Cross-Post: How I Spent My Sunday

Cross-posted from The Neophyte Photographer (Originally posted on Monday, March 18, 2013)

Long-time followers know that I photographed the first ever Medical Outreach Response Event (MORE) last year as my final project for my lighting class.   They held the event again this past weekend and I volunteered to shoot the event. They already had a photographer for Saturday so I showed up yesterday.  Sunday wasn’t as busy as Saturday, but there was still plenty of need.   There are no medical services to speak of in our town. Many of these people are working poor, or disabled, and there are so many hurdles for them to jump over and so many cracks for them to fall through, that the problem feels insurmountable.

Here are just a few shots.

Attendees starting the process at intake.  The clients were screened here and directed to the various areas, depending on their need.

They might need dental work, vision care, help with obtaining affordable insurance or low-cost prescription assistance.  Or all of the above. There was also an immunization clinic to get people up-to-date on their shots, mental health screening, three dental vans, and the Mammovan was there to provide breast cancer screening.

 People shouldn’t have to get their health care in the middle of a high school gymnasium or get their teeth fixed in the parking lot. My country has its priorities all screwed up.

They shouldn’t have to wonder if there is something . . .  anything . . .  they can afford.

A young boy attempts to read the eye chart as the Lions Club volunteer looks on.

Immunization clinic.

She’s a bit nervous.

But she came through with flying colors.

More to come.

Another reason we need Medicare for all

Won’t this be the case with every low wage employer? So why should nursing homes be let off the hook?

It is an oddity of American health care: Many nursing homes and home care agencies do not provide health insurance to their workers, or they pay wages so low that employees cannot afford the coverage that is offered.

The numbers are stark. Among workers who provide hands-on care to nursing home residents, one in four has no health insurance. Among those who provide care to people living at home, one in three is uninsured.

The new health care law is supposed to fix the problem by guaranteeing access to affordable coverage for all. But many nursing homes and home care agencies, alarmed at the cost of providing health insurance to hundreds of thousands of health care workers, have started a lobbying effort seeking some kind of exemption or special treatment.

Please! Medicare for All!

We always pay

Can we just go to Single Payer already?

“This bill would saddle hundreds of thousands of middle-income taxpayers with a hefty tax increase,” said Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee. “We all favor repealing 1099, but to do so on the backs of the middle class is irresponsible. With this legislation, Republicans continue their reckless overreach, this time by gouging middle-income taxpayers.”

UK health care goes the way of the U.S.

And we all know how great our system is.  Read it and weep.

The NHS will undergo a radical pro-market shakeup with hospitals, private healthcare providers and family doctors competing for patients who will be able to choose treatment and care in plans laid out by the government today.

The dramatic shift aims to cull more than 24,000 management staff to reduce bureaucracy and also allow NHS hospitals to chase private patients as long as the money is “demonstrably” ploughed back into the health service. The cap on such income put in place by the previous government will be removed.

The health and social care bill will abolish all of England’s 152 primary care trusts, which currently plan services and decide how money should be spent. Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, said the radical proposals would save the taxpayer more than £10bn over the next decade.

Under the plans, GPs will be responsible for buying in patient care from 2013, with a new NHS commissioning board overseeing the process.

GPs will form consortiums which will take control of 80% of the NHS budget, buying services from providers in the public, private and charity sectors. The health secretary claimed that his policy was already having an effect: with more than 28 milion patients covered by “pathfinder” consortiums mimicking the work of the new GP bodies.

The commenters are livid. Here’s one:

This is an absolute outrage. The government has no mandate whatsoever for dismantling the wonderful NHS – in which manifesto exactly was this? Oh, hang on, it wasn’t, even Cameron didn’t know about this until July.

This is not what patients want. They just want a decent health service nearby where GPs, consultants etc. are focusing on patient care, and not on management or markets or not being sued by the new private providers.

This is not what was needed. Lansley has not bothered to spell out how the NHS was failing because …. it isn’t!

There is no mandate for this. They lied and lied and lied. And they didn’t even win the election.

This wholesale destruction is being carried out by a bunch of trust fund millionaires who think a public service is having your car fixed in the street. When patients start losing out on treatment and dying while the new GP consortia are driving around in BMWs it’ll be too late.

 (H/T Gaius)

I’m not a consumer, dammit

I’m a patient!

Budget proposals from leaders in both parties have urged shrinking or eliminating tax breaks that help make employer health insurance the leading source of coverage in the nation and a middle-class mainstay.

The idea isn’t to just raise revenue, economists say, but finally to turn Americans into frugal health care consumers by having them face the full costs of their medical decisions.

What. The. Fuck.

Oh, yeah, I got my open heart surgery on a lark. And that whole pacemaker thing? Just another “paper or plastic” moment.

Fuck these assholes.

Oh, and another thing, I’m not an American consumer either. I’m an American citizen.

Stunning

Well, no, not really.

Recognizing the problem is always the first step in fixing it. But bringing it up marks us as the Hate America Crowd. Why is that, when all we want to do is fix it?

Here’s the latest such fact, from a new study in Health Affairs by Columbia Health Policy Professors Peter A. Muennig and Sherry A. Glied (h/t):

In 1950, the United States was fifth among the leading industrialized nations with respect to female life expectancy at birth, surpassed only by Sweden, Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands.  The last available measure of female life expectancy had the United States ranked at forty-sixth in the world.  As of September 23, 2010, the United States ranked forty-ninth for both male and female life expectancy combined.

Just to underscore the rapidity of the decline, as recently as 1999, the U.S. was ranked by the World Health Organization as 24th in life expectancy.  It’s now 49th.  There are other similarly potent indicators.  In 2009, the National Center for Health Statistics ranked the U.S. in 30th place in global infant mortality rates.  Out of 20 “rich countries” measured by UNICEF, the U.S. ranks 19th in “child well-being.”  Out of 33 nations measured by the OECD, the U.S. ranks 27th for student math literacy and 22nd for student science literacy.  In 2009, the World Economic Forum ranked 133 nations in terms of “soundness” of their banks, and the U.S. was ranked in 108th place, just behind Tanzania and just ahead of Venezuela. 

In case you missed it

Seriously, the Republicans got a two-fer. They got the Democrats to pass their plan, and they get to run against it in November.

Jon Walker at Firedoglake: New Health Care Law a Republican Plan That Should Make Insurance Companies Proud

The new health care law championed by Obama is strikingly similar to the Republican alternative to Clinton’s health care plan put forward by Sen. John Chafee (R-RI), and has basically the same structure as the Heritage Foundation plan from the same time. Does this description of it in Reason sound familiar?

In a nutshell, Heritage proposes that consumers be able to choose from among a host of health-care options ranging from traditional insurers to health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Using refundable tax credits that decrease as income grows, Heritage would empower families to choose plans on the basis of coverage, service, and price. As part of the “healthcare social contract” thus formed, Butler says, heads of households would be required by law to buy basic health-care coverage “to protect society from citizens who would try to exploit the good nature of ordinary Americans” by free-riding on the system.

The tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance would be phased out, in favor of the family-based tax credit. Families could still choose to join group plans. But by helping people buy insurance directly, rather than relying on employers to provide it, Heritage would solve the “portability” problem, in which employees are trapped in undesirable jobs because they’re afraid of losing health coverage.

Butler and health-care analyst Edmund Haislmaier introduced the key elements of the Heritage plan in a 1989 book, A National Health System for America. In 1992, Heritage began to tout the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) as a model for how a national consumer-choice system in health insurance might function. Robert Moffit, deputy director of domestic policy studies at Heritage and a former manager of FEHBP, became one of the foundation’s key spokesmen on the issue.

Heritage’s embrace of FEHBP–a regulated and flawed government program, according to some critics–nevertheless provided a great “hook” that may well have enhanced the foundation’s overall sales pitch on health-care reform. As voter disaffection with elected leaders soared, Heritage could say, “What is available for Congress and its employees should be made available to every American family.” This message resonated with the public.

An individual mandate forcing people to buy private insurance on an exchange with a sliding scale of tax credits and the program is paid for by phasing out the tax deduction for employer-provided insurance. Sound familiar?

Monday morning news

I pretty much took the weekend off and tried to have a real life. Here’s just a couple of things I read this morning while sipping my coffee.

I shocked! Shocked I tell you!  You know, maybe it would have been a good idea to have gone over the bill with a fine tooth comb before it was voted on. Oh, and letting the insurance industry write the bill? Another bad idea.

Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions. But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the “availability of coverage” for all until 2014.

Huh. Junk food is addicting. Who knew?

A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. When rats consume these foods in great enough quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction, the study found.

Anyone who has ever done Atkins knows that no matter what, there is only so much fat and protein one can consume, so I find it very interesting that CNN is headlining fatty foods when in all likelihood, it’s the high fructose corn syrup so prevalent in junk food. Musn’t upset their sponsors, I suppose.

I guess everyone is thinking that if they’re going to go bankrupt, they might as well be comfortable.

U.S. consumer spending rose as expected in February for a fifth straight month, while stagnant incomes pushed savings to their lowest level since October 2008, a government report showed on Monday.

At least they are calling it terrorism.

The investigation is believed to be targeting members of Hutaree, a militia group that claims to be Christian-based. According to local law enforcement reports, several members of that group were arrested during a raid at a service near Ann Arbor  for a Hutaree member who died recently.             

AnnArbor.com reported last week that several Hutaree members were recently involved in police searches after two residents went missing in separate incidents.  Hutaree is an organization based in Adrian, Michigan. It’s members describe themselves as Christian soldiers who are preparing for the arrival and battle with the anti-Christ.     

Dear God, save us from your followers. Oh. Wait.

Black Agenda Report: Fake Fight over Fake Health Care Reform

Bruce Dixon’s excellent recap of just how this bill came to be, what it doesn’t do for Americans and who Obama considers to be his real enemy.

Obama Democrats VS Tea Party Republicans: A Fake Fight Over Fake Health Care Reform

The fifteen month running battle between Obama Democrats and tea party Republicans was never much more real than televised professional wrestling. Like the opposing wrestlers, both sides work for the same bosses, for Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and the biggest medical providers. The real health care fight waged by the Obama administration has not been against Republicans, who never had the votes to stop, let alone dictate or pass anything.

The administration’s effort all along has been to pass the worst bill possible, with the greatest amounts of corporate welfare and loopholes, and the fewest protections for patients, while silencing, neutering and coercing the voices of most Democrats, who have favored some form of single payer, or Medicare For All from the beginning.

[...]

The margin and distribution of votes last weekend reveals White House effort to blame Republican obstruction and Democratic progressives for the delay in passing health care to have been utter scams. Not one Republican voted for the bill, and no Republican votes were ever needed. While the White House allowed 26 of 58 Democratic Blue Dogs to vote against the bill, including Art Davis of Alabama and John Marshall and John Barrow of Georgia, it applied incredible pressure against Dennis Kucinch and other advocates of single payer to line up behind the pro-corporate, anti health care bill. They, and the movement for real universal health care, for single payer, were the White House’s real foes.

Dixon claims the battle is not over.  He may be right. They say it’s always darkest before the dawn.

It’s Not Over. For the next several years 18 or 20 thousand people will sicken and die each year who don’t have to, thanks now to Barack Obama and his hand picked Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. The most awful failures of this legislation will not be obvious for several years, as most of it does not even take effect till 2014. More than six hundred thousand bankruptcies truggered by unpayable medical expenses will continue to happen yearly at least till then, with their numbers not greatly reduced on the other side.

The Single Payer Movement, among whose leading organizations are the National Nurses Union, HealthCare NOW, and Physicians For a National Health Care Plan are preparing for a long struggle. Not this year or the next, but in a decade or less, many predict, single payer will be enacted. California has passed single payer three times now, but has never had a governor with the guts to sign it. Pennsylvania and a few other states are thought to be close to passing single payer on their own. That’s how it happened in Canada. One province did it, everybody saw how it worked, and it became national policy.

In health care, as in war and peace, as in the environment and education, as in the rights of women and immigrants, the First Black President’s historic role is clear. His job is to smile and speechify and neutralize the left on every front, while taking the country further to the right than his white Republican predecessor would ever have been able.

PNHP: A false promise of reform

Physicians for a National Health Program on the the new HCR bill:

As much as we would like to join the celebration of the House’s passage of the health bill last night, in good conscience we cannot. We take no comfort in seeing aspirin dispensed for the treatment of cancer.

Instead of eliminating the root of the problem – the profit-driven, private health insurance industry – this costly new legislation will enrich and further entrench these firms. The bill would require millions of Americans to buy private insurers’ defective products, and turn over to them vast amounts of public money.

The hype surrounding the new health bill is belied by the facts:

• About 23 million people will remain uninsured nine years out. That figure translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually and an incalculable toll of suffering.
• Millions of middle-income people will be pressured to buy commercial health insurance policies costing up to 9.5 percent of their income but covering an average of only 70 percent of their medical expenses, potentially leaving them vulnerable to financial ruin if they become seriously ill. Many will find such policies too expensive to afford or, if they do buy them, too expensive to use because of the high co-pays and deductibles.
• Insurance firms will be handed at least $447 billion in taxpayer money to subsidize the purchase of their shoddy products. This money will enhance their financial and political power, and with it their ability to block future reform.
• The bill will drain about $40 billion from Medicare payments to safety-net hospitals, threatening the care of the tens of millions who will remain uninsured.
• People with employer-based coverage will be locked into their plan’s limited network of providers, face ever-rising costs and erosion of their health benefits. Many, even most, will eventually face steep taxes on their benefits as the cost of insurance grows.
• Health care costs will continue to skyrocket, as the experience with the Massachusetts plan (after which this bill is patterned) amply demonstrates.
• The much-vaunted insurance regulations – e.g. ending denials on the basis of pre-existing conditions – are riddled with loopholes, thanks to the central role that insurers played in crafting the legislation. Older people can be charged up to three times more than their younger counterparts, and large companies with a predominantly female workforce can be charged higher gender-based rates at least until 2017.
• Women’s reproductive rights will be further eroded, thanks to the burdensome segregation of insurance funds for abortion and for all other medical services.

This bill’s passage reflects political considerations, not sound health policy. As physicians, we cannot accept this inversion of priorities. We seek evidence-based remedies that will truly help our patients, not placebos.

A genuine remedy is in plain sight. Sooner rather than later, our nation will have to adopt a single-payer national health insurance program, an improved Medicare for all. Only a single-payer plan can assure truly universal, comprehensive and affordable care to all.

More at link.