Archive for April, 2009

How will it look?

Christian and I talked for a long time last night, and Janet and I the night before. We each have a different vision of how health care reform might look. Janet and Christian both want as little government intervention as possible; I think the government has to be very involved.
I try to blog about what [...]

Bobby Butterworth

My Friend, Bobby Butterworth had some chest pains a month ago, on a Thursday. We told him to go to the ER. He decided to wait the evening, because he had no insurance - He felt a hospital bill would bankrupt him and leave him on the street (the ER asks for money up front [...]

What’s the fix?

I didn’t mean to bury this the other day. It’s a powerful story.
http://lifeomike.org/2009/04/26/charitable-groups/
Please remember that it’s written by Christian — I never hurt my sister with a golf ball. Mine was with a gold CLUB.
I have to say I worry about the charities, since so many of them are losing money, and I did a [...]

More on the insurance companies

Dean Baker, a widely respected economist, published a column today on why the insurance companies don’t want to compete with the government.
There is a history here: Privsate insurance companies compete with the government for Medicare recipients, and most opt for the government plan, not a private plan.
To the argument that people who work for insurance [...]

A look at one option

This was from a couple weeks ago, but I think it’s is of interest. 
Think of it this way: The government is involved in ensuring care to people over 65, and with the expansion of the States’ Children’s Health Insurance Program, people under age 18. The only group left without fair access to care is people ages [...]

Public versus private

The Center for American Progress, admittedly a liberal think tank, has some great thoughts on how we combine public and private to build a health care system that works.
What most of us think when we debate the issue is about what’s wrong with each one. What’s real is that we already have government involvement, and [...]

The Shriners

Christian mentioned the Shriners in his post. It reminds me that in these very hard economic times, the Shriners likely will have to close several of their hospitals.
So, as the need grows, the help available shrinks.
Here in Asheville, we have Project Access, which coordinates the charity care that doctors and hospitals give so that people [...]

Charitable Groups

Happy Sunday to you all.
I was sitting in a coffee shop and reflecting on the amount of help given to my family through the years. My sister was born with a cleft lip/palette. Shortly afterward, my father broke his back when he fell off a building he was working on. I try to remember how [...]

Oh-No moments

It still hits me like a ton of bricks now and then.
I was having a great day yesterday, with our old friends Craig and Cindy visiting from New Jersey.
We were at Merlefest, waiting to see Doc Watson and the Frosty Mon Reunion — always my favorite part or Merlefest, and a woman behind us in [...]

Jobs Associated with the Insurance Industry

I just read a study that attributed over One Million sales and marketing jobs to the insurance industry.   Obviously, if a compromise is not reached in our governments’ legislature, those jobs are in jeopardy of being lost. I have spent some time in the direct sales workforce.  It should be noted that if private groups [...]

Help Life o' Mike

We need your help now more than ever. Your tax-deductible donation will help us get Patient Pals and Family Friends off the ground. Please consider a gift in honor or in memory of a loved one.

Patient Pals & Family Friends volunteer training

Our Feb. 27 training had to be postponed, but we have rescheduled. Join us 9 days, as we train our next group of volunteers for Patient Pals & Family Friends. The four-hour training will run 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and will include lunch. Patient Pals are people who have experience with an illness or disability. After training, they will be paired with someone who is newly diagnosed or disabled. Family Friends will be volunteers who are paired with family members of people who are ill or disabled, and will have been through the expeience of having a loved one with illness or disability.

In Loving Memory

Life o' Mike has participated two memorial services to remember those who have died from our broken health care system, one in Asheville and one in Raleigh. If you would like to organize more of these services, please contact lifeomike@gmail.com and we will help put it together. The services include stories, prayers and information on how people of faith can make a difference. About 45,000 people die each year because they don’t have health insurance, according to a recent study by Harvard Medical School and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That breaks down to one American every 12 minutes. Those people can be honored in the service by a bell chime and a moment of silence every 12 minutes in the service. For more information, call Leslie Boyd at 828-243-6712.

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