Do Unto Others - and Wreck Healthcare Reform?

This is so guaranteed to make your head explode. When I heard the minister say that people essentially ‘get’ the diseases that their bad lifestyle choices give them, I nearly went through the ceiling. Uh, is he suggesting that my breast cancer was the result of bad lifestyle choices?

Aaarrrggghhh!

-maven

Just watched this on HD Net Dan Rather Reports.

“When Congress passed the controversial health care bill conservatives across the country vowed to fight it. But it turns out that there’s an interesting provision in the bill – one that provides an exemption for members of what are called “health-care-sharing ministries”. The ministries have been around for years as a Christian alternative to traditional health insurance, but they have suddenly become big news for those who want out of Obama’s health care law. The ministries distribute their members’ medical bills among other members – all of whom have to make certain lifestyle commitments. Members are in good standing only if they are celibate outside of heterosexual marriage and drug-free; weekly church attendance is mandatory.”

Friday Fish Wrap: December 3. 2010

Gawd, there’s another week down. Monday started out with about two hours of awesome skiing and Thursday offered high winds that nearly took me off the top of Mt. Rose. It was a dark and stormy morning, that could only result in tucking tail - literally - and sliding my wimpy butt off the mountain to get my blue, shivering little hands wrapped around some hot coffee.

Perhaps that’s one reason a wholesome and heartfelt Hanukkah dinner tasted oh, so good. Suggie may not be able to make gravy, but her matzo ball soup, latkes and salmon are to die for. My gallbladder even chose to ignore the schmaltz in the chicken soup and sour cream on the latkes.  Hanukkah isn’t really a huge religious holiday - more a commemoration of a battle long ago and the rededication of the temple. In America, it’s proximity to the pagan holiday of Christmas - co-opted by christians - is coincidental. But I’ll take it all the same.

I’ve been fighting the epic annual battle of the allergy season. First came the itching. Then the sneezing. My nasal passages are welded as tightly shut as a schoolgirl’s knees. Neti pot and all can’t budge it open. Only drugs, my friends, can do the trick.

So - standing as brave and tall as 5 foot 3 inches gets you - drugs it is.

                                                                   

Talking about standing tall, this monster (shown at left) is from a friends garden, and I think it’s on the menu for Sunday night.

I’m hoping it comes with a hollandaise sauce rather than batteries. Right, Dossie?

I wish there’d been more in the way of pharmacoepia around here last night. Neither of us was sleeping. With Mr. Maven thrasing about with the pain in his shoulder - now the medical community has decided it’s a pinched nerve between C6 and C7 - I gave up to wide open eyes as well. He sat in the recliner reading whilst I played computer solitare from oh, 0230 to about 0430 hours.

Swell. Oh, to be young again, and able to sleep blissfully through anybody else’s pain.

Have you ever wondered why it’s so easy to sleep right through the deliciously sinful hours of 0700 and 0800 hours?

Did you see the headline in the Reno Gazette-Journal on Thursday morning? $8.3 billion requested by state agencies minus $5.3 billion of projected state revenue over two years … what’s $3 billion between friends, eh? That’s the supposed shortfall that the State of Dismay, aka Nevada, faces. Or as state Assemblywoman, Debbie Smith, so eloquently put it “That’s a pretty big hole”. Yup.

How, I ask you, will incoming Guv, Brian Sandoval tackle this challenge? New taxes, perhaps? Noooooooo! The so-called experts are now telling us that we need to diversify the Nevada economy beyond the unholy siamese twins of mining and gaming. Whoa. Who woulda thunk it? And just how fast do you think that magical diversification will happen?

Here’s what really scares the living daylights out of me - what’s going on here, is happening in Washington D. C. on a much larger scale.

I don’t think Brian Sandoval is a complete nimrod - especially when compared to the outgoing idiotic oozing pustule of a governor - but the true test of Sandoval’s mettle will be whether or not he tries to take any more out of the hide of education and sorely needed social services. It’s called punishing the victims. Not like we could ask gaming to step up.

Las Vegas, riding high back in the day, has fallen. Not quite as far as Dublin, Ireland or Thessaloniki, Greece mind you, but you can practically hear Oscar Goodman claiming permanent neck and back injuries and interviewing personal injury attorneys. What we didn’t hear him clamoring for was economic diversification. Nor were any other of the civic wheeler-dealers around the state. They were so comfy, doing what they’d always done, and getting the payoffs they’d always gotten.

Look outside, folks. That’s the cold, cruel light of day.

Continuing to push the TeaNut dope that it’s all Obama/Reid/Pelosi’s fault might soothe some, but all the rest of us are going to somehow have to come to grips with reality - Nevada knew exactly what a flimsy house of cards they had built, and didn’t fucking care as long as the money kept rolling in.

Earth calling Nevada - Hey, kids are Mommy or Daddy at home?

If you think education is the only thing sucking fumes here in the Silver State, then you haven’t had cancer.

I had lunch today with a woman who has Stage IV breast cancer, and after hearing her story, I came away emotionally shell-shocked. The so-called ‘system’ in Nevada has done it again. As in completely failed to provide a reasonable continuum of care and treatment. And if you think she is some under-educated ne’er do well, think again. She’s a retired Registered Nurse. And she is probably facing a recurrence.

But she doesn’t really know for sure yet, since she can’t get answers out of her oncologist. The guy is an arrogant prick who probably needs to be brought up on charges by his peers. Not content to simply be an ego who doesn’t want to be bothered by the silly ideas of women worried about their boobs, but one who seems to bring “creepy” to his doctor-patient interactions. She’s not the first one to tell me this.

I guess the most important thing we talked about today was the need to be her own advocate. To rattle the cage. Insist that phone calls be returned. To get another oncologist if need be. And maybe to go out of the area to a multi-disciplinary cancer center.

She needs help. I wish I could drop everything as I have in the past and give it - beyond names, websites,  phone numbers, suggestions. That could’ve been me eight years ago, but for a couple of very fortunate phone calls and a loving, dedicated husband to stand by me. I was able to get ‘out of Dodge’ and go where my life could be saved.

I’ll go to bed tonight wondering how some people can still think the United States is the center of the best of everything when good people can’t get good medical care. Illegals didn’t cause this problem. Neither did Obama, or Liberals, or any of the other bogeymen that TeaNuts like to blame.

A seriously broken for-profit centered healthcare delivery system is what caused it. Oh, and the political gutlessness to change it once and for all. If you don’t realize that congressional ‘gridlock’ has real life consequences, think again.

This woman’s life is one of those ‘consequences’.

-maven         

'Nothing': Defines the Angle campaign pretty well

The fact that Angle can’t think of a single thing medical insurance companies should be mandated - forced - to provide to you the insured is so very telling.

As Reid said during the debate, the insurance companies are their to provide necessary and lifesaving things like colonoscopies and mammograms out of the goodness of their hearts.

“Insurance companies … don’t do things out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it out of a profit motive and they have almost destroyed our economy,” Reid fired back.

Too true. As a breast cancer survivor and advocate, I can tell you that I’ve seen women denied. I’ve seen women torn apart with worry about the ‘maybe’ of that ‘odd’ thing they feel in their breast.

That isn’t right. That’s cruel.

That’s not what civilized societies do to their citizens.

It is what Sharron Angle would do.

That’s not what Harry Reid would do.

He gets it.

More than 287,000 Nevadans Will Be Eligible for Health Care Premium Tax Credits in 2014

That awful Harry Reid and his Obamacare! Who amongst the true believers would want new tax cuts to help out with medical insurance premiums?

Me! A tax cut? Sign me up, please! I’ll take it. Can I be first in line?

Don’t let any of those TeaNuts have any. They don’t want or need anything from the ‘guvmint’ anyhow.

The following was released by the non-partisan FamiliesUSA

As Part of the Huge and Unprecedented Middle-Income Tax Cut, Nevadans’ Taxes Will Be Reduced by $1.1 Billion in 2014

Washington, D.C.—In Nevada, 287,400 people will be eligible for new tax cuts beginning in 2014 that will significantly reduce the cost of private health insurance for those individuals and families. The historic tax cut in the health reform law, which is estimated to reduce nationwide income taxes by more than $110 billion in 2014 alone, will be provided through tax credits to offset a portion of the cost of health insurance premiums, and Nevadans’ tax reductions will approximate $1.1 billion in that year.

Those are among the key findings of a report for Nevada released today by the health care consumer group Families USA, which commissioned The Lewin Group to use its economic models to estimate how many individuals in the state would benefit from the new premium tax credits.

Titled “Lower Taxes, Lower Premiums: The New Health Insurance Tax Credit in Nevada,” the report also states that the vast majority of Nevadans who will be eligible for the premiums tax credit—96 percent—will be in working families.

• Approximately 256,400 people, the majority of those who will be eligible for the credits, will be in families with a worker who is employed full-time.
  
  
• Another 20,000 people will be in families with a worker who is employed part-time.

The new tax credit targets middle-income families. For families of four, the tax credits—provided on a sliding scale—are focused on families with annual incomes between $29,327 and $88,200.

• People with annual incomes at or above 200 percent of the federal poverty level, $44,100 for a family of four in 2010, will constitute two-thirds (66 percent) of the people who will be eligible for a premium tax credit.
  
  
• Because the size of the tax credit is determined on a sliding scale based on income, however, more than half of the dollars from the tax cut (56 percent) will be targeted to families with incomes below 200 percent of poverty.

“This is the largest middle-income tax cut in history, and it will enable many hard-working Nevadans to afford health insurance premiums that have stretched family budgets,” said Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA.

“The tax cut will not only put significant extra cash in Nevadans’ pocketbooks, but it will also ease the burden of families’ growing health care costs,” Pollack said.

There are about 143,200 uninsured Nevadans who will be eligible for the tax credits, and another 144,200 eligible people are currently insured but are still struggling to afford coverage.

###

Families USA is the national organization for health care consumers. It is nonprofit and nonpartisan and advocates for high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.



Monday Musings, March 8, 2010

If your Monday is an indicator of the rest of the week, this should be a disaster. Nothing went right. If I could lose it, I did. If I could miss it, I did. It was so nearly a giant CF. The good news is that the rest of the day went reasonably well.

Things got off to a badish start last night. I’d taken a month long ‘rest’ from my chemo-suppressant, Arimidex. It was time buck-up and start taking it again. The side effects make you wonder if the cure isn’t worse than the disease. But since the disease, breast cancer, is probably worse - a Stage IV recurrence isn’t curable at all - that I have to find a way to manage the freakin’ side effects. But, I understand why so many women opt to go off of it and take their chances.

Sigh. Vanity, thy name is woman. I want hair. Hair that actually grows. Hair that isn’t thinning and falling out. Of course, leaving the extreme heartburn, joint pain and water retention behind would be cool, too.

This brought to mind the conversations Mr. Maven and I have been having about the cost of our prescriptions now.

It’s grim

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Al Franken recommends a Pledge and Pass strategy

I just got this in today’s email from Al Franken (D-MN):

Dear Maven:

This week President Obama asked Congress to stand strong and finish the job of fixing our busted health insurance system. I couldn’t agree more, and now we’ve got a plan to get this done.

I’m calling this strategy “Pledge & Pass,” and it’s a simple, two-step plan for passing meaningful health insurance reform. I believe it’s our job as public servants to actually serve the public, and ending the suffering of millions of Americans under our current system is exactly what our constituents expect and deserve.

Here’s the plan.

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Public Option may be do-able. Where does your Senator stand?

Let your Senator know that he/she has done the right thing by supporting a yea/nay vote - via budget reconciliation or otherwise - on a public option for health care reform:

From Howard Dean’s website, Stand With Dr. Dean, here’s a rundown on those Senators who have publically declared their support for the public option ( those against it come later, so scroll down) so let them know you love them :

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Read Robert Reich on healthcare reform

I simply adore Robert Reich - well, Mr. Maven comes in ahead of him hands down in other ways, but still… Reich is able to call ‘em as he sees ‘em.

That’s a quality all too rare in this day and age of political correctness and ideological posturing.

FYI: Read my post on just what a reconciliation vote is.

Read on:

 It’s Time To Enact Health Care With 51 Senate Votes

Sunday, February 21, 2010

This week the President is hosting a bipartisan gab-fest at the White House to try to tease out some Republican votes for health care. It’s a total waste of time. If Obama thinks he’s going to get a single Republican vote at this stage of the game, he’s fooling himself (or the American people). Many months ago, you may recall, the White House and Dem leaders in the Senate threatened to pass health care with 51 votes – using a process called “reconciliation” that allows tax and spending bills to be enacted without filibuster – unless Republicans came on board. It’s time to pull the trigger.

Why haven’t the President and Senate Dems pulled the reconciliation trigger before now? I haven’t spoken directly with the President or with Harry Reid but I’ve spent the last several weeks sounding out contacts on the Hill and in the White House to find an answer. Here are the theories. None of them justifies waiting any longer.

1.    Reconciliation is too extreme a measure to use on a piece of legislation so important. I hear this a lot but it’s bunk.

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Pelosi willing to get real about health care reform

I admit that I didn’t used to care much for Nancy Pelosi. I’ve come a long way and it’s statements like this - on bandaid fixs for health care - that did it for me:

“There are some things that sound easy, but you might as well send somebody a get well card, because they don’t have any more impact, except maybe they make you feel good for the moment,” said Pelosi, who paused and rethought her comparison.

“Maybe a get well card might be more effective, as a matter of fact, because it’s sincere,” she said.

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Michael Pollan: a different way to fix the health care crisis

Pollan has some new and intriguing ideas about how to make our country healthier, needing less expensive health care - and at the same time helping the planet and the’ Mom and Pop’ economy in his new book, ‘Food Rules: An eaters manual’. This is the most welcome followup to ‘In Defense of Food: An eaters’ manifesto’.

I believe that 2010 could be a pivotal year in which we can all become activists - food activists. Despite our other differences, we all need healthful, sustainable food to nourish both our bodies, minds and communities.

This could be the map you - and your family -  use to begin. Get your entire family enlisted as food activists.

Today.

From the Huffington Post

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Monday Musings: December 14, 2009

While Reno sat, mired in a fogbank today, I finally got up to Mt. Rose for a long anticipated inauguration of the ski season. True to form, I skied so badly that - like every year - I wondered what they heck I was doing up there at my advanced age and infirmity. I go through this every year, as I’ve been since I started skiing in … I don’t know, about Hrrrmhummmph. It was the 70’s.

The good news is that by the end of the season, I’ve worked all these little self confidence issues out and life is truly grand.

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Join PLAN for a Have a Heart, Save Lives rally

Reno,Nevada – This Thursday at 11:00am, health care reform organizers and advocates with Nevada Health Care for America Now and PLAN will request Senator Ensign and Congressman Heller to support comprehensive health care reform at the “Have a Heart, Save Lives” Rally.

The Grim Reaper and Ghosts (representing people who have died to lack of health care in Nevada) will participate in the rally to help bolster support for winning good, affordable health care we all can afford with the choice of a strong public health insurance option.

Thursday’s action is one of more than 40 taking place nationwide through Halloween. The actions include leafleting, press conferences in front of insurance company buildings, generating calls to Congress, calling out insurance industry executives and board members working to spook Americans to protect their profits, and spreading the word that if the insurance companies win, we lose.

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Bill Moyers: Dick Armey, the man behind the marchers

Bill Moyers on who is behind the teabaggers marching against health care reform … Dick Armey, of Freedom Works.

Armey has never known a day of his entire adult life that wasn’t covered handsomely by government sponsored health care, by the University of Texas system or the federal employees system that he has until he reaches age 66.

He so loves his current government sponsored health care program that he has gone to court to keep it - to resist taking Medicare and still draw social security benefits.

Dick Armey is a disingenuous whore.

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Obama says it again, if you didn't get it the first time

There have always been those folks that resist the truth: men really did land on the moon, there really was a holocaust, Obama is a native born American … and no, the pope did not have John Lennon killed. Oh, and trial attorneys are not the only thing wrong with the health care system.

For every event there will be a cadre of loonies and an oversupply of fanciful interpretations of history. I think some people just have a need for fairy tale and drama. They lead boring lives without enough gumption or imagination to do anything constructive about it. Religion proves this.

But then there are those - and they may all belong to the cold, wet Tea Bag coalition - who are just going to be stupidly stubborn. They’re gonna resist all evidence to the contrary in a dogged determination to show everybody that they’re right!

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Obama hits home run on health care reform!

We sat down at 5 p.m. with some degree of trepidation. Would he cave or would he stand tall?

It’s all expressed in this quote:

“We did not come here to fear the future, we came here to shape it.”

Point by eloquently made point, the President took on the naysayers and demagogues, the liars and the fear mongers. He tore them a ‘new one’ and beat them at their own game.

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Heath care reform debate: What is this really saying about us?

Over the weekend I’ve listened to more of the town hall meetings - rancorous, hysterical and filled with bitterness- and read more and more of the comments in the foreign press by citizens of countries with some form of national health care. The difference between the comment threads ‘here’ and ‘there’ is both amazing and depressing. Here: laced with obscenity, personal attacks and free of actual issue related content. There: civil, well reasoned, thoughtful.

What’s going on? It all seems to point to some disturbing possibilities about us, as Americans, and our ability to self govern.

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