There have been several news releases about this event but I just want to remind everyone because this is so important. There will be a health care seminar at IUS in the Hoosier Room tomorrow from 8:30 to 12:30. Yes, I know this is early for a Saturday morning but I can guarantee that this is worth it.
The impressive list of speakers include:
Representative John Conyers (D-Mich) author of House Bill 676.
Representative John Yarmouth (D-KY) one of 88 congressional co sponsors of the bill.
Dr. Claudia Fegan of Chicago, past president of PNHP.
Dr. Rob Stone of Bloomington, state director and founder of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan.
On a personal note, I joined this group because I felt sorry for the uninsured people including members of my family and friends. I felt fortunate to have "good" insurance (Anthem) which was provided by my employer. Of course over the years the premiums have increased drastically and so my employer was forced to select a lower level of coverage. It was either that or ask the employees to contribute to a portion of the premiums.
I had a real wake up call a few days ago. I had out-patient surgery on April 30. No big deal, right? Not until I received my bill from Floyd Memorial that is. After Anthem paid the hospital approximately $5,000 and the hospital wrote off around $4,000 I was left with a bill of $2,367.25 or only $2,130.53 if paid before June 13. Needless to say I don't anticipate benefiting from the 10% discount. It just goes to show, you might think you have decent coverage until something happens, then you realize you don't have such great insurance. I know, I work as a medical biller and should have checked out my policy beforehand. But I'm just like a lot of other people. I don't think about something until it happens. Besides, I had little choice, my gallbladder was screaming "get me out of here".
So please come to the seminar tomorrow and hear the truth about single payer health care, not the propaganda on TV and in the papers.
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6 comments:
just on a side note to emphasize the importance of bringing change to health care:
A Client of my clinic who I will call "mary" was a relatively young woman at the age of 45. She had some troubling symptoms, that were basically thought of as nothing more than aches and pains for about a year, not having access to healthcare due to no insurance offered by about the only job she was capable of, and not being eligible for medicaid or medicare, because she would work, she let it go.
A friend of hers referred her to our clinic, she finally made an appointment, and by the time the diagostcs were done, it was found that "mary" was EXTREMELY sick.
She had a form of cancer that if caught early (when it was just a nagging little ache that wouldnt go away), she could have been easily put into remission.
"Mary" died about a month ago, left behind a teenage child, and a husband who was considered "disabled" because of back muscle pain.
He got insurance from the state to take care of his little aches and pains and to feed him the vicodin he is addicted to, "Mary" would not spend the money for a simple ultrasound.
This system is screwed up from top to bottom and needs fixed.
Please attend this meeting, and if nothing else, try to come up with some ideas to share with your state and federal representatives.
Thank you Chris. I appreciate your support.
I am so sorry about Mary. There are so many people in her position.
People go without health care while the fat cats sit back and draw huge paychecks from the premiums that poor people struggle to make. It is disgusting.
Unfortunately, this reflects our "exclusively American way of dealing with health care". We turn away from the desperate need for a really deep change in the status quo. The chant of "people not profits" means so much when actually applied to persons one can name.
I join Shirley Baird and Christopher D in urging people to attend the seminar at IUS this Saturday at 8:00a.m. to learn more about what can be done to stop this happening.
In the meantime, we HAVE GOT to pressure our state representatives to NOT cut funding to community health care centers.
Our Jeffersonville office alone now is currently adding up to 35 new patients a week, and these are people with out insurance. We are only losing maybe one person a MONTH for getting insurance, either private or state funded.
Indianas HIP program is broke, enrollments into medicaid are getting harder and harder to get.
Aside from that, the "small" jobs that most hoosiers have, the companies simply can not afford to offer health insurance anymore, and pepole are forced to choose between paying most of their salaries for premiums on healthcare insurance, or money in their banks for unimportant things like food, clothes, etc.
But thank you Shirely, and thanks to your entire office for supporting the mission of the Family Health Center by seeing indigent patients and providing care for this growing population of the under insured/ uninsured
Back in my earlier years, I was in the same position, i.e., (in my case) no insurance and a hree-day hospitalization. Not fun.
It's good that your gallbladder is out, and I appreciate your stance on this issue.
May 29,1:49 pm.
Mr. Educated, seems like you did not use spell check. You always correct us uneducated little people, now look at your own grammar.
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