Healthcare reform: Patchwork Nation residents weigh in
anna.shoup
Posted: 08.14.2009 / 7:30 AM PDT
People across Patchwork Nation are striking up conversations about healthcare – and not just as they congregate outside town-hall meetings on the subject. Their comments reveal concerns that represent a variety of viewpoints, and the concerns are very real. This isn’t posturing.
“I was in the checkout line in the grocery store, and the lady in front of me started talking about healthcare reform,” writes Emily Beaty of Cleveland, Tenn., in a e-mail. “Everyone is talking about it, even to total strangers. She told me all about her mother’s health problems and how she is afraid her mother will not be able to get proper care. I could see the fear in her eyes and hear it in her voice.”
Cleveland, Tenn., a socially conservative “Evangelical Epicenter,” is in a solidly Republican county. Many of the people there don’t want the government to get too involved in their healthcare decisions.
“We do not believe for a minute that the government could manage a successful healthcare program. It would be a disaster!” e-mails Jerry Noble, also of Cleveland.
As we discussed earlier this week, attitudes about reforming the healthcare system vary greatly across Patchwork Nation. In some communities, polarizing town-hall meetings have left people looking for a moderate voice.
Chris Krehmeyer, a resident of St. Louis, an “Industrial Metropolis,” writes about the town halls held by Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D), who has faced some rowdy crowds opposed to changes.
“This discussion should be without frightening words and rhetoric,” Mr. Krehmeyer says in an e-mail. “It should be about: How do we as a society value our neighbors, family, and friends and ensure that those who need access to healthcare get it?”
Here’s one reason that healthcare reform has caught the attention of Americans: Many health-insurance plans are tied to employers – when the US is in a recession, and hundreds of thousands of workers are unemployed.
“Healthcare coverage being offered by my employer is one of the major factors in deciding to continue to work full time after I have my child,” writes Amanda Donatelli, a marketing specialist for Western Reserve Public Media in Akron, Ohio, a “Campus and Careers” community. “My husband doesn’t have benefits through his current position, and the cost of paying for them out of pocket would be very expensive.”
She adds in her e-mail, “If we had universal healthcare, I may consider working part time or other arrangements.”
Fellow Akron resident Jessie Raynor used her recent experience with a costly surgery to argue for a universal healthcare plan. Had she paid the full bill, it would have added up to two-thirds of her yearly salary as the director of the Akron Area Arts Alliance. No doubt, paying without insurance could push some people into bankruptcy.
“It was hard enough writing a check for the $1,751 deductible,” Mrs. Raynor explained in a recent Patchwork Nation post. “It is more important than ever that our (well-insured) government leaders come up with a universal healthcare plan.”
August 14th, 2009 at 7:53 am PDT
If you would like to stand up for single payer health care (medicare for all) in a democratic and constructive way please consider joining our voting bloc at:
http://www.votingbloc.org/Health_Bloc.php
August 14th, 2009 at 1:52 pm PDT
This discussion “should be about: How do we as a society value our neighbors, family, and friends and ensure that those who need access to healthcare get it?”
I’m sorry, but I believe that is absolutely wrong, and exactly what’s wrong with the national debate: we are talking about spreading and propping up a horribly expensive, dangerous medical establishment that exists to “manage” illness by life-long and snowballing lists of prescriptions and greater and greater amounts of money. It’s like watching a giant, bloated, putrifying pumpkin and trying to resuscitate it instead of putting effort and attention in the healthy seedling next to it. Millions of people have learned what’s a really healthy diet and the power of herbs and supplements to maintain a healthy body. They’re using acupuncture, meditation, exercise, etc., all of which is left out of the healthcare debate going on.
Terminal heart patients have been given life and energy back through injections of THEIR OWN stem cells in Brazil, Thailand, Germany and elsewhere. No sawing across ribs, no life-long drugs to suppress your own immune system, etc. Yet Americans cannot get this treatment because of its threat to profits of cardiologists and pharma. The FDA has been extremely obstructionist and last year even decided that a person’s own personal stem cells must be treated as a drug that needs clinical trials to prove safety and effectiveness.
This system is falling under its own obese corruption and we need to let the evolutionary revolution continue, not impede it by committing future trillions in a failed medical system.
August 14th, 2009 at 4:05 pm PDT
For a healthcare reform to work in this country it needs to be accompany by also immigration reform, education reform, and gun ownership reform. Unfortunately common sense and the common good are lacking in this country.
August 14th, 2009 at 4:50 pm PDT
I’m thinking there’s a simple rule in answer to finding a health care plan that will be good for all. It is this:
Whatever the elected officials decide upon - they have to use as their own health plan.
August 14th, 2009 at 11:37 pm PDT
Mrs. Raynor should be paying attention, the house bill sets the deductible at 10k a year for the public plan - that’s 6k more than we have to pay now. The government can not do anything cheaper, that’s the biggest lie of all.
August 15th, 2009 at 12:23 pm PDT
With the half truths, the misinformation, the lobby of all related health care, and insurance companies and their attacks against national health care, will the truth come out? The wellfare they espouse is their own. The message has to get out about the health care in those countries that have it and how far behind we are. The reality of their health care and related costs and success is a must. Is it perfect? No! But it far more realistic and workable than what we have. Do you remember the moaning and crying of the medical community when medicare came in. Guess what? Most of them got rich off of it.
August 16th, 2009 at 3:26 pm PDT
I’ve always thought “feeding the multitudes” was about the way that one act of kindness begets another, how a field of kindness can blossom from each of us when we reach past our fears to that faith that says there is something more and greater than ideas of finite scarcity that fuel so much of the woes of our world. When I look at the health reform debate, I see many people fearing that the benefits they have (and need to keep) will diminish if they must share those benefits with others. But I don’t think that’s the whole picture - I think that’s a mistaken view based on the idea of scarcity. Is it possible that something more profound is afoot? Is it possible that, if more people were assured that they had access to health care no matter what misfortune befell them, a great burden would be lifted that would release us all from being held hostage to these fears? Is it possible that release from fear would allow abundance to blossom? As when we shift from worrying about the problem to solving the problem. The legislation under consideration addresses such current problems as losing one’s health insurance when most needed (recission), or not being accepted by insurance companies (pre-existing conditions), or running out of coverage (annual or lifetime caps), or avoiding office visits that could actually prevent illness or disease from getting a foothold (unaffordably high deductibles), or being hostage to a terrible job to keep the insurance one has (portability). All of these failures of our current health care system rob us of the lightness of heart that we experience when we all band together to help each other — did you feel it after 9/11 when we came to the aid of our neighbors? That community spirit that pulled us together after 9/11 didn’t diminish us, it enlivened us, it made us better people, it made us shine. It made the loaves and fishes multiply. We have a moment such as that right now. We have the opportunity to put behind us that fear of scarcity and work toward health care for all that serves all of us in a more wholesome way. We can address our pragmatic concerns. (As in the incentives being drafted to increase the number of primary care physicians to serve in underserved areas.) We need to start somewhere — with goodwill. The House bill is a good starting point. We need to remember that all profound change requires a beginning, and then requires vigilant tweaking over time to bring it closer to perfection. Not all parts of any bill will be agreeable to all of us, but that is democracy. And those parts that are most disagreeable with most people will either now or later be resolved, because that is what we do. Let’s have faith in that and in each other. We need to remember, when we say we fear the government — WE are the government - of, by and for the people - and WE are capable of this change, we are capable of good governance. We must require of ourselves the very goodwill and kindness toward others in this debate that we expect for ourselves. I am a senior citizen and I do not fear this change, because I see in it that our energies will be released from fear and made available for productivity, and will multiply.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:03 pm PDT
What you must understand is that the government and the big insurance companies and big pharma are all working together. The insurance companies and big pharma could not make the profits they make without government requiring insurance and the FDA’s requirement that ONLY drugs can treat, prevent and cure disease. Think about it!
The FDA and the FTC no longer protect us, they protect the profits of big pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies. You must realize that these companies will profit hugely from a nationalized system. They control the government through their huge campaign contributions. They want a nationalized system.