I would be very interested to hear more about the work that's happening and what groups are planning -
Not too long ago, I gave a presentation about health reform to a Boston area organization that helps families facing homelessness. They wanted to understand all the changes to the health coverage system so they could best serve their clients, and they had many questions.
Many of us have been aware of health care reform, learning and following along from day one. Each new piece of information is incorporated into the whole, and while one detail or another might be confusing, no single element has been impossible to grasp.
After sitting with this organization and reflecting on other recent health reform presentations, I'm struck by how intimidating it must be to hear about a year's worth of developments all at once. But those who help clients with a range of government programs are remarkably adaptive; they're used to changeable and complicated rules.
The public experiences the intimidation and confusion, too. I'm sure we've all met folks convinced that Commonwealth Care costs hundreds of dollars a month, having confused it with Commonwealth Choice. Of course, all we can do is keep explaining. When we have a chance to talk to someone about it all, these things are easily resolved, but it stands to reason that many people never find their way to an outreach worker. Computer-savvy individuals can probably Google their way to answers much of the time, especially if they speak English.
But what if you don't use a computer or speak English?
I know there is a lot of work happening on the ground to reach different immigrant communities and others outside the mainstream who could fall through the cracks. I am still concerned about these communities, however. I would be very interested to hear more about the work that's happening and what groups are planning. Perhaps the $200,000 for the new outreach coordination office can help us collaborate to amplify these efforts in the next year.
I extend a sincere "Thank
I extend a sincere "Thank you" for all good intentions and efforts to help people get the health care they need are appreciated.
But please, I beg each of you to also work to re-chart the course of this fatally flawed law and to replace it with a real universal healthcare system. Propping up the flaws in the current law only serves as an obstacle to achieving the reforms that are so urgently needed.
Re: "Perhaps the $200,000 for the new outreach coordination office can help us collaborate to amplify these efforts in the next year."
Perhaps those taxpayer funds represent just another layer of health system bureaucracy created by the new law, instead of it streamlining and simplifying our healthcare financing and delivery system so that it's more affordable and works better FOR ALL OF US.
There is massive growing public opinion that is rejecting this harmful mandate law. People are beginning to insist that the Chapter 58 law's insurance mandate be replaced with real reform that puts people and their healthcare needs before healthcare industry profits.
Please try to see the film SiCKO if you haven't yet and talk to people after the film; you will know what I mean.
To learn more about the work to create a people and community-centered healhtcare system, please visit http://www.DefendHealth.org and http://www.MassCare.org/legislation and http://www.SickoCure.org
Thank you.
In case it was not clear in
In case it was not clear in my above comment, rejecting the fake reform represented by the Chapter 58 law and demanding that it be replaced with a real universal healthcare system is what the many health and social justice groups I am active with are planning.
I second that opinion!
I second that opinion!
We all will do what we have to right now to help people get their needs met, given current programs, but it is our duty, from the front lines, to point out to the elected officials, and the voters who elect them, how much TIME and MONEY get wasted setting up and administering systems that screen people and put them into slots! So even when there's a good intention, like helping the working poor, we're still putting hoops to jump through before they actually get to receive care!
I think nurses see this so well, because they are educating patients, coordinating their care, and advocating for them, whether in a hospital or medical office, and they see all the additional roadblocks to follow-up care, like confusing benefits packages, varying copayments for drugs, stress-causing bills and uncertainties that make taking care of yourself and your family harder than it would be otherwise.
I've had minor medical issues twice in my life overseas, once in Kenya and once in France, and I could walk into a doctor's office and pharmacy and no one needed to even see my Blue Cross card!! Health care is just THERE, like police, schools, firefighting.
We all are trying to do good with our work, but I would rather we could all be re-trained as medical technicians, dental assistants, nurse practitioners, etc. actually taking care of people.
p.s. I suspect BCBS Foundation or UMassMedSchool will be doing a whole book to summarize the new plans, which would help with the original question. If they got some staff people from the House and Senate Health Care Committees to help with that work, maybe they could take the message back to the pols, that every new kind of insurance makes the world of getting health care more complex; it should be streamlined!
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