
People with deep personal connectons can cash in on the social capital they have in their "account of relationships" when they need to. People are important. Everyone deserves respect, connection and attention. People who enjoy the wealth of these basics of being human just get along better than those who don't.
I've watched low-income folks amass this special variety of capital just as effectively as those who have more income. People can take care of each other in wonderful and amazing ways, whether rich or poor.
Still, my dad enjoys a decided advantage over lots of other people. In addition to lots of friends who care deeply, his high quality health care is guaranteed. He is insured thanks to Medicare and AARP.
Unfrotunately today, almost 50 million other Americans don't have the benefit of such protection and professional care.
Health depends on both varieties of care: personal and professional.
Everyone deserves both.
It all began Saturday morning. I'd been out for a haircut and had just arrived at home, ready to settle in for some college football, when my mom called.
She reported that she thought my dad was having a stroke. I told her to call 911 immediately and that I was on the way.
When I arrived at the ER in Richardson, my dad was dealing with a nurse and was very confused about where he was and what was happening.
Thanks to a couple of really attentive doctors and some good nurses--especially true of one of his nurses who became his advocate the moment he made it out of the intensive care environment of the ER--my dad "came back" over the course of the next 24 hours.
Now we understand his problems. He likely suffered a mild heart attack, possibly earlier in the week. Compounding that reality are carotid arteries that are 77% and 98% blocked. Surgery could be indicated. But then, my dad is 87-years-old.
Today we will move him to Baylor's hospital in Plano so that his surgeon can evaluate him and they can decide what, if anything, to do next.
Friends have been coming and going since he entered the hospital, mostly from his church and his neighborhood.
He has and will continue to receive lots of care from many people. The nature of his recovery will depend, at least in part, on this caring connection with others, both personal and professional
Illness and life just go together. As life unfolds, illness just shows up. We can count on it.
Care is another matter.
People with deep personal connectons can cash in on the social capital they have in their "account of relationships" when they need to. People are important. Everyone deserves respect, connection and attention. People who enjoy the wealth of these basics of being human just get along better than those who don't.
I've watched low-income folks amass this special variety of capital just as effectively as those who have more income. People can take care of each other in wonderful and amazing ways, whether rich or poor.
Still, my dad enjoys a decided advantage over lots of other people. In addition to lots of friends who care deeply, his high quality health care is guaranteed. He is insured thanks to Medicare and AARP.
Unfrotunately today, almost 50 million other Americans don't have the benefit of such protection and professional care.
Health depends on both varieties of care: personal and professional.
Everyone deserves both.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Help me purchase a lift for paralyzed patients
People often ask me, "What can I do to help?"
Well, here is something very specific that you can do today!
We need to purchase this lift to help in caring for a number of our patients who use CDM's Community Health Services as their medical home. All suffer some degree of paralysis. All are largely confined to home and to bed and wheelchair.
All are very poor.
This lift costs $1,100.
If you would like to help purchase this piece of much-needed equipment, please send your donations for this purpose to:
Larry James
Central Dallas Ministries
P. O. Box 710385
Dallas, TX 75371-0385
Or, visit our website and go to the online donations area at http://www.centraldallasministries.org/. You can note "blog campaign" on your donation entry.
Checks should be made payable to Central Dallas Ministries.
So, now you know how you can help in a great way today!
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