"It's us, or they don't get health care."
Video courtesy Michelle Bearden/TBO.com.
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
4.16.2012
Civics Lesson 2
The Judeo Christian Health Clinic in Tampa turns 40.
Video courtesy Michelle Bearden/TBO.com.
Video courtesy Michelle Bearden/TBO.com.
3.30.2011
HEAL!
HEAL is a new networking group for young professionals (in any field) sponsored by the University Community Hospital's Foundation Center.
Tuesday morning the group met for a breakfast lecture at Pepin Heart Hospital with medical director Dr. Charles Lambert. It was an amazing opportunity not only to chat with other professionals but also get a morning biology lesson from one of Tampa's top medical minds.
It was eye opening to hear Dr. Lambert say, "exercise is just as effective as cholesterol lowering medication." He also talked about how overweight our country has become, especially our children, and the costs we'll all face in a few years when their health care problems will cost us all.
Some causes Lambert cited are the cancellation of P.E. and health classes, unhealthy school lunches and overall lack of physical activity.
When Dr. Lambert started to make a connection between health and education I realized I had interviewed his wife, Bonnie Lambert of Madison Middle School, last December for the St. Petersburg Times.
It's a small, small world with a web of interconnected problems.
The next HEAL meeting is Tuesday, April 5 at 12pm. It's a lunch & learn at Pepin Heart hospital. For more information email Foundation Coordinator Rachel Coleman at RJColeman@mail.uch.org
Tuesday morning the group met for a breakfast lecture at Pepin Heart Hospital with medical director Dr. Charles Lambert. It was an amazing opportunity not only to chat with other professionals but also get a morning biology lesson from one of Tampa's top medical minds.
It was eye opening to hear Dr. Lambert say, "exercise is just as effective as cholesterol lowering medication." He also talked about how overweight our country has become, especially our children, and the costs we'll all face in a few years when their health care problems will cost us all.
Some causes Lambert cited are the cancellation of P.E. and health classes, unhealthy school lunches and overall lack of physical activity.
When Dr. Lambert started to make a connection between health and education I realized I had interviewed his wife, Bonnie Lambert of Madison Middle School, last December for the St. Petersburg Times.
It's a small, small world with a web of interconnected problems.
The next HEAL meeting is Tuesday, April 5 at 12pm. It's a lunch & learn at Pepin Heart hospital. For more information email Foundation Coordinator Rachel Coleman at RJColeman@mail.uch.org
8.18.2010
In His Hands
Last year I posted a blurb about a benefit concert for the Coddington family. In 2008 the mom, Marian, suffered from an aneurysm followed by several brain hemorrhages. Their insurance company declared her to be in a vegetative state and deemed rehab medically unnecessary. For the last year or more almost all of Steve's (the dad) income pays for a caregiver to watch Marian while he's at work.
Steve's coworkers at the St. Pete Times organized last year's benefit as well as another call for help earlier this year. Being underemployed I had no money to give but I did have some time on my hands. So once a month I'd drive down to their place in Apollo Beach and play caregiver to Marian while Steve took their two cooped-up kids out to play at museums, parks or the beach.
Last month when I thought my marriage was ending I even moved in with them and had a great time as the much-needed second adult in the household. Steve has been so bogged down with worry, paperwork, and just trying to get through each day that he's forgotten or lacked the time to change air conditioner filters, take out the recycling, and train the puppy.
I've happily moved back into my own home, but find myself at a loss in terms of helping them now. Life would be so much easier for him if he got Marian into a nursing home, which the government would pay for, yet financial assistance to pay $300-400 a week (much cheaper than a nursing home) for a caregiver is out of reach. Marian sits on Medicaid waiting lists, Steve waits for the health care reform laws to kick in...they take each day as it comes while praying for relief.
The mom for whom therapy is "medically unnecessary" yelled out "Bye!" to her husband the other day when he announced he was off to work. A few days before I was sitting with her and watching black & white episodes of Ed Murrow's See It Now. One featured singer Marian Anderson receiving an award in South Korea, and then singing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." Our Marian joined the songbird Marian a few lines in, and together they completed the song.
8.05.2009
Health Care: An Issue of Humanity, not Politics
Two years ago I wrote about a few uninsured folks for Creative Loafing. The story included my own: when I was 19 and out of college for a semester (unable to pay tuition), I was dropped from my dad's health insurance policy. Then tore my achilles tendon. Less than a year later I was back in school and insured again, but because of the pre-existing condition, I was allotted only one month of physical therapy to "fix" the scarred-over injury.
After college, instead of pursuing my drive to create media full-time in Seattle (notoriously low paying entry level work, even then), I got a job with a corporate bank processing loans. I cried everyday, trapped in that office for a year and a half. It was the excellent health insurance that kept me there - they paid for eight months of physical therapy despite the pre-existing status. (They also paid for the mental health counseling it took for me to face that office for so long).
I'm not complaining about hard work. I can and have always worked hard. I am creative, intelligent and good at so many things, although processing loans sure wasn't one of them. (The worst part of the job for me was not understanding why the management allowed loans to go to people who barely made more than their mortgage payment...we all see where that got us.)
At 25, I declared bankruptcy to free myself from the debt I acquired from being young, reckless and injured (those co-pays added up). This allowed me to finally quit the job, move to Tampa in with mom, and find work I loved. That first year I was an AmeriCorps volunteer, and a couple years later I found my way into the editorial assistant seat at CL. Life was good at last!
Sadly though, it didn't last long. As a part time employee at the paper, I made around $1000 a month, several hundred more depending on the number of stories I had published. I had been uninsured for a year, and when I started having stomach probs, I bought my own health insurance through United. $140 a month, with a $2500 deductible. The week after my Sicko story came out, I sprained my the ankle of my "good" leg and was on crutches for a couple of months. Naturally I spent almost all of the $2500 that year, on top of the monthly premium. I picked up other p/t work wherever I could, working as a teacher in a special needs public school and then as an on-air instructor at HCC's student radio station. Working over 60 hours a week to pay my medical bills burnt out that energetic 29-year-old. I fled to a friend's in DE, found a great paying corporate job in D.C. - that I left after six weeks because I couldn't let myself get stuck in that corporate rut again. (The job was as soul-less for a journalist as my former bank job: building a database of journalists as the country's newspapers consolidated/died. Aye yi yi.)
My choices weren't always the best ones, but the system is set up to encourage failure. No one in American should have to endure pain every day. I personally have spent too much yet received so little. I still carry the pain of that first injury 10 years ago. We shouldn't have to cling to corporations for our well being, because they will never care about us. As office cynical workers everywhere are fond of saying, "It's not my job."
Rep. Kathy Castor is holding a town hall meeting to hear your health care story.
Where: Children’s Board in Tampa
1002 East Palm Avenue (near Nebraska and 7th Ave)
When: Thursday, August 6th from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Folks are encouraged to get there early and be prepared to learn more about the proposed healthcare plan and to speak up for their rights.
After college, instead of pursuing my drive to create media full-time in Seattle (notoriously low paying entry level work, even then), I got a job with a corporate bank processing loans. I cried everyday, trapped in that office for a year and a half. It was the excellent health insurance that kept me there - they paid for eight months of physical therapy despite the pre-existing status. (They also paid for the mental health counseling it took for me to face that office for so long).
I'm not complaining about hard work. I can and have always worked hard. I am creative, intelligent and good at so many things, although processing loans sure wasn't one of them. (The worst part of the job for me was not understanding why the management allowed loans to go to people who barely made more than their mortgage payment...we all see where that got us.)
At 25, I declared bankruptcy to free myself from the debt I acquired from being young, reckless and injured (those co-pays added up). This allowed me to finally quit the job, move to Tampa in with mom, and find work I loved. That first year I was an AmeriCorps volunteer, and a couple years later I found my way into the editorial assistant seat at CL. Life was good at last!
Sadly though, it didn't last long. As a part time employee at the paper, I made around $1000 a month, several hundred more depending on the number of stories I had published. I had been uninsured for a year, and when I started having stomach probs, I bought my own health insurance through United. $140 a month, with a $2500 deductible. The week after my Sicko story came out, I sprained my the ankle of my "good" leg and was on crutches for a couple of months. Naturally I spent almost all of the $2500 that year, on top of the monthly premium. I picked up other p/t work wherever I could, working as a teacher in a special needs public school and then as an on-air instructor at HCC's student radio station. Working over 60 hours a week to pay my medical bills burnt out that energetic 29-year-old. I fled to a friend's in DE, found a great paying corporate job in D.C. - that I left after six weeks because I couldn't let myself get stuck in that corporate rut again. (The job was as soul-less for a journalist as my former bank job: building a database of journalists as the country's newspapers consolidated/died. Aye yi yi.)
My choices weren't always the best ones, but the system is set up to encourage failure. No one in American should have to endure pain every day. I personally have spent too much yet received so little. I still carry the pain of that first injury 10 years ago. We shouldn't have to cling to corporations for our well being, because they will never care about us. As office cynical workers everywhere are fond of saying, "It's not my job."
Rep. Kathy Castor is holding a town hall meeting to hear your health care story.
Where: Children’s Board in Tampa
1002 East Palm Avenue (near Nebraska and 7th Ave)
When: Thursday, August 6th from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Folks are encouraged to get there early and be prepared to learn more about the proposed healthcare plan and to speak up for their rights.
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