Archive for January, 2010

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What a day!

 
Tuesday was an amazing day. I met 14 remarkable people who have struggled with the broken health care system. Kelly and David Arellanes had to go through bankruptcy after she fell off a horse and hit her head and the insurance company covered next to nothing. Heather Mroz had her insurance policy cancelled just before [...]

Our first class

We held our first Patient Pals and Family Friends training yesterday, a four-hour session that included a lunch of homemade soups and bread (I cooked most of Friday).
The training went well and we expect to tweak the curriculum with suggestions from this first class and hold another training, tentatively scheduled for Feb. 27.
You can sign up [...]

It can’t be over

So, Massachusetts elected a Republican to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat. That makes it possible now for them to block everything Progressives want to do, including fix health care. Even the deeply flawed bill now being reconciled Washington is in danger.
My sister Robin says there’s still hope because the House can pass the Senate bill without [...]

More bad news for people in need

Two large public health systems have announced that they no longer will provide dialysis to uninsured people who have end-stage kidney disease. (see the New York Times report at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/health/policy/08dialysis.html)
What this means for patients is that they must go to the emergency room, which is much more expensuive. It also means they can’t have scheduled [...]

Remembering Mom

I keep seeing her face, smiling, with those big glasses. She adored Bob, which is why she left three days after he did. She knew her daughters would be OK because she raised strong, smart women.
She knew how to fight for what she believed in and her last message to me was to keep telling [...]

Trying to get back to normal

We’re back from two memorial services in one week. I find it hard to see the deaths of my stepfather and mother as a tragedy since they both got good care from our country’s government-run single-payer health care system, Medicare. They lived long and productive lives and they both were ready to go.
Being with my [...]

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 8 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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