Monday, April 13, 2009

APRIL 15, NOT JUST TAX FILING DAY

Mark you calendars. Senator Evan Bayh and Congressman Baron Hill will hold an "informational march" at Warder Park, Jeffersonville from 5:00 to 6:00.

Please try to attend this important event so you can speak to these guys and address any problems/issues you have. One of the most important being Health Care. From what I am hearing, President Obama wants a vote on health care by June 1. If this is going to happen, we had better get on the ball and tell the Congress and the President that single payer health care is the way to go.
We will be there wearing our blue Medicare for All shirts.

See you there.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

We need more of this in NA.

From Tribune:

CHEERS

... to plans by Jeffersonville Mayor Tom Galligan and Councilman Keith Fetz to attend the Green Cities conference in Portland, Ore., next week. Galligan and Fetz seem to have a good grasp of what Jeffersonville could be in terms of becoming more environmentally friendly. Green roofs — essentially vegetation-covered rooftops — and a new yard-waste recycling facility are examples.

Heading to Portland should provide some visuals of what could be.

— Editor Shea Van Hoy

shirley baird said...

Yes we do. How can we persuade Mayor England to follow suit?

The New Albanian said...

Is this Green Cities initiative something the Citizens for Anonymity could take the lead in supporting?

Anonymous said...

Shirley, we do need it. What can we do? I’m not sure that Mayor England is the biggest obstacle to Green investment by the City.

I understand that the City is looking at maybe a new City Hall. Leading by example. Start by use Green Building Standards. Incorporate a Green Roof. This will set an example. While some Green investments cost nothing, some investments do have a cost. The payback (in the form of lower utility costs) can take years. Concerned citizens must make known their support for Green initiatives. Support is important to overcome opposition from the council and citizen “activists” who attack any expenditure by the City.

Also, the city can incorporate Green Building Codes, something that has happened in many other cities. Another option is to increase the cost of a building permit by a few thousand dollars and using the increased revenue to offer financial incentives to those who build/remodel in an environmentally way. Building permits could be dropped to a nominal fee for Green construction or traditional infill jobs. This is not a new idea; environmental impact fees in Florida are such that permits often can top half a million dollars. What I am proposing is much more modest.

Taking the lead on Green building is an area where New Albany can be a regional leader.

Anonymous said...

Tea Party in Indianapolis tomorrow. Be part of the solution. See you all there.

shirley baird said...

There are several activists her in New Albany who support building "green". Ted Fulmore comes to mind. I'm sure there are many others. We need to make our preferences known to the city council.

The next meeting will be Thursday, 4/23 at 7:30. There is a sign up sheet for agenda and non agenda items. It might be a good time to start talking about this since they do have to move the city-county building.

Anonymous said...

Shirley, I like the way you think!

Horatio said...

I have a different kind of tea bagging in mind for today.

Anonymous said...

Tribune today has an article saying Coffey is mad that the West End is not getting more than its fair share. Since when is Coffey being mad news?

Anonymous said...

I watched Indiana Channel-9 tonight. They estimated well over 9,000 protesters in Indianapolis.

Anonymous said...

9,000 protesters. That leaves about 6,000,000 Hoosiers who weren't there.

shirley baird said...

Senator Bayh and Congressman Hill were no shows yesterday at Warder Park but we still had a good rally.

I suppose the "tea parties" took precedence.

Anonymous said...

YOU ARE CORRECT, HE ATTENDED THE INDIANAPOLIS TEA PARTY AND GAVE ONE HELL OF A SPEECH.

Christopher D said...

In regards to medicare for all....
Recently the Family Health Centers had recieved some quite generous stimilus plan payments to help lift the amount of care that our community health centers can offer the uninsured, as well as those with Medicaid as well as medicare.
Suprisingly, we were able to increase our availability for appointments by about 30 to 35 more patient visits per week for general primary care in our Clark County location.
In addition to doubling a physicians hours, we were able to hire additional medical assistants to help increase the efficiency of our primary care offices, and put a full time person in charge of nothing but obtaining medications for the indigent and those with medicare with the benefit of prescription coverage, we can obtain tens of thousands of dollars in free medications from the pharmaceutical companies under these programs.
Where does this fit in to the topic of medicare for all?
With a payment from the stimulus plan, and relatively small payment at that, we can provide up to 1560 additional patient visits in this fiscal year, and all visit fees are based on a sliding scale depending on the patients annual income, and insurance coverage.
Perhaps its time we slow down before we convince government to provide medicare for every man woman and child in America, and take a look at expanding the number of FQHC (federally qualified health centers), where comprehensive care can be provided to families who are under insured.
Seems to me (and coming from a working model of such), that these community health centers offers a better solution for the target population, and in effect can bring down the cost of healthcare to every one by eliminating unwarranted emergency room visits, and better long term management of chronic illness before it becomes a financial burden for both the patient and the providers.
If approximately 1500 FQHC's through out the country are making a differnce, think how well it would do if we had one in nearly every sizeable community.
More information about FQHC's can be found here:
http://www.raconline.org/info_guides/clinics/fqhcfaq.php

shirley baird said...

Christopher D. I am glad that you received funding from the stimulus plan but there are still millions of uninsured people.

What about major surgeries?

We still need health care for all.

shirley baird said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Christopher D said...

Shirely,
Major surgeries are covered, and 98% of our clients get the operation done in kind. The surgeons get to write off the surgery as a tax deductable "charity gift".
The program is working well enough that we are seeing an increase in people WITH insurance trying to scam their way in claiming to be medically indigent.
We also have a large population of clients with medicare A&B, and I have to say, it does not help them much at all, in most cases it seems anymore that they are better off with out it.
trying to find a doctor who accepts medicaid or medicare is becoming increasingly harder, which is why we changed our scope of practice to include such patients.
We would work our fannies off with our case managers to get the clients disability, medicaid or medicare, and they would go out into the "insured" world, and not be able to find a practitioner who would accept any new 'M' patients.
Payments for servcies rendered are so strict, slow, and low that many practioners simply feel that it is not worth it.
If we add tens of millions of uninsured citizens (and non-citizens), given the current shortage of general family practitioners, along with the shortage of medicare accepting practitioners, all we will accomplish is tens of millions of citizens with insurance and no where to go or month upon month of waiting lists to see a provider.
Ask a Canadian...
Even better yet, ask a a client of mine who thought medicare was the solution to not having insurance... You can find them at the clinic everyday because they could not find a provider that either WOULD see them or COULD see them in a resonable amount of time.