Taking Care of Single Mom with Triplets

I could hardly believe my ears when a woman in Michigan told me that she's a single mother with triplets. I immediately wondered if there was anything that I could do to help her if she needed specific help, especially since I love children.

She said she had heard that the U.S. is the ONLY country in the world without health care for all of its citizens. I emphasized to her that the fact has not sunk fully into the minds of U.S. citizens, trying to indicate what a huge injustice it is to the vast majority of us.

So, shortly after the brief chat, I thought once again that WE the citizens of this great country of ours, the United States of America, can help take care of this single mother with triplets ---- and everyone else. "All" we have to do is implement a non-profit national health insurance, such as the extremely efficient single-payer option. All we have to do is demonstrate that we care.

But we must take action
---- www.healthcareforallNOW.org.

Very Angry Medical Biller(s) and a Look to the Future

Very recently I spoke with the husband of a medical biller. He said that every U.S. citizen should see the movie SiCKO. After seeing SiCKO his wife declared that it was all the truth, that what's seen on SiCKO is what happens all of the time. She's very angry about the situation.

I asked him about his wife losing her job when the U.S. implements national health insurance. With a very big smile he said that he'd be very pleased if she lost her job for that reason.

She and others in her billing department (one of two or three billing groups in the organization) make up a group of health care workers: technicians and nurses. In other words, they are highly skilled people who are doing the billing job for various reasons, such as better working hours. But their training is such that they could readily be working as health care workers, helping satisfy the need for an expanded amount of health care activities that will occur when the U.S. implements single-payer national health insurance.

Based on what is written above, I write the following with tears in my eyes:

• A Glimpse of the Future: some of the health care workers might not like the hours as well. But, according to the above words, but they might very much like the caring for people within a more caring society. Wow, that's a very heavy positive thought.
  

Barack Obama On How to Get Single-Payer

I do not like the lack of response to date from Senator Barack Obama and his staff to the repeated requests that he support single-payer national health insurance. Those requests have been given to him by hundreds of people on his own web site.

More importantly, I do not like the lack of a positive response from Senator Obama to the people of New Hampshire, who have made it perfectly clear to him and the entire country what we, the people, want: single-payer national health insurance.

HOW TO GET SINGLE-PAYER
BY BARACK OBAMA

However, I do give Barack Obama credit for being one of my motivators that has me going forward confidently regarding asking people to write notes to their U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators via the U.S. Postal Service.

WRITE NOTES. On April 3, 2007 Senator Obama made it very clear to citizens at his community meeting on health care in New Hampshire that personally-composed notes can and do get results in terms of establishing the health care policy that citizens want.

WRITE NOTES. He also made it clear on that day that he requires citizens to act. He said " ... I have to insist on the voters rallying for this change".

Reference for both of Obama's points and more:
http://www.ninenineohnine.org/pages/2007-04-03_New_Hampshire

WRITE NOTES. I was in his office on November 2, 2007 and heard one of his staff give a constituent the same message: constituents can best give their input by composing it and send it in the mail so that the staff can keep good track of it and respond to it.

Let's follow this popular Senator's advice! Let's keep on writing our notes every three months and get single-payer! --- If you support him, include his campaign office on your list of where you send your notes!

Mind-Boggling Situation and Smiling Health Insurance Companies

ALL of the front-runner U.S. Presidential candidates have health care proposals that do the following for health insurance companies do one or more of the following actions:

• Help keep them in business (over 1500 of them)
• Increase their income from the mandates, forcing people to buy insurance
• Increase their income from government subsidies, since there will be an estimated $100 billion additional spending by the government to cover the uninsured, and much of that money will go to private health insurance companies

It's mind-boggling that this insult is occurring to our global competitiveness and to the financial impact on individuals and families. But I am sure that the health insurance companies are smiling.

Answer: the Profits!

Yesterday I gave two examples of the impact of single-payer:

• Decisions will be more in the hands of medical teams, referring to the 17-year old girl who died the night before
  
• Common sense will still apply regarding medical and economic factors
  

So ... if economic factors still apply, then what is the difference in what we will have with single-payer national health insurance.?

Answer: profits will not influence decision-making!

By having non-profit national health insurance we will no longer have people in private health insurance companies making decisions partly based these topics:

• their bonus checks in their income and
• how well their company performs in terms of its profits and its stock market price

Impact of Single-Payer --- Two Examples

Example #1 - When we have single-payer national health insurance, decisions will be more in the hands of medical teams

Last night, December 20, it was reported by the Associated Press, as seen in Forbes and MSNBC, that 17-year old Nataline Sarkisyan " ... died just hours after her health insurance company reversed its decision not to pay for a liver transplant that doctors said the girl needed."

Example #2 - When we have single-payer national health insurance, common sense will still apply regarding medical and economic factors

Do not think that single-payer national health insurance will mean that a patient can always get everything that he or she wants in terms of medical care. In fact, there is a chance that there will be even more of an uproar of complaints about medical care then compared to now. There are certainly complaints in other countries. However, the average person in those other countries reports a very high degree of satisfaction with health care. They know that they and all of their neighhors have access to health care.

Just two days ago, December 19, the following Associated Press article was reported by MSNBC:

Very obese less likely to get kidney transplant

"Very obese people who need a kidney transplant are far less likely to get one than normal weight people, and when they do, their wait is an average of a year to 18 months longer, a new study found.

The reason seems to be both economic and medical. Very obese people have a greater risk for complications, and the transplant centers often must bear the additional cost of treating those problems."

For more information, see the remainder of the article.

Complexity of Current Health Care Financing -- Unimagineable

This morning I added the following list to "Single-Payer: Comparison to the Current System" under "Complex with Many Costs":

• The medical component of:
• Workers compensation programs
• Medical malpractice premiums
• Auto insurance

And I had thought the previous list was already long about where our tax dollars and out-of-pocket dollars are going for health care. It is truly unimagineable, a word not in the dictionary, but it should be!

Worker compensation programs are, of course, part of the complexity of covering health care, since that is a primary purpose of those programs.

Some people cry out about malpractice premiums. National health insurance automatically eliminates a major portion of the number of dollars for a possible lawsuit claim. Since health care for life is automatically provided, one cannot sue for "health care for the rest of the life of the injured party."

Inputs from others have been helpful. Yesterday as I was spreading the word, someone
strongly suggested that I look on my automobile insurance bill for the words "coordinated medical benefits" for a sizeable portion of my insurance bill. (He was correct!) He also pointed out that this additional health insurance will not likely pay anything if I have to go to the hospital due to an automobile accident. Why? Because this is secondary, not primary, health insurance. Not only that, some people might not even think to submit their health care bills to the automobile insurance company.

I tried a few years ago to document on a flow chart where all the money flows among the private health insurance companies and government programs. I didn't get very far; it was overwhelming. We need to move from complex to simple for the financing of health care!

Here is the link to the above web page.

Raul Grijalva [AZ-7] - U.S. Representative cosponsor of H.R. 676

To U.S. Representative XRaul Grijalva, Arizona 7th District:

Thank you for being a cosponsor for U.S. House Resolution 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act.

When I spoke with three of your staff members in June 2007, they made it very clear that you are a strong supporter of single-payer national health insurance.

Your support is now documented at the at the Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine! web site report regarding Arizona's 7th District.

Regards, Bob Haiducek, Health and Health Care Advocate
Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine! campaign, part of the Health Care for All Movement

Xavier Becerra [CA-31] - U.S. Representative cosponsor of H.R. 676

To U.S. Representative Xavier Becerra, California 31st District:

Thank you for being a cosponsor for U.S. House Resolution 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act.

You are very clear in your excellent audio [mp3] (Health care is a right, not a privilege.) that you support a single payer, universal health care and the reasons why.

Your support is now documented at the at the Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine! web site report of California's 31st District, including a link to your excellent audio.

Regards, Bob Haiducek, Health and Health Care Advocate
Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine! campaign, part of the Health Care for All Movement

Tammy Baldwin [WI-2] - U.S. Representative cosponsor of H.R. 676

To U.S. Representative Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin 2nd District:

Thank you for being a cosponsor for U.S. House Resolution 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act.

Your strong advocacy of single-payer national health insurance is clear from my research, which included finding the following quote of yours, which has been documented at the at the Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine! web site report of Wisconsin's 2nd District:

“We must form a health care for all movement that matches Martin Luther King’s movement for civil liberties,” Baldwin said. – Beloit News 1-16-07

It is my hope that the Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine! "Notes and Votes" campaign will build into a firestorm of inputs to the U.S. Congress that will help to achieve single-payer quickly and, therefore, help to minimize the civil disobedience that may expand from an ever-worsening of the health care situation for an ever-increasing number of Americans.

Regards,

Bob Haiducek, Health and Health Care Advocate
Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine! campaign, part of the Health Care for All Movement

Sanford Bishop [GA-2] - U.S. Representative cosponsor of H.R. 676

To U.S. Representative Sanford D. Bishop Jr., Georgia 2nd District:

Thank you for being the newest cosponsor for U.S. House Resolution 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act. The support level in the U.S. House is now at 20%, as seen at the chart of the Single-Payer Support Monitor.

Thanks for clearly stating at your web site what your position is: “I believe that no American should ever be forced to make a choice between a doctor’s visit and food for his or her family. Health care should be a right, not a privilege for the elite few or a financial obstacle for small businesses. We in government have an obligation to put an end to the disparity.”

Both your support and your quote have been documented at the Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine! web site report of Georgia's 2nd District Supporters.

Regards,

Bob Haiducek, Health and Health Care Advocate
Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine! campaign, part of the Health Care for All Movement