Stem Cell Ballot Initative: A Prop 2 that actually works for MI

This is another post from a guest blogger, Julielyn Gibbons. Julielyn Gibbons has been fighting for those unheard voices in Michigan for nearly a decade both in Lansing and online as her nom de plume, Liberal Lucy. Diagnosed with a particularly severe case of Crohn's Disease while a teen, Julielyn's taken her own personal tragedy into a victory and is now one of Michigan's best known political voices and online strategists, recognized for efforts both in Michigan and nationally.

A terrible accident. A horrific diagnosis. A lifetime sentence of needles, medicine, or expensive medical equipment. Even worse, a terminal illness.

Juvenile Diabetes. Cancer. Alzheimer's. Parkinson's Disease. Spinal Cord Injury. ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). Auto-Immune Diseases. Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Your mother, your child, your brother, your friend, your grandparent, your aunt. You.
I was 14. They said I had Crohn's Disease and they were without a reason for the illness, without a cure, without a real treatment.

Almost 15 years later, I'm missing my colon and rectum, among other miscellaneous parts and pieces. My body is a walking tribute to the skill of surgeons after 36 surgeries and almost 80 hospitalizations.

To stay alive and functioning in society, I require over $300 in ostomy supplies a month, not to mention the various treatments and medications that keep the other 'peripheral' conditions and illnesses at bay. I have a deep love-hate relationship with the insurance industry.

I'd like to have children some day, but I realize that if I'm even able to have children, which is unknown at this point because of my health, there's a great risk of passing my disease on. Do I want to do that to my child?

Not a day doesn't pass when I don't realize how lucky I am to be alive, but I also understand that there are millions that like me, suffer from illnesses and injuries that could be one day cured, so that we don't have to suffer.

But first we need the proper research to be done, and so much promise lies in stem cell research.

Unfortunately, Michigan is one of five states that lies in wait for progress to happen. Since 1978, we've been stuck in a Draconian period along with Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Louisiana; definitely some of the least progressive states in our Union.

Fortunately for us, that could change this November. We all have an opportunity to be a part of making a Cure happen for Michigan.

The ballot proposal, (Proposal 2) led by the Cure Michigan folks, would turn the current law right around, and put Michigan at the forefront of curing debilitating illnesses and conditions.

Despite the Extreme Right's moaning and belly-aching about the issue, it's a very practical solution that is quite a bit more 'pro-life' than the current standards. For instance, instead of throwing away unused embryos, parents who use fertility clinics have the option of donating them to helping find a cure. Right now, all they can do is have them thrown out. Seems like a waste, doesn't it?

A study has already found that more than half of all parents who benefit from fertility clinics are willing to donate their embryos to finding a much needed cure.

What's ironic is that under the current law, a researcher could be thrown in jail for up to 10 years for their work in finding a cure by using stem cell lines that would have been put in the trash. As a result, we've already heard the stories of the states that have benefited from our top researchers packing up and moving shop out of Michigan.

A change in Michigan could help cure our health and financial woes. It's a change that a majority of Michigan is already getting behind, as today's editorial from the Muskegon Chronicle highlights.

While you could say that my interest in the Cure Michigan campaign is selfish, there's a good chance that you have someone in your life who is either suffering now or has suffered in the past from an illness that could be helped or cured through stem cell research. In the end, we all benefit from finding a cure.

Get the facts, send it on to your friends, family, neighbors, and above all, let's make sure that we all check YES on November 4th. We can't afford not too.

Medicare and the 2008 Presidential Election – Why it matters

This is a guest blog from my dear friend The Road Less Traveled. The Road Less Traveled is a graduate of the Masters in Health Advocacy Program at Sarah Lawrence College. Her expertise in the field lies in helping consumers gain access to appropriate health care, as she has done with Medicare, Managed Care and Prescription Drugs.

Early in my career as a health advocate I had the amazing opportunity of counseling Medicare beneficiaries and training other advocates to do the same. What I learned through that process, in addition to my health policy and law studies in graduate school, was an invaluable lesson in how health care policy, from law to implementation, works in the US. Some friends of mine were recently discussing past US elections and how seniors seemed to have a heavy influence in the issues regarded by the candidates. While it is true that we, as young people, are not directly affected by Medicare now, we will be eventually. If we want to have reliable health care when get older, or should we happen to come upon terrible luck and incur a disability, then we need to make sure that Medicare is properly funded and administered. Not to mention, as our parents are coming upon Medicare age now, it may affect us more than we expect.

Medicare was put into law in 1965, in response to the critical need for older people and those with disabilities to be covered by health insurance. Medicaid was passed in the same bill, offering health insurance for people with low incomes. These populations are often vulnerable and refused by insurance companies due to their high costs of care and fixed incomes. We obviously saw a reason in 1965 to create health care coverage for people who otherwise would not be able to get it. It has been the closest form of a universal health program in the US.

There have been significant changes to Medicare since it was first passed. Most significantly, HMOs began coming to Medicare with the passage of the Balance Budget Act of 1997 (offering what are now known as Medicare Advantage plans). Prior to this, Medicare benefits could only be obtained by enrolling in a federal program administered solely by Medicare. Then in 2003, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) was passed, establishing an outpatient prescription drug benefit offered only through private plans. This was a substantial step in privatizing Medicare as beneficiaries could not get drug coverage under the traditional Medicare program.

The supposed advantage of receiving a drug benefit through only private insurers was that competition would allow for better choices of plans. There were a few flaws in this idea. First, insurers jumped on the chance to provide plans to the growing senior population, resulting in 50-60 plan choices within a region. Beneficiaries had to search through all of these plans to find out if their drugs were covered and for how much. Imagine your grandparents or great-grandparents trying to search online between 50 drug plans or talk to an inept customer service representative (if they could get through to anyone). Second, insurers were not always ethical in enrolling individuals and took advantage of the trusting people who thought they were trying to help them out. CMS (the federal administrator of Medicare) has not been diligent in holding insurers responsible for indiscretions and have made some indiscretions of their own . Finally, the act did not allow for the federal government to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, doing nothing to help bring down the enormous costs of drugs used by seniors.

In addition to offering a drug benefit only through private insurers, the Bush administration has been pushing the privatization of Medicare through Medicare Advantage plans. In fact, the government has been making payments to private insurers to enroll more beneficiaries into these plans for lower costs. People with lower incomes especially see this as beneficial because it lowers their costs of care. Sounds great, right? Not so much if you realize that many people get trapped into these plans for a year by fraudulent marketing tactics and are not always warned that their doctors and hospital must be in network in order to get these lower costs. I saw a lot of people receive huge bills from their doctors that Medicare would not pay because they were enrolled in an HMO that their provider does not take. It was heartbreaking.

Why is all of this important in the 2008 election? The Medicare population is growing significantly as the baby boom generation is becoming eligible for the benefits. With the federal deficit the way it is, the government is looking to cut costs where ever it can. With Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security representing over 40% of the federal budget, you can count on the fact that it’s going to be scrutinized and revised. So, it’s very important to know what the candidates views are on these things. It’s not something that we’ve been hearing about, not as sensational as the bailout plan or the Iraq war. But it is something that, if it doesn’t already, will affect you in the future.

Proponents of universal healthcare have long offered Medicare as a successful example of a universal health care in the US. It’s no surprise then that McCain wants to see more people enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans and less in traditional Medicare. Obama, also not surprisingly, wants to see the subsidies going to insurers eliminated, so that the costs for enrolling people in the traditional plan and the private plans are the same. Since Obama would like to see universal health care, he will support the traditional form of Medicare, because its success will only strengthen his platform for a universal health care system. McCain wants more privatization. More information on how the candidates compare can be found here.

Regardless of who gets elected, losing Medicare would be a tremendous upset to the US. Not only would it detrimental to the vulnerable people who are covered by it, but it would affect much in the way our hospitals and medical centers are run. For instance, EMTALA, an act passed in the 1980’s, requires all hospitals receiving Medicare reimbursement to see and stabilize anyone who comes through their doors. Since just about every hospital in the US takes Medicare, the act covers them.

The next administration will be key in the future of Medicare and in the future of health care itself. See for yourself how the candidates compare and keep this is mind, in addition to the economy and the Iraq war. Because once the economy is restored and we get out of Iraq (although these may be long and arduous journeys), we will still need good health care. This is an issue that will never be irrelevant.

Now, go hug a senior and tell them it’ll be okay! Tell them the young people in this country are concerned about Medicare too.

The Problem With Tax-Breaks for Healthcare - or - McCain's Healthcare Plan: Don't Get Sick

I think as a nation that we've largely overcome the hump of getting everyone on board with the notion that we need some sort of nationalized health care. Even the most conservative people I know believe health care should be a right, not a privilege. I may be wrong on this general consensus, but I'm going to believe in it because I want to believe that there's a general will to do the right thing out there.

That being said, I'd be remiss if I let this week go by without laying out exactly where a national health care plan should go and what it should do. Though I have my disagreements with Obama's plan (e.g., not a mandate or universal coverage, but rather coverage for those whose employer does not provide it and incentives for employers to provide it or enroll in the national plan) and I believe that whatever national health care plan does eventually make its way to the people will look different from what is proposed, I cannot stand idly and not comment on McCain's complete failure to address the problem.

So to break it down, here's why McCain's Health Care Plan is a massive failure:

• It does not mandate coverage. Under Obama's plan, flaws and all, every American will be covered by a plan, one way or another. That's not true under McCain's plan. McCain's plan offers tax incentives to getting coverage, but does not make it even more available than it is now and doesn't require every person to be covered and every insurer to accept you regardless of medical history. In other words, you're on your own. And as anyone who has shopped for alternative coverage can tell you, you are screwed.
  
• It encourages "free market" policies to take advantage of Americans. Instead of being insured under group policies, every person would be insured by an individual policy. McCain calls this being responsible for your own health care. McCain's solution to the insurance issue: "An important part of his plan is to use competition to improve the quality of health insurance with greater variety to match people's needs, lower prices, and portability. Families should be able to purchase health insurance nationwide, across state lines." That's a direct quote. Here's a translation: big companies are still going to make money off of a basic service, something we know doesn't work. Furthermore everyday Americans will be lucky if they can even find coverage because competition does not provide basic safeguards. If anyone needs a lesson about that, they need look no further than the current financial meltdown.
  
• It taxes those whose employer does provide benefits. That's right Joe Blow--now your company-provided health care will now count towards your income and be taxable. So much for cutting taxes to help the economy. In other words, since health care benefits for a family equal about the equivalent of $12,000, those who need the break the most--working families--will instead be taxed at a higher level for benefits they receive. Of course, they'll get a tax break...in amount much less than the increased taxed income they'll be charged for. In other words, the plan isn't so much of a plan to encourage coverage, it's a plan to encourage people to go out into the "free market" to get insurance--even if that insurance is not as good--because there are greater tax benefits to do so. Surely, such a policy is absurd to anyone. At least, I thought that. Meanwhile companies will be greater encouraged (as if they needed more encouragement) to lower benefits to their employees and basically strip the American Worker (the 'fundamentals of the economy') of any chance of breaking even.

The end result of McCain's plan is this: not only is the American Worker screwed, he's screwed without a kiss. A good resource to review these policies substantively is the Economists for Obama site. There is also a narrative comparison of the effect either plan would have on ordinary Americans. Another good source is a straight-talkin' break down of what McCain's plan truly brings to the table.

The choice is pretty clear--there is a choice between coverage for all and coverage for the elite few who probably don't need it anyhow. I'll take the former any day of the week.

Welcome to Healthcare Week

As many of you know, health care is an issue very near and very dear to me. I suffer from several chronic conditions and without insurance, I'd be totally screwed. Thankfully, I don't have that issue. But millions of Americans (including MomGrace and DadGrace at times) do go without the basic care that they, and every other human being, should receive as a matter of right--not privilege.

There are, of course, other issues in healthcare. Research is one of those big issues. On the ballot in Michigan this year there is a stem cell research ballot measure. We'll talk about that as well.

But to get you started, like I did last week, here are the candidates' own words on their healthcare plans:

Barack Obama
John McCain

I support this

Who knew? Apparently there is a campaign to make affordable health care a basic right under the Michigan Constitution.

Well...maybe I knew. But maybe you didn't. And now you know...and knowing is 3/4 of the battle.

Flawed Flawed Flawed

This piece was on NPR's Marketplace Report yesterday. Some professor did a study of health during economic downturns and found that on a macro level, the health of the area in economic turmoil was better than average. I couldn't help but think of the many huge (and I mean enormous) flaws in this research while listening to the piece.

My comments are in bold/italic.

------

Kai Ryssdal: $3.60 a gallon's gonna be the magic number this summer. The Department of Energy said today that's where gas prices should top out.

Which, if you really think about it, might turn out to be good news, because chances are paying that much will make most of us think twice before we take to the open road. Which'll mean less traffic, less stress, and probably less pollution, too.

In fact, economist Chris Ruhm at the University of North Carolina Greensboro's been studying exactly that phenomenon.

---

Ryssdal: Thanks for being with us.

Chris Ruhm: Thanks. My pleasure

Ryssdal: You know, you'd think that bad economic times would do bad things to your health and to society's general well-being. You're telling me that's not true?

Ruhm: Well, what I'm telling you is that bad economic times are actually good for your health. Now, I'm not saying they're good for society, but they do turn out to be good for your physical health?

Ryssdal: How so?

Ruhm: What we find is mortality rates of all kinds fall when the economy weakens, so total mortality, vehicle mortality, deaths from heart attacks, various health conditions like back problems become less prevalent and then people behave in a healthier manner, that is they smoke less, they drink less, they're less likely to be obese.

First of all--mortality is not the only part to health. There is this little thing called "life" that people must go through and if they're unfortunate enough not to be 100% healthy, that's not really fun.

Second of all--just because "various conditions...become less prevalent" in the statistics doesn't mean they don't exist. Perhaps (and this is a pretty good and solid assumption), people don't report these problems as much in poor economic times because they don't have health insurance. Just a thought.

Third--you all know how I feel about the word "obese".

Ryssdal: Now is that generally just less stress because you don't have to deal with all the craziness at work?

Yeah, Kai--because worrying about finding a job and paying your bills and feeding your kids ain't stressful.

Ruhm: That may be part what's going on. There's also environmental risks like reductions in pollution levels and people have more time, so they might have more time to exercise. Part of it might be an income story too. If you don't have as much money, you don't go out to eat as much. When you go out to eat, you tend to eat fatty meals, maybe you drink and smoke, so it could be a combination of factors

Ryssdal: What about everyday things like traffic loads? I mean, if it takes me 15 minutes to get in because people have been laid off, generally a good thing, right?

Ruhm: That's right, and people drive less. Driving is a risky activity

Ryssdal: Do you have any data on mental health as opposed to physical issues?

Ruhm: A little bit. Mental health is harder to measure and the evidence is much less clear and in fact, it's quite possible that in bad times, people's mental health actually worsens. So, for example, we find that suicides increase when times are bad.

Oh, and mental health isn't at all related to physical health, is it? Oh wait...

Ryssdal: Probably ought to take a step back here and make sure everybody understands we're not talking about individual episodes of good or bad health. It's more on a macro scale.

Well, that may be true, but you've been talking about it like it was individual results and then you try and tell me it's on a macro scale. Make up your mind.

Ruhm: That's right. This is looking at population-wide averages. Essentially what I was doing is using each state as an experiment, so I was comparing what was happening in one state, say in Massachusetts or Texas, relative to what was going on in other states, so if the Texas economy was weakening at a time when other states' economies were strengthening, how were, say, mortality rates in Texas changing relative to other states and the result was just very robust, the result that health got better during bad economic times.

Ryssdal: It's kind of counterintuitive though.

And kind of wrong.

Ruhm: It is to most people and certainly it was not what I initially expected, but there are a number of plausible mechanisms. I might also add there was research over a half a century ago where people looked at mortality rates and found results that were consistent with this and actually couldn't figure out what was going on and after a number of years just sort of ignored their own results, but actually, there's been evidence on this for a long time.

Ryssdal: Chris Ruhm is professor of economics at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Professor, thanks a lot.

Ruhm: Thank you.

SG: No thank you.

I promise

Unless something major happens (which it very well could), I'm not going to blog about Mayor McCheesehead today.

More importantly though, a story on freep.com deserves more attention than it's getting. It turns out that two people die every single day in Michigan alone from lack of medical insurance.

The report used mathematical methods used by two highly reputable agencies, the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit federal agency which studied the issue in 2002, and the Urban Institute, which updated the figures in 2006. Both reports took federal statistics on people who lacked insurance and estimated that 25% died prematurely.

It is so sad, this day in age, that we live in a country of such extravagance and wealth and yet we can't be bothered to ensure that the basic needs of our citizens are met. And yes, I would consider healthcare a basic need. Basic. It's so basic that when we're young the first face we see is that of a medical professional. Yet once we've passed through the birth canal it's perfectly okay to fail to extend to us the most simple and basic of rights.

If all of these other countries can do it--if Cuba can do it--we can do it. It's just a matter of people being willing to give up very little so that we can all reap the many benefits.

Lesson #1 from the weekend from hell--The Healthcare System in the US is a Joke

I had an awful weekend. It was exhausting, it was emotional, it was costly on every level.

So instead of dwelling on the ridiculousness of it, I am going to try and learn some lessons from it, because I believe they are there. And in the coming days I will put down these lessons here.

Today is Lesson #1--The Healthcare System in the US is a Joke.

I am so sick of the almighty dollar running the healthcare industry. This is not something new. But when you're an out-of-towner trying to get some straightforward advice on what could be a life-threatening medical issue, you'd better just pack your bags up and call it a day, because it just ain't going to happen. It's a sad lesson, but it's true. There are certain standards of accountability that should be in place in the medical profession that just aren't and the lack of those standards makes for an insurmountable challenge when you least have the energy to tackle it. And the sad part of my medical experiences this weekend is the total lack of communication notwithstanding the fact that there is more technology in place to facilitate such a dialog than ever. You would think that this technology would help us do something special--like find a solution to a problem more quickly, provide better quality of care, or just plain make things faster. The fact of the matter is that it's doing just the opposite. People are getting improper diagnoses and a general lack of attention that's due to them as a human being.

I am too exhausted to put my words into something coherent at this point, but I will be writing a strongly-worded letter about this soon.

Strongly worded.

Busy as a Beaver

I've had a very busy past two days. I've been sworn in to the State Bar of Michigan. I had an interview this morning. And most importantly, I finally sent in my health insurance premium. Sending in my premium always makes me wonder why we are the only civilized country without a national health care plan. I mean, can a hoe get a doctor's visit up in here.

Here are two sites regarding national health care. Check them out:
Physicians for a National Program
HealthCare-Now!

It's just amazing. I remember talking to my French host family FIVE years ago about this issue. They paid (at the time) $20 for a doctor's visit, $18 of which was covered by the government. And there was a big issue at the time because they wanted to raise the price of a visit to $22. I wish doctor's visits were $22 here. And don't even get me started on prescriptions.