Health Care Bill--The Oregon Whip Count

March 20, 2010 (9:00 p.m.)

Here's the current status of the Oregon members of the U.S. House of representatives for the Health Care Reform Bill--HR4872:

Oregon 1st     David Wu             DEM   YES  http://www.house.gov/wu/
Oregon 2nd    Greg Walden        REP     NO   http://walden.house.gov/
Oregon 3rd     Earl Blumenauer   DEM   YES  http://blumenauer.house.gov/
Oregon 4th     Peter DeFazio       DEM   YES  http://defazio.house.gov/
Oregon 5th     Kurt Schrader       DEM   YES  http://schrader.house.gov/

Rep DeFazio took a dramatic stand and paved the way for Oregon's "Yes" votes by helping drive a last second deal to increase Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals.  In states like Oregon and Washington, Medicare pays 30% less for medical procedures and services than in states like New York or Florida.  This has made it very difficult for doctors to accept new Medicare patients and has been responsible for clinics and hospital closures in rural areas.  A number of states have been stuck with unfairly low payments based on a geographic formula in use since the Medicare was enacted in 1966.  The provision to increase payments and put in place new geographic reimbursement guidelines was in the original House bill, but not the Senate bill.   However, thanks to DeFazio it's back in.  You can read more details on the negotiations here: http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/03/medicare_deal_reached_clearing.html

This is a good and necessary change.  Doctors in Oregon are cheering.  The only person who's not cheering is Representative Walden, a Republican, who is following the straight party line.  He's a strong "No" on health care and has been screaming "unfair" on "deem and pass" until he turned blue in the face.  Well, he's going to get his wish.  It was announced late today there will be a "up and down" vote on the bill.  This means that Nancy Pelosi and the White House are confident they have the votes.  Let's hope that they do. 

It's going to be an interesting next few days.  I believe there are fireworks to come because the Republicans have shifted into an insanely irrational gear.  I wish I could figure out how to explain to my conservative friends that health care is not welfare. They believe health care reform will be the end of democracy as we know it.  For the life of me, I can't figure out why.  This is one of the most pro business, capitalist reforms in history.  There is no rational reason for this fear.  True reform would have been to move to a single payer system, Medicare for everyone, or forcing all the health insurance companies to become not for profit organizations.  That's what needs to happen for true reform.  The Republicans should be cheering. They won and the American people lost.

Jon Must Have Been High

December 9, 2009 --

The first year after I graduated college was brutal. The George Bush Sr. recession of the early 90s withered the economy. It wasn't a happy time for young people. If you don't remember what it was like, just think of the angry grunge music that replaced pop music and glam rock. Jobs for graduates were scarce. I felt like everything I'd been promised my whole life (work hard + college degree = good job) was a farce. Between acting gigs and contemplating grad school, I accumulated substantial debt and looked for a real job. To scrape by, I worked as a bouncer, a substitute teacher, a sheet rocker and and jewelery salesman. None of these jobs offered health insurance. I remember I thought I could get by for bit without it. I suffered from the same delusion of invincibility as today's 20 somethings. This is despite an early diagnosis of kidney disease I received in college (when I had insurance). I felt like I was on top of it with inexpensive high-blood pressure meds.

Then I blew out my knee playing basketball. It swelled as large as a truck tire and I couldn't walk. I had no money or insurance, so I delayed treatment and hoped it would just go away. No luck. After a week I dragged myself to the emergency room. For a $1000 bucks, money I didn't have and that added to my debt, they X-rayed me, drained the knee, and injected it with cortisone. I had a medial collateral ligament tear and needed surgery. The doctor recommended I see a specialist and a surgeon. When I explained I didn't have health insurance, he shrugged and gave me some steroids to keep the inflammation down and said, "good luck."

I did not get the surgery. Once I did get health insurance several years later I ended up going to rehab three separate times because my knee didn't heal correctly. Go figure. A few years ago I got an MRI that showed as a result for not getting proper treatment, I have degenerative arthritis in my knee. To this day I have a slight limp and chronic pain.

Moral of my story?

• Jon is stupid and was probably high
• Being poor and in debt sucks
• Working temp, part-time work, or for small biz usually means no insurance
• 20 somethings don't understand the need for health insurance
• Ignoring an injury or medical condition leads to life-long problems and lower quality of life

Often we think of the uninsured as chronically ill people who are refused coverage. This is only part of the story. If you want all the facts please visit, http://www.covertheuninsured.org/. It's a detailed site that uses non-partisan studies from the Robert Wood-Johnson foundation to give you the straight dope. It's worth a scan. Know the facts. One thing that drives me crazy is the assumption that people who don't have health insurance are lazy welfare seekers. Not true, see below.

As the senate does it's back-room deals, don't let them forget about young people. If they extend Medicare and compromise on other alternatives to for-profit health care insurance, they must not do it with their normal superficial ass covering. We need real solutions to help all uninsured people.

Mormons and Healthcare Reform

November 13, 2009

I had a very interesting conversation with my mother this week about healthcare reform. My mother retired from nursing a couple of years ago with forty years of hard won experience. She's literally seen it all. I'm a lucky man because my mother dropped everything to been there for me for all my surgeries and was a huge support when I experienced kidney failure. In fact, she was the first in line to ask to be evaluated as a donor.


So, I was extremely surprised when in the first few seconds of a conversation about healthcare reform, she started reciting word-for-word the conservative "talking points" against reform. Socialism, choice of doctors, rationing of care, wait times, the boogeyman of government controlled healthcare...you know the list. It was as if the spirit of Hannity and Beck poured directly out of her mouth.

As a bit of background, my mother is a true believing Mormon and lives in Salt Lake City. Mormons are notoriously conservative and have a powerful distrust of the government due to historical experiences from the nineteenth century. However, they've been progressive about healthcare in the past. The Mormon church was one of the first to extend healthcare benefits to the children of its employees to up 26 years of age. This policy is considered very progressive and has been included in the healthcare reform bills supported by the Obama administration. My mother's reaction seemed antithetical to the stories I heard all my life from her nursing career and the general charitable tenets usually espoused by the Mormon Church.

I was determined to understand this better and decided to do some research. I found the graph you seen on the left on Patchwork Nation (click the graph to go to the site). Patchwork Nation is a blog from the Christian Science Monitor that seeks to use demographic and survey data to break the country down beyond Red and Blue states. It shows how different majority populations around the U.S. perceive policy and social issues. It's a very interesting site.

The graph shows that areas of the country dominated by Mormons are the most skeptical of health care reform, by a huge margin. The site offers some explanations that you can read for yourself and mentions that survey sample size could be a problem.

Unfortunately, my mother isn't the only person from Salt Lake City to play back the Fox News lies and fear-mongering about healthcare reform. I have several friends from SLC who also repeated these same beliefs, including the ones that are outrageous lies (death panels etc.). What kind of echo chamber are the folks in Utah experiencing to get such rabid repetition? It's like they're reading from a single script. Can anyone help me understand this?

I'd just urge anyone who has concerns about healthcare reform and the reform bills to go to read factcheck.org. It's non-partisan. It debunks many of the irrational and nonsensical claims made by both conservatives AND liberals. Yes, there are distortions coming from the Democrats, too. This site focuses on the facts. Luckily for all of us, the facts support reform.

P.S.

Oh and hey Mom, did you see that AARP endorsed the House bill for healthcare reform? Also, did you know your son will depend upon government-provided Medicare to cover the costs of my kidney transplant and anti-rejection medication? Oh and Mom, did I tell you that because of Medicare, my mother-in-law got to choose her doctor for her cataract surgery? This meant she could come from to California to Oregon for the procedure, so that family could help her during her recovery. How's that for portability? Maybe you could give healthcare reform another look?

Names of the Dead

November 6, 2009

If you haven't heard, there's a huge vote in the next few days on the Healthcare Bill before the House of Representatives. The voting will likely follow strict party affiliation. Most Democrats will vote "Yea" while ALL Republicans will vote "Nay." When it comes to healthcare, my affiliation is very clear. I belong to the Human party.

What is the heck is the "Human" party? Quite simply: I choose people over political parties. I choose the rights of people over the rights of corporations. I choose to support the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves. I choose to support healthcare as a basic human right and believe that healthcare for all is the new hallmark of truly great civilizations. Why? Because I know that every human being that has ever lived and lives now will grow sick or suffer injury and die. The only variation in that equation is length of suffering. This is the one experience we all share regardless of century, sex, race, religion, nationality and politics.

I support this bill. I know it is not perfect. I know that many of the proposed changes will not satisfy anyone due to cost, coverage and ideological beliefs. This includes my own belief that the only logical solution to healthcare is a single payer system. I support this bill because it is a start. We desperately need a start here in America. As the most advanced civilizations around the world have proved, universal healthcare does not cause the fabric of the universe to unravel, turn the people into slaves or make them fascism victims. Universal healthcare simply improves the quality of the lives of everyone, not just the rich or fortunate.

I think the seriousness of the issue is best shown on the site namesofthedead.com. Democratic House Member Alan Grayson sponsors it. The site gives voice to those people who have perished because of no health care insurance. You might not care for the politics behind the site, but the data comes from a study by authors from the Department of Medicine at the Cambridge Health Alliance, affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Click here to read a .pdf of the report for yourself. The conclusion: Every year 44,000 people die because of lack of health insurance. That's more than from kidney disease (42,000+), the root of my own advocacy. A just released John's Hopkins study shows that a lack of health care and insurance contributed to the deaths of 17,000 hospitalized children in the last 18 years.

More people die from lack of health care insurance every day than from automobile accidents and homicides combined. The consequences here are very real and demand we take action, imperfect or not, to make immediate improvements to our barbaric system.

I know most of you already have health insurance. However, instead of considering this a numerical or anonymous issue that doesn't affect you, I encourage you to spend five minutes to read some of the stories on namesofthedead.com. It will help you understand the true costs beyond dollars and statistics.

I was shocked to find the name and story of Theron Read from Salt Lake City. Theron was 44 when he died on a light rail train from a heart attack in late July. He, like me, was an actor and a poet. Theron had a pre-existing heart condition and worked for a small business that did not offer health insurance. He, unlike me, did not qualify for Medicare. Why kidney failure is covered and heart conditions are not points to the ludicrous labyrinth of the system. Theron made very little money and could not qualify for nor afford health insurance. He did not have the money to cover the costs of managing his chronic illness or pay for needed medications. He did the best he could with what he had and died needlessly before his time.

I knew Theron. We traveled the same circles and even did a show together in the 80's. He was gentle and kind, quirky and funny. Regardless of economic circumstances, Theron’s family, friends, and the larger community of writers, actors, and musicians in Salt Lake City loved and valued him. I am very sad to hear of his passing and the circumstances behind it.

My friends, healthcare reform is very real check on your morals and values. What do you believe and stand for? Have you thought about it? I have. I believe in humanity. I believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in place of dogma, truth over ignorance, tolerance in place of fear, and compassion over selfishness. I believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings (thank you, Paul Kurtz). I condemn violence, the "I got mine so fuck you" crowd, and greed without purpose.

Please contact your local Representatives and Senators. Ask them to vote for healthcare reform. They won't do it, if you don't demand it.

Neutral Analysis of Obama's Health Care Reform

September 15, 2009

People do care about health care reform! I've heard from many of you over the past week. One of the best emails I received is from Robert Vizza a brilliant marketing strategist and former work colleague. He's sent the following note:

I hope this email finds you well, enjoying the remainder of summer. I had the week off and decided to spend a few days looking at the health care reform issue because 1) I was fed up not knowing what was going on with such an important topic, 2) I was fed up with all of the sensationalist sound bites coming from both camps, and 3) I figured that you might be in a similar situation. By no means did I “complete” the analysis, but I do feel like I gathered some good information and have come away with an educated opinion on the topic. At the risk of offending all of my friends, I humbly submit my analysis to you with the hopes that you become more aware of the issue and, selfishly, educate me where I may have missed the point.

Enjoy,
Robert

While I'm sad that Robert spent some of his hard earned vacation time on writing a health care analysis, I'm happy to benefit from his hard work. Click the link below for a .pdf an easy-to-read analysis of some of the proposed reforms. "Boring?" Not at all. Robert is an excellent writer and he includes many interesting facts that you may not know. For a ten minute investment of your time, you can cut through the media and political rhetoric, and be better informed. My sincere thanks to Robert.

Can you believe it? Sotomayor has Diabetes!

May 28, 2009


The standard confirmation process for a Supreme Court nominee is a spectacle akin to the original Scopes trial. Countless political blowhards line up to testify, grandstand and pound their cymbals (and symbols) together like mechanical monkeys. They ask leading questions designed to force nominees to take nation polarizing stands on abortion, gun control, freedom of speech...you name it. Every topic is fair game for inquisition and speculation.

That brings me to Judge Sotomayor's diabetes. Much to my surprise, it isn't the standard political pundits or right wing opposition bringing up her type 1 diabetes. Nope, it's the media. Just Google "Sotomayor Diabetes" and you'll pull breathless reporting from media giants - Time: "Sotomayor Diabetes: Will it be a handicap?" , the Wall Street Journal: "Should Sotomayor’s Diabetes Be Considered In the Nomination Process?" and the Associated Press: "Sotomayor's diabetes helps shape views on discrimination". I could go on for 150 Google search page results. It's ridiculous, but it's also reality. Ignorance creates fear and even better headlines. The AP reports:

"Diabetes renders the 54-year-old Sotomayor more susceptible to heart disease, blindness, nerve damage and kidney damage. An estimated 23 million Americans — 8 percent of the population — have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association."

Gasp! How terrible. Can she really be considered for the Supreme Court? How could it be? Is the Obama administration insane? Ready to puke yet? I am.

The good news? Sotomayor and the Obama camp addressed the issue head on. They also went a step beyond and used the issue to help educate the public on basic diabetes information. That's amazing and thoughtful. The Huffington Post has the substance of her press release, "Sotomayor's Doctor Says her Diabetes is a Non-Issue." CNN's headline really cracked me up, "Sotomayor's Diabetes: She Overcomes it Every Day." Well, of course she does. It's a chronic illness, for hell's sake. The AP article is at least smart enough to point out:

"If the Senate confirms Sotomayor, she won't be the only Supreme Court justice to cope with a significant health condition. Chief Justice John G. Roberts has suffered seizures. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has survived bouts of colon and pancreatic cancer. Justice John Paul Stevens, who's 89, underwent radiation therapy for prostate cancer in 1992."

Again, welcome to life, the ultimate process of dying. So what's my angle on all this? I'm freaking delighted. No sarcasm intended. We need people in positions of power that represent more than fake political ideals. Sotomayor has a chronic illness that she's proactively managed with insulin injections and diet since she was eight years old. Hallelujah, a success story! I see the results of poorly managed diabetes in my dialysis clinic three times a week. I can tell you without reservation that Sotomayor is a real role model.

Will her experience with a chronic illness affect her judicial temperament and philosophy? I sure hope so. She's more likely to understand the issues, rights, and laws concerning health care. She's more likely to have a humane perspective. That's not guaranteed of course, but she'll at least have hard won experience. Health care, disability, discrimination, and privacy won't be esoteric legal exercises. Folks, if you haven't figured it out yet, health care is the number one issue of the twenty-first century.