BLOGGING FOR HEALTHCARE REFORM

And maybe more...

Deaths from Uninsured or Underinsured 2

How You Can Show Your Support

ATTEND AN AUGUST EVENT If you see healthcare reform as an important issue, perhaps the most important issue in decades, you may be getting frustrated and wondering how you can make your views known. One way is to contact your lawmakers (see sidebar). Another is to attend an event. Opponents of healthcare reform are organizing to show up at town hall meetings all over the country, and where they are in the minority, they sit in strategic spots in the audience and interrupt the speaker. They've already caught the attention of the media. Free speech is fine, but we can't allow a minority of shouters to monopolize the debate. Go to the above site and commit to attending one event in the month of August.

Blogging About Healthcare and maybe more...

How does that ad go? "This isn't a liberal or conservative issue, it's a human issue." They're talking about the environment, but it could apply to healthcare reform as well, at least in the US. That's not altruism for the 48 million and counting uninsured. It's good old American "what's in it for me" thinking for both the uninsured and the currently insured who could find themselves uninsured at any moment.

Even if you've already taken sides on healthcare reform––especially if you have––I urge you to read these posts and simply consider these points. I have a writing blog and a book review blog, and I swore I'd never add my voice to the cacophony of angry voices blogging on politics. Only there are so many people adding their voices who don't have a clue what they are talking about, that I figured my more than 10 years experience working in benefits––most of it looking for ways to contain costs without cutting benefits––might actually add something to the conversation (if you can call it that).

I promise not to make statements I can't back up with experience or research. In return I ask that you approach my posts with an open mind, and when you comment, which I hope you will, make the comments civil so that they invite further discussion. Also, please comment on this blog rather than dragging the discussion to your own blogs, so that we can all take part.

I'm open to guest posts on either side, so long as they are well-informed and cite sources. Contact me

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Twitter Crashes: Brits tired of US Pols bashing NHS

The Brits are twittering back. It seems they are tired of US ads and blogs that give their National Health Service a black eye. Click on the title to read the article.
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1 comment:

CashewElliott/John said...

Just went through about 45 hours of orientation for graduate school (orientation was focused on teaching, as I have to teach two english 1010 courses tomorrow- first one at 7:30 AM!!!! AHH!) and one of the incoming students is from England. It's his first time here. I watch his face every time an issue of health care or guns comes up and his eyes get all big. His jaw dropped when another student asked who would foot the bill if a student loses consciousness, and we decide to call the ambulance. "The student would pay for the ambulance."

This is the first time I've actually really seen a jaw drop in my life. To the floor.

Then we get this sheet detailing our new mandatory insurance plan (we can opt out if we prove private coverage). The school covers 80% of premium, so it's only about 275 per year for us. To add my spouse would be 2900. No preexisting conditions for a year. The pack page lists all the exclusions, and I asked this kid what he thought of private health insurance, and he said, "I thought of the five things I might use it for, and turned to the back page, and they were the first five things listed as things they won't cover."

Then he says, "In England we have the NHS [I let him talk without telling him I've studied it quite a bit], and they take care of this sort of stuff. Yeah, they are no good for some things, like they won't pay for your teeth much, but they won't let you die. In England, if someone dies at that fault of the NHS, it's a big, a BIG deal."

I told him about the steven Hawking thing (the IBD op ed) and he'd not heard about it, but did know Hawking was a british subject.

August 23, 2009 at 7:24 PM

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