Topic: Health Care

Indian Health Care Improvement Act deserves reauthorization

By Chris Lugo | March 1, 2008 |

This month the Senate is considering the Indian Health Care Improvement Reauthorization Bill, SB 1200. This bill, which is designed to address the health care needs of some two million residents of the United States who can claim American Indian ancestry, is an important step toward honoring the obligations that we as Americans have toward the health and welfare of Native Americans. This bill will make up-to-date amendments to the health care available to 1.9 million rural and urban indigenous people in the United States, and will restore honor to the federal government’s trust and obligation to native tribes.

Congress passed the Indian Health Care Improvement Act in 1976 to address health disparities between Native Americans and the rest of the populace. Since 1992, when the act was last reauthorized, the U.S. health care delivery system has been revolutionized, while the Indian health care system has not.

This bill lays the foundation for program change, including shifts from acute care to prevention and the provision of mental health services for children. It addresses health crises such as diabetes, youth suicide, and drug addiction that have escalated among native peoples in the past 15 years. It facilitates greater input to program operation from the local tribal level and enhances recruitment and retention of health professionals in facilities serving native populations. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Politics | No Comments

Realism required to fix health care system

By Bill Larson | February 4, 2008 |

Health care is a major issue facing Americans today. We as a nation pay the highest price for health care and prescription drugs in the world, and you would assume this would mean we get the best possible medical care. While that might be the case if you are wealthy, if you are not you face some tough choices.

Choices like do you get the prescriptions you need to have a decent quality of life, or do you eat? Do you get regular medical checkups, or do you because you can’t afford the price of a doctor’s visit skip them until a health condition forces you to the doctor, often after it’s too late to treat the condition? Do you look after your dental health, or do you have to let your teeth basically rot in your mouth?

I have personally been forced to make some of these choices, and I have friends and relatives who have been forced to as well. Choices no American should ever have to face.

Lets be realistic. The problem with health care in America is the private for-profit companies currently running it. In order to fix our broken system, we must take the profit motive out of it. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics | 5 Comments

Lugo seeks Democractic nod for US Senate

By Christine Anne Piesyk | January 14, 2008 |

Chris Lugo announced his Democratic bid for the US Senate seat today in Nashville by encouraging Tennesseans to vote for peace in 2008. Lugo thinks the time has come for a Democratic Senator for Tennessee.

“We have had over a decade of Republican representation in the US Senate and look at where it has gotten us. We are at the bottom of almost every social indicator for quality of life. We are near the bottom of the list in terms of health, education, life expectancy and even infant mortality. It is time to invest in the health of our state instead of wasting our federal dollars on war and corporate subsidies.” — Chris Lugo

Lugo said he is seeking the U.S. Senate seat because “it is time to end the war and bring the troops home. It is time to use our taxpayer dollars wisely to provide universal healthcare. It is time to repair our nation’s domestic infrastructure. It is time to end poverty in America. It is time to end our dependence on oil by developing safe and viable alternative energy sources. It is time to leave our children a clean, healthy and peaceful environment in which to live and raise their families.” «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Politics | 3 Comments

Candidates on the Issues: Abortion

By James Butler | January 14, 2008 |

Tennessee voters go to the polls on February 5th for the presidential primaries in this state. Tennessee is historically not given a great deal of attention by most candidates, and this election cycle is shaping up to continue the trend.

Unfortunately, this means Tennesseans often have to rely on news media sound bytes to obtain information about the candidates. However, since news media are businesses and therefore have as their proper goal the making of money, this often leaves viewers with precious little information about how the candidates would actually go about running the county and a disturbing amount about their private lives.

Let’s be honest, does it really matter than Barrack Obama has an Islamic heritage, that Hillary didn’t leave Bill, that Mitt Romney is Mormon or that John McCain allows his adult children to live their own lives? «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics | 5 Comments

Presidential nightmare comes at a cost

By Bernie Ellis | November 19, 2007 |

Seven years ago this month, Bush stole his first election with the help of his Daddy’s Supreme Court appointees. In 2004, he accomplished that same feat with the help of his friends who owned the electronic voting machine companies.

Today, though there is no longer a single state where Bush enjoys majority support and his foreign policy failures abound, Bush still claims to have created a robust economy. Let’s look at some comparisons:

• Seven years ago, you could buy a Canadian dollar for $.59 — now it costs you $1.07.
• Then, you could buy a Euro for $.97 — now it costs you $1.43.
• Then, you could pickup a gallon of milk for $2.87 — now the price has risen to around $4.18.
• Then, a gallon of regular gas cost $1.44 — now it’s over $3.00 (and rising fast).

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, Opinion, Politics | 2 Comments

Gateway axes 28 jobs for new facility; elderly ‘gatekeeper’ among the terminated

By Christine Anne Piesyk | October 24, 2007 |

In 1997, I was in a bed in Cooley-Dickinson Hospital in the northeast, virtually immobilized from the shoulders down, unable to move, shrug, shift, and sometimes breathe without pain piercing enough to make me black out. I could think, talk, and see three of everything from the painkillers I was told would kill the stabbing pain. They didn’t work.

My family lived 1400 miles away in Tennessee, and my mom was in the first stages of Alzheimer’s. I was alone, but for a few friends who tried to visit me, a county away, when they were not working. I was just far enough away to be inconvenient and difficult to get to.

It was the kindness of people just like Ella Mae Arnold, a “fired” Gateway Hospital employee of 30 years standing, who made a difference, kept me sane. Ella Mae Arnold, the face of Gateway’s front desk services, having toured the new Gateway Hospital (at left) and viewing the area in which she expected to work, was fired, a move that has left her distraught, her world turned topsy-turvy. Ella Mae was a breathe of humanity, someone real to connect with, even for a moment, when events unfold that are frightening, foreign, and overwhelming. «Read the rest of this article»

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No overtime pay for professional caregivers

By Christine Anne Piesyk | June 11, 2007 |

Caregivers. Home care. Homemakers. Personal care attendants. In short. The people who come to your home to provide the care that lets you stay in your home. Frequently these caregivers bounce from place to place, two hours here, four there, one a day, or five days a week. Maybe overnights if that what your care plans calls for. They are not usually compensated for time spent driving from client to client (mileage sometimes, hourly rate — no way!). It is a long, hard forty hour week for most such caregivers, and many times that work week stretches into forty-plus hours a week.

Today these caregivers were told by the Supreme Court that they can still work overtime, but they are not eligible for overtime pay. They don’t count. Their work — caring for millions of stay-at-home elders and disabled people — isn’t worthy of the extra pay. The balance of the court once again tipped away from family values and the rights of the common folk. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion | No Comments

Ready or not, here comes SiCKO!

By Bill Larson | May 30, 2007 |

Michael Moore is coming out with a new documentary called SiCKO. It is a harsh look at the American health care system. SiCKO opens in theaters everywhere on June 29th.

When asked about SiCKO, Michael Moore responds , “Sicko is a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on Earth.” I personally disagree with Michael Moore on that one point, this is not a funny subject.

A reviewer on the Internet Movie Database web site had this to say:

A man without health insurance (companies simply refuse people), whose middle- and ring finger are cut off, had to choose between paying 60.000 dollars for having his middle finger restored and 12.000 dollars for having his ring finger fixed. Being the “romantic” that he is, he chose his ring finger. A woman, formerly with a good job, bankrupted by her medical bills and forced to live in the study of her daughter, has to pay 240 dollars a month for her cancer medication but gets the same pills on Cuba for… 10 cents. 45 Million uninsured Americans live in fear that they might, some day, need medical care. The rest of the world doesn’t know these fears, because for them, medical help is free: paid for by tax money. The United States have become ruthless to it’s own people. It contradicts the image Americans have of themselves and their country, but it’s the awful truth. - Ivo Martijn

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Issues | No Comments