Legislation


Legislation contains 9 posts

Asking for specifics

We had an hourlong conversation with U.S. Rep. John Barrow, Democrat, of Georgia’s 12th District. I was on speakerphone, but Rep. Barrow was in his Savannah office with Janet, Danny and Christian, who had Shannon on speakerphone.
It was a good conversation, and he offered us specifics and reasons for his views. I don’t think any [...]

California considers state-wide medical coverage

California may be the next state to offer health care to all of its residents. Their state assembly recently passed SB 840, a bill that will offer Californians health care through a single-payer system. SB 840 still needs to go for a final vote on the state assembly floor and needs to withstand a likely [...]

More Americans have insurance now

A recent article from NPR’s All Things Considered reports that the number of Americans with health insurance went up this year. According to a recent Census Bureau study, in 2006, 47 million didn’t have insurance; only 45.7 million didn’t have coverage in 2007. The 1.3 million who now have coverage are mostly children under Medicaid [...]

One in three uninsured people have a chronic illness

According to a study from The Annals of Internal Medicine, out of 36 million people without health insurance, 11 million have been diagnosed with a chronic illness. How many more suffer with chronic disease that don’t know because they haven’t even been able to get to a doctor to get diagnosed? How much more will [...]

Emergency Room is the only option for many

This report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation documents, state-by-state, the rates of people without insurance, the percentage of people who could get care if they needed it. In several states, that number barely tops 80 percent. That means one-fifth of the population has no access whatsoever to health care except for the emergency room, [...]

Deregulating insurance

Here’s something interesting. A woman who has had one Caesarean gets rejected by a health insurance company because they don’t want to risk having to pay for another one.
Check it out here
Now remember, John McCain’s healthcare fix is to turn all the insurance over to the marketplace. No more employer-based coverage. “Competition” should spur lower [...]

Dying for coverage

Wonder how many people are dying because they don’t have insurance? Check out Families USA’s study on state-by-state numbers f0r the years 2000 to 2006.
http://familiesusa.org/issues/uninsured/publications/dying-for-coverage.html
The total is a little shy of the study by the Institute of Medicine and the Urban League, but it’s chilling nevertheless.
Statistics always lag two to three years behind, especially on [...]

Good, but not good enough

This wouldn’t give affordable healthcare to everyone, but it’s a start.
According to the newspaper, The Hill, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R.-Maine) are working on a bill that would allow business associations such as the National Association of Realtors to offer group insurance plans that would put the cost of [...]

Healthcare Crisis

Since the federal government hasn’t moved in providing healthcare to all its citizens, states are starting to make moves to do it.
The problem here is that not every American citizen gets equal care. Check out this information on what some states are doing: http://www.kff.org/uninsured/kcmu_statehealthreform.cfm
Be sure to look at the PDF to see individual states’ proposals.
Only [...]

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 10 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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