The DISH

Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use

Vol. 12 Issue 4…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…January 25, 2009

Intuit's Vibe

Healthcare

By Jackie Strike

Affordable healthcare for all:

This is Jackie Strike´s health-call!

If you are sick

Expenses are big,

Insurance will make them just small!

Put doctors and patients in charge,

Make quality healthcare strong, large!

Sickness preventions

Reduces cost, tensions,

Jackie is leading the march!

The public healthcare

The public will share

Employers, employees

Sharing the sick-fees

Tax deduction is fair!

Patients to choose whom they like,

System costs must be alike

Social protection

For fatal action

You have it, vote Jackie Strike!

Prevent smoking, show an example

Serious diseases are ample:

Lungs are destroyed,

Patients annoyed,

Don´t be a negative sample!

Young people are mostly cynical,

About any public official,

They have been let down

And give them a frown:

We must change that once and for all!

Public service, I felt,

Is like a Judo belt!

It was my ideal

I really could feel

The justification I held!

Worldwide we are on the pike;

Freedom and service alike!

We must improve things

Make this our headings:

I´m with you: your Jackie Strike!

Liberty, personal rights,

Are values of moral delights!

As President I will fight for

Freedom, healthcare galore!

These are the Jackie Strike´s sights!

Healthcare will be an advantage

Healthy kids make parents so rich!

Health is for you

The working class clou!

Jackie helps crossing the ditch!

Comments from the Bat Cave

The Dark Knight-Batman, White Ninja, Zorro has been closely following the election of Barack Obama, like the rest of the county and people around the world. The family has encouraged him to view Obama's pursuit of excellence in education as his role model. When queried for comments on the inauguration, the Dark One, Ninja, Zorro remarked, "It's a New Year! We have a new president! I'm happy about all this Obama drama!"

Bit of History

Thomas Andrew Daschle

"If I could leave this body with one wish, it would be that we never give up that search for common ground. The politics of common ground will not be found on the far right or on the far left. That is not where most Americans live. We will only find it in the firm middle ground of common sense and shared values." (Daschle's farewell address to the US Senate)

Born December 9, 1947 in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Thomas Andrew Daschle grew up in a working-class Roman Catholic family. The eldest of four sons born to Elizabeth B. Meier and Sebastian C. Daschle, Thomas Daschle attended private and public schools. He became the first person in his family to graduate from college, earning a political science degree from South Dakota State University (1969). From 1969 to 1972, Daschle served in the United States Air Force as an intelligence officer with the Strategic Air Command.

Prior to running for Congress and getting elected at age 30 in 1978, Daschle served as an aide to Senator James Abourezk (D-SD). Daschle narrowly won his first congressional election by a slim margin of 110 votes, following a recount. Quickly becoming a member of the Democratic leadership, Daschle served eight years in the House of Representatives before running for a seat in the Senate in 1986

Daschle's close victory over incumbent James Abdnor (R-SD) made him the nation's 1,776th senator. The freshman senator was appointed to the Finance Committee. A respected member of the Democratic leadership, Daschle was chose by his colleagues in 1994 to succeed retiring Senator George Mitchell as Democratic Minority Leader. In addition to the Minority Leader's post, Daschle also served as a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. South Dakotans re-elected Daschle to the Senate by overwhelming margins in 1998. At various points in his career, he served on the Veterans Affairs, Indian Affairs, Finance and Ethics Committees.

Senator Daschle briefly served as Senate Majority Leader in early 2001 prior to the inauguration of George W. Bush, when the Senate was evenly divided with 50 members from each party, and Vice President of the United States Al Gore acted in his constitutional capacity as ex officio President of the Senate, and used his tie-breaking vote to give the Democrats the majority in that chamber. He reverted to Senate Minority Leader on January 20, 2001, when Dick Cheney became Vice President. When Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont announced he was leaving the Republican caucus to become an independent and would caucus with Democrats, Daschle again became Majority Leader and served in that capacity until January 2003.

In the 2004 Congressional elections, Daschle narrowly lost his Senate reelection bid to John Thune by a narrow margin of 4,500 votes. Throughout the campaign, Republicans labeled Daschle the "chief obstructionist" of Bush's agenda, charging him with using filibusters to block confirmation of Bush's nominees, and they accused him of "emboldening the enemy" in his skepticism of the Iraq war.

On leaving the Senate, Daschle became a policy adviser with Alston & Bird, a K Street law firm. He has denied being a lobbyist; the firm is a well-known lobbyist representing a number of health care organizations, including CVS Caremark, the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, Abbott Laboratories and HealthSouth. Daschle is also a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and National Co-Chair of ONE Vote '08.

On December 11, 2008, President-elect Obama nominated Daschle as Secretary of Health and Human Services, pending Senate confirmation. In addition, Daschle, if confirmed, will serve as director of a newly-formed White House Office of Health Reform. The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a confirmation hearing for Mr. Daschle on January 8, 2009.

With Scott S. Greenberger and Jeanne M. Lambrew, Daschle co-authored Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2008. He also co-authored Like No Other Time: The 107th Congress and the Two Years that Changed America Forever with Michael D'Orso.

Daschle has three children, Kelly, Nathan and Lindsay, from his first marriage. He is married to Linda Hall, one of Washington's top lobbyists and a former acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration in the Clinton administration. Daschle enjoys reading and running. (Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org, http://bioguide.congress.gov and www.nytimes.com)

HEALTH CARE

Comments Submitted By

John Burl Smith

archangelworld@ga.net

INTRODUCTION

This is a response to Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle's request for ideas on how to fix America's broken health care system. These comments are the results of a web chat held on December 28-30, 2008 to elicit recommendations for improving America's health care system.

The vast majority of participants' comments centered on the Grady Health System in Atlanta, Georgia and related to cost and access. However, many comments went beyond Grady to national concerns, and prevention/nutrition was high on everyone's list.

The inability of the uninsured to pay their health care bills, combined with the increasing inability of even those who have some form of health insurance to pay out-of-pocket costs or the cost of medical procedures not covered by their plan, was at the heart of many comments regarding the health care crisis. Many comments referenced health care cost inflation, companies that are dropping their increasingly expensive health insurance plans and self-employed individuals talked of not being able to find insurance that is affordable. Currently, the tragedy of our failing health care system is that at least half and perhaps as many as 68 percent of personal bankruptcies can be attributed to extraordinary medical costs.

PRIVATIZATION OF GRADY HEALTH SYSTEM

Atlanta, Georgia is typical of large urban areas with majority minority populations. The Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority (FDHA) was publicly owned and operated by Grady Health System until December 2007. Local business interests manipulated events and used the hospital's budget deficit to force FDHA to lease the publicly own facility to a so-called non-profit board --Grady Memorial Hospital Corporation (GMHC). A community based organization called the Grady Coalition, which advocates for Grady patients and workers, has opposed efforts to privatize Grady for several years. Their major objection to GMHC is their desire to run Grady like a business. The Grady Coalition feels those behind the takeover see the billions of dollars in health care in the coming years as a windfall and want to get control now. Wall Street saw Social Security (SS) privatization in the same way, but now everyone can see what a disaster privatizing SS would have been for the elderly had Wall Street got its greedy hands on it.

GMHC's actions and attitude signal a looming health care crisis ahead for the poor, homeless, uninsured, under-insured and families just above the poverty line. Although the Operating Agreement (ii), calls for the GMHC to operate the Hospital as a "Safety Net Hospital," they are changing operating procedures that will raise the threshold of those who qualify for free or discounted service. As the economy sinks further into recession, with close to two million workers losing their jobs in the past year, more and more families are losing their health care coverage. According to the National Coalition on Healthcare, these jobless families join the 90 million people who were uninsured, partially insured or under-insured for all or part of 2008. Four out of five people without insurance were in working families; therefore, having a job does not guarantee health insurance.

Grady's privatization illustrates the gravity of cost and access for the working poor and under-insured. On December 12, 2008, Grady CFO Michael Ayres informed the Grady Coalition that he plans to submit changes to the GMHC lease agreement on January 5, 2009. The proposed changes will require Fulton and DeKalb County patients to prove their eligibility before they receive a Grady Healthcare Card, proof a patient applied and was denied Medicaid or Medicare, proof of a patient's "financial eligibility score," proof of financial assets and "non-emergency" services will be provided "at the hospital's discretion.'

Under current rules, all Fulton and DeKalb patients earning less than 250% of the federal poverty guidelines, or $26,000 per year, receive free care at Grady. Those from outside these counties currently pay 30%. The new proposed guidelines will slash current requirements by 50%. Those earning between 126 and 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines will pay for 40% of their care or up to 25% of their annual income. Those outside of Fulton and DeKalb in this income bracket would pay a walloping 70% of their care or up to 25% of their annual income. Consequently, an individual earning $13,000 per year or less (125 percent or less of the federal poverty guidelines) would still receive free care if they are from DeKalb or Fulton County.

According to Larry Soublet, Vice President of fund raising for Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment (ABLE), "Balancing Grady's budget on the backs of people who are least able to pay is awful." The Grady Health System delivers more than 40% of indigent care in Georgia through the Indigent Care Trust Fund. However, Grady receives only about 30% of the $400 million paid by the State every year because of a 30 percent "cap" rule. Another drain on Grady is that it serves the vast majority of immigrants, whose care neither the state nor surrounding counties fully pay, if at all. And, therein lies the historic budget problem for Grady. State and local governments' under funding of indigent health care helped produced the budget shortfall used to justify privatization. Now, the business community has turned Grady into a Wall Street type health care scam that victimizes poor citizens. Publicly funded health care should be based on need not profit.

SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE

According to Physicians for a National Health Program, paying through a single non-profit entity would save more than $350 billion per year and streamline America's health care system. The National Organization for Women (NOW) has long advocated health care reform. Back in 1993, NOW members adopted a resolution calling for a single-payer health care system in the U.S. The resolution not only called for a universal health care plan but specifically insisted that such a plan cover all vital medical services, especially women's reproductive health.

During this past election season, health care reform was a hot topic, and a lot of promises were made. As the President- and Vice President-elect make the transition to a new administration, and along with members of Congress, two top priorities should be controlling healthcare costs and insuring that everyone has access to care. NOW's call for a single-payer health care system addresses the fundamental need to remove the insurance industry from the process of allocating health care. The current recession offers an opportunity for policymakers to work through the complex steps necessary to restructure health care in the US. However, we the people must be part of the national debate over this issue so that advocates for and proper consideration of a publicly funded single-payer health care system for all is on the table.

NUTRITION AND PREVENTION

Industries representing the greatest cost factors related to health care are insurance companies for access and drug companies for cost. Over the last 20 years, the goal of drug companies has been to get as many people as possible on drug maintenance regimes, not to cure illness or disease. The solution to America's health care crisis is to create a healthier nation. Prevention and nutrition are fundamental keys and the greatest weapons in the battle to reduce cost.

First, a complete lifestyle change is required for most Americans in terms of more exercise supported by dietary changes that increase fiber intake, drastically reduce sugar consumption, elimination of alcohol, smoking and caffeine, while better managing cholesterol and stress levels will have an immediate impact on demands for health care services. Such changes would remove millions who are currently in the healthcare system from the rolls, as well as preempt and prevent even millions more from entering the system.

Secondly, nutrition-related diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, diabetes mellitus and certain cancers that are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality could be successfully managed, if not eliminated. In addition, specific clinical guidelines regarding hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and diabetes mellitus contain specific nutrition counseling recommendations. Six of the ten leading causes of death in the US are linked to a poor diet. It has been estimated that between 300,000 to 800,000 deaths per year could be prevented in the United States, if Americans followed national dietary recommendations. Noting this fact, the Healthy People 2010 Health Objectives and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force have enumerated specific nutrition counseling recommendations for primary care physicians to offer their patients.

Thirdly, providing good nutrition for low-income pregnant, breast feeding and postpartum women, infants, and preschool children; school-age children in high-risk areas; people in need of emergency food assistance; adults at risk for chronic disease; persons with AIDS; the frail elderly and children up to age 18 and functionally impaired adults that are in day care should be the main focus of any effort to reduce health care cost.

Fourth, increasing public awareness of the insidious, toxic nature of many substances that are commonly found in every day consumer products is another essential aspect of wellness. Consumers should be made aware of exposure to toxic and potentially cancer-causing agents that are regularly used in personal care products such as toothpaste, mouthwash, shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, skin care products, cosmetics, and household products.

Fifth, the growing aging population that is living longer imposes an increasing burden on the health care system. "Prevention, prevention, prevention" should be the mantra for healthy aging which makes nutrition the other side of that coin. Alarms are sounding as Medicare designed for older people and Medicaid for poor people cost explode. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office data indicate that if nothing changes, skyrocketing health care costs could consume the entire federal budget by 2050. Primary, secondary and tertiary affects of conditions such as obesity can be prevented through good nutrition and exercise which would yield huge cost reduction in health care.

Prevention and nutrition must be center stage in any health-promotion and risk-reduction initiatives. This underscores the growing national awareness of nutrition's vital role in preventing, delaying onset of, and managing costly and debilitating chronic diseases. The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recognize people over age 50 as one of the specific population groups that need special dietary consideration. Steps to a Healthier US, a US Department of Health and Human Services initiative, encourages Americans to live longer, better, and healthier lives by eating a nutritious diet as one of its four steps. The Older Americans Update 2006: Key Indicators of Well-Being lists dietary quality and obesity as two of the seven modifiable health risks and behaviors factors. The White House Conference on Aging included nutrition recommendation as part of an effective prevention program in 2005.

The American Cancer Society estimates that more than two thirds of all cases of cancer could be avoided by means of a healthy life-style and that one third of these cancers are caused by "nutrition alone." Generally speaking, sufficient intake of fruit and vegetables reduces the risk of chronic diseases. However, populations in most countries consume far less than the recommended daily amount of 400g (WHO).

EPIC is a multi-centre prospective cohort study primarily designed to investigate the correlation between nutrition and cancer. It consists of 23 centers in 10 European countries with approximately 520,000 participants. Here are some of the study's key results: According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4 out of the 10 leading causes of disability in the US and other developed countries are mental disorders. Major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) are among the most common mental disorders that currently plague numerous countries and have varying incidence rates from 26 percent in America to 4 percent in China. Though some of this difference may be attributable to the manner in which individual health care providers diagnose mental disorders, this noticeable distribution can also be explained by studies which show that a lack of certain dietary nutrients contribute to the development of mental disorders. Notably, essential vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids are often deficient in the general population in America and other developed countries, and are exceptionally deficient in patients suffering from mental disorders. Studies have shown that daily supplements of vital nutrients often effectively reduce patients' symptoms.

CONCLUSION

Cost and access were the overwhelming concerns of those participating in this web chat. Whether referring to Grady Hospital System or health care in general, most respondents felt that economic conditions determined the level of health care received. The poor, uninsured, under-insured, under-employed and unemployed were at the greatest risk of not getting care or getting substandard care. The vast majority favored a single-payer health care system. Finally, nutrition and prevention were mentioned by upwards of 90% of respondents as a major factor in lowering health care cost and creating a healthier America.

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls

Email www.businessweek.com ...A New Menace to the Economy...By Peter Coy...Call them "zombie" debtors. More has-beens will be feeding off taxpayers, investors, and workers - sapping the lifeblood of healthier rivals. Zombies. Seen one lately? If not, you may soon, because they are about to menace the US economy. In financial lingo, zombies are debtors that have little hope of recovery but manage to avoid being wiped out thanks to support from their lenders or the government. Zombies suck life out of any economy by consuming tax money, capital, and labor that would be better deployed in growing companies and sectors. Meanwhile, by slashing prices to generate sales, zombie companies can drag healthier rivals into insolvency. Sometime in the past few months, zombies went from being a latent risk to a genuine threat - one that is likely to increase in the months ahead. The Bush administration has already ladled out billions of dollars in assistance to weak banks and automakers. As the economy goes into what may become the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the Obama Administration will come under even more pressure to prop up sick financial and non-financial companies to save jobs. The debate will center on wounded giants such as Citigroup, General Motors, and insurer American International Group. Other sectors with their hands out include steel, airlines, retail - and homeowners, who may be the scariest zombies of all.

Email www.ajc.com ...House OKs Kids' Insurance Program...By Robert Pear….Senate panel expected to approve similar bill to expand care for low-, middle-income families. With enthusiastic support from President-elect Barack Obama, the House passed a bill to renew and expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program. President George W. Bush twice had vetoed similar legislation. Obama will probably be able to sign the bill within days of taking office on Tuesday. The Senate might take action within a week. Known as SCHIP, the program funds federal-state joint initiatives such as PeachCare, the health insurance provider for 207,000 low-income Georgia children. Peachcare gets nearly three-quarters of its funding from SCHIP and had weathered a lengthy period of uncertainty in fall 2007 and winter 2008 as Democrats and Bush skirmished over the previous bills, then settled on a stop-gap measure that was set to expire in March.

Email www.ap.com ...Audit: More Bad Accounting in Veterans Health Care...By Hope Yen... Two years after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that imperiled veterans health care, the Veterans Affairs Department is still low-balling budget estimates to Congress to keep its spending down, government investigators say. The report by the Government Accountability Office, set to be released later Friday (1-23-09), highlights the Bush administration's problems in planning for the treatment of veterans that President Barack Obama has pledged to fix. It found the VA's long-term budget plan for the rehabilitation of veterans in nursing homes, hospices and community centers to be flawed, failing to account for tens of thousands of patients and understating costs by millions of dollars.

Email www.msn.com... More than 200 Peanut Butter Products Now Under Recall...By Steven Reinberg...More than 200 peanut butter and peanut paste products from at least 38 companies have been recalled so far in the ongoing salmonella outbreak, according to the latest count posted Friday on the US health department's web site. As the number of people sickened approaches 500 in 43 states and Canada, the scope of the problem is being rapidly revealed in such continually climbing numbers. Peanut Corp of America, whose now-closed Georgia production plant was the source of the salmonella, has issued a recall for at least 6,255 pounds of peanut butter and peanut paste sold in bulk, according to a company news release. The company distributed potentially contaminated products to more than 70 firms, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Email www.reuters.com...Newly unemployed need help to stay insured: report ...By Julie Steenhuysen...Few laid off workers can afford to take advantage of a U.S. program that helps people keep their health benefits, and many low-income workers are not eligible, a report released on Friday said. The report by the Commonwealth Fund found only 9 percent of people who are eligible for COBRA -- a program that allows people to keep their employer-sponsored health insurance -- actually sign up. The group urged policymakers to spend money to help newly unemployed workers keep company health benefits under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, or COBRA, and expand insurance coverage options for low-wage workers who are not eligible. A report released on Thursday showed that more children and working-age Americans were not filling prescriptions because they couldn't afford to do so. The report by the Center for Studying Health System Change, paid for by the nonprofit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was based on a survey of 10,000 Americans and found that nearly 14 percent of people under 65 went without at least one prescribed drug in 2007 due to cost, up from 10 percent in 2003.