Topic: Health Care

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).

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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»

Sections: News | No Comments

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

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Sections: Arts and Leisure, Issues | No Comments

Big Bucks, Big Pharma and a clip from the extra feature, Drug Costs and PR

By Bill Larson | August 13, 2006 |

Medical care and high drug prices are a serious issues, and ones that the public needs to be aware of. No one should have to choose between life or death for a loved one, because they can not afford to pay for life saving medical treatment. We need to ask our selves as a society, how much profit is too much profit.

We have already limited the ability of businesses involved in money lending to charge whatever the market will bear for their services, we need to consider enacting similar legal measures in other vital areas. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Issues | No Comments

Crisis in Care: The Failure of the Market Economy

June 17, 2006 |

The market economy has proven itself to be an absolute and utter failure. Those who insist that the “market” is the best way to run a country seem to be missing one of the basic human things that human hearts do, care. Care means “to look after or to provide for” but in a market economy “care” gets in the way of profits and thus care has to be eliminated for the market to “work.” The American healthcare system is the prime example of this but it is true for every industry the market economists and Wall Street financiers touch. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Politics | 1 Comment »