Ablogination

Jul 27 '09

This Is Why We Need National Health Care

02:30:07 pm, Categories: Democraps and Republitards, Obamarama

It’s a simple question. How many free-world countries can you name where the citizens have to pitch a tent and wait all day for care?

Canada? No. Anywhere in Europe? No. Venezuela? Cuba? No.
India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia? No. Israel? Iran?
Nope.
Wow, kinda got out of the “free-world” there and the answer is still “no".
Perhaps there are others, but at the moment all I can think of is us. The good ol’ US of A is the only nation I can think of where this kind of disgrace is present.
And we’re the last place where it should be found.

The annual Remote Area Medical clinic, or RAM, has once again shown it’s deep, abiding love for it’s fellow citizens and shouldered the responsibility of providing dental and other health care for people who, in spite of working hard every day, have no access to any kind of health care.

This fine article by Deb McCown at the Bristol Herald Courier tells the tale.

RAM: A roll of Charmin in a sea of shit

Earl Neikirk/Bristol Herald Courier

By Debra McCown
Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: July 25, 2009

WISE, Va. – It’s not yet 5 a.m., but people are emerging from their cars, a few scurrying to pack up tents and camp stoves, bustling to be ready, hoping to have the opportunity to receive health care.
As wisps of pink sunlight began coloring the clouds, the masses huddle at the gate under a misty dawn, waiting for their numbers to be called.

The grassy parking lot is full. Beyond the fence, the cars are stacked up for miles. A snake of headlights is visible in the semi-dark along the curvy length of Hurricane Road, waiting to access the Wise County Fairgrounds.

These are the modern-day breadlines: people desperate not for food, but for health care.

“We are working taxpaying jobs, paying taxes, and we can’t get insurance because we make $6.55 an hour,” said Laura Head, 32, of Rogersville, Tenn., the first person in line Friday for the first day of the Remote Area Medical clinic, an annual three-day event offering free medical care. “This is really a great beneficial thing, but it doesn’t have to be this way; we could all have insurance.”

A single mother of three who mows yards and moves trailers for a living, Head said she arrived at the fairgrounds Tuesday, to camp out at the fairgrounds until the health fair began Friday morning. Her motivation was simple: severe, constant pain.

Close to two years ago, her boyfriend smashed her teeth, she said – but, without the $6,000 needed to have the teeth pulled she has endured infection after infection, making literally 100 visits to the emergency room for antibiotics and pain medication.

She’s been billed between $240 and $290 a visit, she said – and, even after racking up bills far higher than the cost of extracting the teeth, she was stuck with them.

“I wanted my teeth fixed and I wanted my health problems to be taken care of,” she said when asked why she took such great lengths to be first in line. “I wanted to make sure mine got done.”

Scott Syverud, an emergency room doctor at the University of Virginia who came to volunteer at RAM, said Head’s problem is not unique; dental pain is the most common complaint at American emergency departments.

“I see it every day and every night,” Syverud said. “This is what I see in the emergency department every day, it’s just bigger here. It’s harder to ignore.”

The lack of access to health and dental care is not an Appalachian problem, he said – it’s a problem all across the nation.

“Emergency rooms act as the safety net in this system,” he said, “and that’s at the breaking point.”

Even as a national health care reform bill is prepared for debate in Congress, more than 1,400 volunteers descended on Wise on Friday, with hundreds more signed up for the weekend – but even they were not enough to help everyone seeking care.

“We’ve never had the traffic problem that we had this morning,” said Teresa Gardner, executive director of the Health Wagon, the local organization that coordinates the event. “It’s a record-setting day for sure.”

The work will continue today and Sunday.

Stan Brock, the founder of RAM, said 1,600 numbers were given out Friday to people seeking care – compared with 1,200 last year on the first day. He said the event here has grown every year.

“It’s been like this for years and years and years,” Brock said. “This is not a recent phenomenon, and it’s not peculiar to Southwest Virginia. … Two weeks from now we’ll be in Los Angeles, Calif. – same problem.”

The RAM event, in its 10th year in Wise County, is based on a model designed for the third world, Gardner said – but it’s needed right here in Virginia.

“Our success is a failure of the health care system,” she said. “We’ll get breast cancer [diagnoses] most likely, cervical cancer, lung cancer … about 40 to 50 percent of the patients will require follow-up.”

She said she knows of a young woman, 19 or 20 years old, who is dying of cervical cancer for the simple reason that she didn’t have the money for follow-up care after an abnormal screening result.

Paula Meade, a nurse with the Health Wagon, said she often sees patients who have cut back on their blood pressure medication or other needed care because of cost – and, as a result, come to her with permanent organ damage and worsening health.

She said with economic troubles and rising bills, more people are trying to cut corners – and often they do it with their health, meeting short-term financial obligations at the expense of long-term well-being.

“This is not the solution,” said R. Edward Howell, CEO of the UVA Health System, who also was at the event Friday. “I’ve been registering patients and they all ask the same question: ‘Can I get it all in today, or am I going to have to sleep in my car and come back tomorrow?’ That’s not the way to do it.”

Howell said the solution to America’s health care situation is a complex problem with a complex set of solutions: More patient responsibility for health, more health care workers, more access in remote areas, some mechanism to enable people to pay for care.

There is no simple, easy solution, he said – but he’s glad Washington is engaged in the conversation.

Meanwhile, the people here are busy doing their best to fill in the health care gap.

As the morning sun crested over the mountain Friday, the fairgrounds were bustling – people filling rows of chairs in the waiting line as volunteers in medical scrubs shared goodies and information.

“We recommend that you brush for two minutes every day,” Tori White, a third-year dental student at East Tennessee State University, told those in a growing line of patients waiting their turn for dental care. “And then we ask you to floss every day because a lot of bacteria like to hide between your teeth.”

White said a lot of the dental problems people face could be prevented with education – sometimes something as simple as an explanation on the importance of brushing teeth daily to prevent decay.

While many patients here said the government could do more to help them with medical and dental care, others said they were just glad for the chance to get help now, to stop their pain.

“I’m grateful to be here,” said Jerry Moore, 42, of Big Stone Gap, as we waited in a long line for dental care. “It’s a wonderful place.”

dmccown@bristolnews.com

It’s a beautiful thing, the work done by RAM and it’s blessed staff. But it doesn’t need to be this way. National Health Care will provide the medical personnel of RAM with the capacity to do even more to help others.
But under the present, broken system, they struggle as much to provide as people do to find the care they need.

Americans, sitting in a tent all day to get their child’s teeth worked on.

We should be ashamed. Ashamed enough to contact our representatives and demand, not ask, demand that they support health care reform and the single payer public option.
If your Rep. is a Republican or a Blue Dogshit Democrat. You might remind them that the lion’s share of the shame is theirs and theirs alone.

Blue Dogshit Coalition:

Blue Dog Leadership Team

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Administration
Rep. Baron Hill (IN-09), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Policy
Rep. Charlie Melancon (LA-03), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications
Rep. Heath Shuler (NC-11), Blue Dog Whip

Blue Dog Members

Altmire, Jason (PA-04)
Arcuri, Mike (NY-24)
Baca, Joe (CA-43)
Barrow, John (GA-12)
Berry, Marion (AR-01)
Bishop, Sanford (GA-02)
Boren, Dan (OK-02)
Boswell, Leonard (IA-03)
Boyd, Allen (FL-02)
Bright, Bobby (AL-02)
Cardoza, Dennis (CA-18)
Carney, Christopher (PA-10)
Chandler, Ben (KY-06)
Childers, Travis (MS-01)
Cooper, Jim (TN-05)
Costa, Jim (CA-20)
Cuellar, Henry (TX-28)
Dahlkemper, Kathy (PA-03)
Davis, Lincoln (TN-04)
Donnelly, Joe (IN-02)
Ellsworth, Brad (IN-08)
Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08)
Gordon, Bart (TN-06)
Griffith, Parker (AL-05)
Harman, Jane (CA-36)
Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie (SD)
Hill, Baron (IN-09)
Holden, Tim (PA-17)
Kratovil, Jr., Frank (MD-01)
McIntyre, Mike (NC-07)
Marshall, Jim (GA-03)
Matheson, Jim (UT-02)
Melancon, Charlie (LA-03)
Michaud, Mike (ME-02)
Minnick, Walt (ID-01)
Mitchell, Harry (AZ-05)
Moore, Dennis (KS-03)
Murphy, Patrick (PA-08)
Nye, Glenn (VA-02)
Peterson, Collin (MN-07)
Pomeroy, Earl (ND)
Ross, Mike (AR-04)
Salazar, John (CO-03)
Sanchez, Loretta (CA-47)
Schiff, Adam (CA-29)
Scott, David (GA-13)
Shuler, Heath (NC-11)
Space, Zack (OH-18)
Tanner, John (TN-08)
Taylor, Gene (MS-04)
Thompson, Mike (CA-01)
Wilson, Charles (OH-06)

Permalink 6 feedbacks

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: victorg423 [Member]

In the past some individuals saw the need for a social security program. Naysayers got all excited and got themselves all worked up into a tizzy over their gloom & doom fantasies. Representatives of the United States government eventually enacted the program, and millions of citizens benefitted.

In the past some individuals saw the need for a medicaire program. Naysayers got all excited and got themselves all worked up into a tizzy over their gloom & doom fantasies. Representatives of the United States government finally enacted the program, and millions of citizens benefitted.

Now some individuals see the need for comprehensive health care reform. Naysayers - with the assistance from certain types of relatively backwards & intensely jealous individuals who take offense that an intelligent, morally upright man of color is now the President consequent to the majority of the American people voting him into office - are getting themselves all worked up into a tizzy over their gloom & doom fantasies.

After representatives of the United States government eventually enact true health care reform (which may indeed require some half-way measures beforehand for the sake of political expediency), millions of citizens will benefit.

Progress may be aggravatingly slow occasionally attributable to roadblocks created by certain stubborn and narrowminded types, but it is persevering and inevitable.

That's just the way it is.

Permalink 07/30/09 @ 12:06

Comment from: victorg423 [Member]

Individuals against health care reform often demonstrate that they are essentially against public health care of any kind.

They don't want everyone to have health care services. They are comfortable and are too selfish to consider the general benefits of others having health care.

Health care reform being considered now offers options to the American people.

Health care reform being considered now also currently offers the prospect of future care with an overall lower price tag than it will be if political representatives sit on their posteriors and do nothing - as some of them characteristically do.

Some imagine that 'government' is somehow 'bad' and suggest that 'government' cannot manage health care, the "post office" or "anything else".

Last week, I mailed a package to New York State. The cost was less than $10.

Imagine. For less than $10, I sent a box hundreds of miles. I mailed it Friday, paying no extra fees for expedited delivery or anything, and my friends received it Monday.

The post office is responsible for this remarkable feat - the 'government' post office.

Now, this couple to whom I sent the package - he's able to work and is fortunate to genuinely like his job. He has liked his job for years. She, however, is unable to work any more.

After her 2nd heart attack, she qualified for SSI payments - payments which the 'government' administers. Her SSI helps them enjoy life (and take care of their cats) more than they would be able to if they had to rely on just his salary. The 'government' has never been late in depositing her SSI assistance into her bank account.

Personally, several years ago, I developed some health problems. At the V.A. in Asheville, where I was living at the time, I received some needed health care services - 'government' provided health care services - after an 'interruption' to my private health insurance.

Since then, I have on occassion received services from the V.A. at Mountain Home. My last pair of eyeglasses came from the 'government' managed veterans health care system in Johnson City.

Tri-focals require time to get accustomed to, let me tell you.

Naysayers against 'government', of course, are not really against 'government' programs.

They are just against 'government' programs which are not under their control.

It these types can control the policies of 'government' agencies, then they demonstrate that they have no problems.

If they can use government agencies and/or institutions to implement their dogmas or ideologies, then they have no problem.

If they can utilize 'government' to force everybody to obey them, then they have no problems.

You hear much blather about the imaginary mental construct of 'big government'.

In reality, the only aspect of 'government' that is important is whether or not it is effective. Whether or not it 'works'!

A 'government' needs to be 'big enough' to work effectively and to accomplish its mission - whatever that goal or purpose happens to be.

The 'government' military needs to be big enough to maintain its ends and no larger.

The 'government' department of education needs to be big enough to ensure that verifiable education occurs (and not misused to indoctrinate youth with superstitions and/or mythologies) and no larger.

The 'government' needs to be of appropriate size in order to deal with emergencies like floods, earthquakes, forest fires, etc. And the list goes on and on and on.

As for a misleading statement "power to the people not the government', there is really no such thing as a 'government'.

The 'government' is in reality PEOPLE who happen to work for 'government' at any certain time.

Our decisions must be to select which types of people should have positions in government.

Should they be types who have the best interests of the majority of the citizens of the United States in mind?

Or should they be other types who have only the interests of special interest groups who give them money to enact legislation which offers them benefits of some kind or the other? It's bribery of course, but certain types prefer to refer to it by different labels.

Certain pharmaceutical companies and certain insurance/banking corporations are against health care reform.

They don't want any restrictions on their profits.

They have been parasites for so long that they - and the politicians in bed with them - don't want to kill their 'cash cow'.

Health care decisions should be made by health care recipients and health care providers.

Concerned people in 'government' should be involved with mediating this care in order to facilitate the effectiveness of this care.

Insurance companies, etc., interested in ONLY the 'bottom line', should no longer have the ability to interfere with this health care.

Insurance companies and certain corporations and their toadies need a dose of reality to be delivered to them.

Health care reform will begin the process of giving them this message.

Permalink 07/30/09 @ 12:15

Comment from: victorg423 [Member]

The most important segment of the population to consider, perhaps, when evaluating health care & associated services, is effectively the FUTURE of the United States.

I'm talking of course about the the youth of America. Old people like me are not going to be around 50 years from now.

Within the 2009 KIDS COUNT Data Book, based on information amassed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Commonwealth of Virginia apparently has not done the very BEST job, when comparing all 50 States, in supporting & facilitating various services pertaining to the "health & well-being" of youth. New Hamphire has the 2009 distinction of being 'numero uno'.

Virgina has 'ONLY' the 16th highest rating (North Carolina is #37). That translates into, however, that Virginia has fulfilled its 'responsibilities to the future', in augmenting the positive attributes of constructive environments, so to speak, in a quantifiable 'better' manner than around two-thirds of all the other States have done.

Being #16, as Virginia is, doesn't seem so 'shabby' when utilizing this perspective, does it?

Tennessee, on the other hand, has done a 'better' job than only 4 of the States.

Think about that a moment.

Only 4 States (i.e. Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana & Mississippi) have done a 'worse' job of looking after the "health & well-being" of its youth than Tennessee has done.

45 States have fulfilled their responsibilities in a 'better' manner than the State of Tennessee has done. And by the use of the word, "State(s)", I am referring naturally to the politicians in those States.

Being #46, as Tennessee is, just seems 'shabby' no matter what political slant you may LUST to try to put on it.

The fact that politicians in Tennessee are directly responsibile for inferior results, when compared to all of the other politicians in the other States, is surely tragic - AND UNNECESSARY!

Politicians in Tennessee warrant appropriate consequences for their 'shabby' actions and for their inferior representation of the best interests of the youth in Tennessee.

Health care reform will obviously help all of the youth of the United States regarding their "health & well-being", in addition to contributing to other positive achievements. Those opposed to health care reform essentially demonstrate that they don't care about the "health & well-being" of all youth (possibly just the offspring of the over-privileged and affluent and politically-connected, etc. who already have adequate health care), and they also reveal that they don't care about the future of America.

What a shame this is, and what a disgrace it is as well.

http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Map.aspx?loct=2&ind=137&dtm=10657&tf=38

Permalink 07/30/09 @ 12:16

Comment from: captainkona [Member]

· http://tn420.org

Thus far, and thankfully, the Blue Dogshits have failed to omit the Public Option. It is however still under threat as the Shits are joining the Repigs in pushing "co-ops" that will still leave citizens at the mercy of corporate bureaucracy.
And that of course means that people will be refused care for whatever lame-ass reason some tubby pencil pusher can concoct.

Permalink 07/30/09 @ 12:56

Comment from: victorg423 [Member]

As far as the details go, so to speak:

According to Joe Sudbay on Americablog.vom, "the progressives in Congress, who have largely been ignored by the White House, are not going to accept a weakened bill". 57 members of the Progressive Caucus will not support the Blue Dog compromise and won't vote for a final bill without a public option.

The names of the signatories have been released:
Lynn Woolsey
Raul Grijalva
Carolyn Kilpatrick
Jerry Nadler
Phil Hare
Lucille Roybal-Allard
Keith Ellison
Earl Blumenauer
Mel Watts
Donna Edwards
John Olver
Dennis Kucinich
Laura Richardson
Maxine Waters
John Conyers
Judy Chu
Maurice Hinchey
Hank Johnson
Diane Watson
Jackie Speier
Bill Pascrell
Lloyd Doggett
Marcy Kaptur
Mazie Hirono
Bob Filner
Linda Sanchez
Marcia Fudge
Barbara Lee
Andre Carson
Sheila Jackson Lee
Michael Honda
Jim McDermott
William Lacy Clay
Jim McGovern
Yvette Clarke
Eric Massa
Chellie Pingree
Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Elijah Cummings
Bennie Thompson
Gwen Moore
Donald Payne
Fortney "Pete" Stark
Ed Towns
Corrine Brown
Alcee Hastings
Nydia Valezquez
Luis Gutierrez
Grace Napolitano
Albio Sires
John Tierney
Mike Capuano
Chaka Fattah
Jose Serrano
Sam Farr
Bill Delahunt
Eddie Bernice Johnson

Permalink 07/30/09 @ 20:37

Comment from: captainkona [Member]

· http://tn420.org

Yep!

And today we see the Blue Dogs wasting no time in caving. The Progressives really got the job done and I'm pleased they took a stand.

LINK

"WASHINGTON — Democrats on a key House committee said Friday they have patched up their differences on a health care overhaul, and went back to work confident they can advance the complex legislation.

"We have agreed we need to pull together," said Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Liberals, moderates, and conservatives negotiated late into the night Thursday to reach a deal that would restore some subsidies to help low-to-middle income people pay their health insurance premiums, would preserve a strong public insurance option, and would cut drug costs more deeply, Waxman said.

No details of the deal were immediately available, but Waxman said he intends to formally present it to the committee later in the day, and the panel should pass the bill Friday afternoon.

The full committee resumed its deliberations on the sweeping legislation that seeks to hold down costs and provide health care to nearly all the nation's 50 million uninsured.

The last-minute agreement mollified liberals who were outraged by a deal Waxman struck earlier in the week with conservatives known as the Blue Dog Democrats. Friday, lawmakers from both camps joined him to say they were now in accord."

These Blue Dogshits don't seem to get the gist of things. I can't explain it. They seem to have the mentality of republicans and instead of accepting the fact that the Left is the strength of the Democratic party, they just put they're fingers in their ears, stomp their feet and pretend it's not happening.
Hopefully they'll finally learn... They mess with the Left and we'll bury them.