No program will work unless people want it to work. Everyone must have a stake in the process.

...

By sharing costs, consumers would have a direct economic stake in choosing and using their community's health resources wisely and prudently.


From a speech given by President Richard   M. Nixon on February 6, 1974, in which he outlines his plan to expand Social Security and Medicare benefits to include more Americans.

To read the complete speech, go here.
 
 
Here’s an excellent explainer put up by the Department of Health and Human Services today, answering many questions many have about health care reform and how it will affect seniors. It’s clear, it’s presented well and it’s comprehensive. I urge you to take 15 minutes to read it. Then, send your thoughts about it to your elected officials.
Health Insurance Reform and Medicare: Making Medicare Stronger for America’s Seniors

For Congressional contact information, see the end of the blog post below.
 
 
Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights discussed yesterday in the conference call between senior health care legislative aides in the office of Sen. Harry Reid, and five blog publishers, including myself. 

You can read the entire bipartisan bill that came out of the Senate Finance Committee this week -- also called the Baucus Bill -- at: http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202009/091609%20Americas_Healthy_Future_Act.pdf

This is the long-awaited bill that is supposed to keep the costs within the framework mandated by President Obama, and be acceptable to both sides of the aisle, while keeping the spirit of reform.

Note: It does NOT include a public option. In other words, it’s a compromise, from the start.

Since the Baucus Bill was published over the weekend for Mark Up, nearly 600 amendments have been proposed. The amended version of the bill should be available for study in a few days. I’ll put up a link when I have one.  

During the conference call, we focused on priorities for seniors, and how the bill will affect Medicare recipients. Here are a few highlights:

--This bill contains no benefit cuts to seniors on Medicare. NONE.

--Those enrolled in a drug benefit plan will get a 50% discount on brand name drugs while they are in the so-called donut hole. That discount will not affect their ability to reach the next level in the drug program, however, because they will  be credited for 100% of the cost of the drugs they buy at a discount.

--Senior Medicare recipients will get a free annual physical. This is something new.  

--All prevention testing and immunization will be free. This will include flu shots, mammograms, colonoscopies and the like. One amendment under consideration would add bone-density testing to the list.

--Physicians treating Medicare patients will get a 5 % increase in reimbursements beginning 2010, instead of the scheduled 21% payment cut. This should make it more likely that physicians will open their doors to new Medicare patients.

I asked what the catch was for all this “free” stuff. After all, we know there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

We were told money would be raised to pay for new benefits through revenue provisions (taxes and fees?), as well as by cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse. The Baucus Bill  gives the Secretary of DHHS, FBI and Department of Justice new tools to monitor and increase penalties for fraud.

One aide said we already spend billions every year on health care in this country that do not improve health one iota. For instance, a large part of the health care dollar goes to pay for consumer marketing and direct advertising by insurance and drug companies, or is lost to fraud or waste.

All bloggers were urged to encourage their readers to voice opinions on this bill and other health care reform proposals through emails or calls to elected officials, or through blogs like our own.

For more information, be sure to read the blogposts by the other bloggers on the call:
George Phenix at Blog of Ages
Nancy Belle at The Tempered Optimist
Jan Adams at Happening Here
Ronnie Bennett at Time Goes By

Here’s a handy form Ronnie Bennett put together:

Contact your senators and representative here.

Nancy Pelosi
Email form
Phone 202.225.0100

Harry Reid
Email form
Phone 202.224.3542
 
 
Picture
US Capitol Building, Washington DC
Guess who called today?  Are you sitting down?

Birds on a Wire Blog was one of five chosen for a morning conference call with aides from the office of none other than Sen. Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, to answer questions and discuss elements of the Baucus bill for health care reform.  

Ronni Bennett of Time Goes By recommended us, as one of several blogs taking on health care reform issues in a serious and thoughtful manner. Its readers fall into that category as well. 

I'll get to the specifics we discussed in another post, but here's what I believe this call tells us:

1. At least some members of Congress have learned a lesson from the Obama campaign, which made very good use of social networking tools to build a viable base, deliberately and efficiently. If it worked for Obama, it can work for health care reform.   

Yesterday, I read on BlogHer that Reid's office would be using this technology for outreach to specific constituencies (seniors, women, etc.), in hopes of building a groundswell of public opinion in favor of the bi-partisan bill. I believe we were the first or among the first called.

2. Congressional outreach by way of the blogging community makes good use of aides' time. For every blogger they talk to, they have the potential to reach at least hundreds, maybe thousands, more. No travel and no fancy preparations are necessary.  

3. Complex issues require serious study, thought and discussion. You're not going to be able to discuss nuances of various health care reform proposals through soundbites on talk shows or--heaven forbid!-- rowdy demonstrations. Our readers have the time and inclination to mull over ideas, read up on the details, compare and contrast content, and float their own ideas within a supportive community.

4. What better platform could there be than a blog, to provide a town hall-type forum? It's free, open and raucous-proof, by design.

5. Apparently, people working in the great halls of Congress read blogs. Even better, they read THIS blog. Just knowing that adds a lot of value--and responsibility--to what we do. All bloggers and blog readers (of every stripe) should take pride in the fact that this new media counts, and probably count even more in the future.

6. Your ideas can and will be heard through your blog comments, as well as your direct correspondence with Congressional leaders and and their staffs. WRITE today! Tell them you appreciate their interest in your comments through Birds on a Wire Blog, and other blogs.
 
 
Click on Health Care Reform in the column to the right, under Posts.  You'll find about a dozen, plus many comments.
 
Where we're from 09/18/2009
 
Occasionally, I post a map showing the location of Birds on a Wire Blog readers.
Here is a photo taken September 16th, of a map showing the location of the last 1,000 visitors. 
As you see,  people come to Birds on a Wire from every continent on the globe. At least one person visited from a ship at sea!  
Thanks for reading Birds. Please come back soon. Better yet, join in the conversation. Leave behind a comment or two!
Picture
 
 
Picture
National Aquarium, Baltimore MD
Silver flash times two, 
Eyes and fins slide by in waves,
whosh -- to you, then me. 
 
Picture
 
 
Somebody had to do this and I guess I'm glad it was a Washington Post foreign correspondent. Reporter T.R Reid had a shoulder injury, so he sought medical advice -- in 10 countries! What he discovered may surprise you as much as it surprised him.

Here are a few comments from a review in today's New York Times:

One Injury, 10 Countries: A Journey in Health Care
By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D.
September 14, 2009

With all due respect to the seminar room, the boardroom, the hearing room and the Oval Office, a better vantage point than any of them for evaluating and redesigning our health care system is the hospital room (window bed, please).

The chair next to the bed isn’t bad, either.

Some of us perch on one or the other almost every day, observing the tangled mess that is our current system and mentally designing a dozen better alternatives. But for those who wind up in bed or a chair only when tragedy strikes, T. R. Reid’s new book provides an excellent substitute perspective

...

A person’s last days can be spent in any number of ways. But on the phone pleading with an insurer, that’s only in America.

 For the entire review, see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/health/15book.html?em
 
 
Here’s an interesting piece in today’s New York Times about remnants of the Vietnam War and how they still affect vets:

The most authoritative study conducted on the disorder and Vietnam veterans, in 1988, the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study, estimated that at the time, 500,000 of the 3.14 million Americans who served in Vietnam had P.T.S.D., and a total of 1 million had experienced it at some point.

Even as Vietnam veterans now enter their 60s and begin to die off, the number seeking P.T.S.D. treatment is growing — up 11.6 percent from 2003 to 2005, the latest figures available. “We have new Viet vets coming in every week,” said David Bressem, who runs the Vet Center clinic here and is Mr. Van Cott’s therapist.

On so many fronts, the country still pays for the Vietnam War.


For the full story, go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/fashion/06generationb.html?_r=1&hpw
 
 
Fellow blogger Jacqueline Christodoulou of Manchester, England, saw a "new" Tory Amos the other night, in concert, and started thinking about age and beauty:

Personally, I don't see age as pathological. But, as with everything that is relational, it doesn't matter what I think. 'I' am what is private to me, my inner thoughts. It's the 'me' that I show to the world that is aesthetically relational; in this case it's what other's think that cause a mirror for consideration. As ageing is something that we cannot really escape, no matter how much 'work' we have done, and is common to all of us, it's surprising that so many people are grasping at immortality.

Again, it comes down to egocentric thinking. We all want to look and feel good, preferably in as short a time as possible, and with a little effort. The way that the (Western) world is organised is around youth being valuable, an asset that deteriorates with time over a set of superficial milestones that we, amazingly, set for ourselves!

To read the rest of what this psychologist and writer has to say on the subject, read the full blog post at Dirty Sparkle .