The majority of Americans want neither, yet the majority wants universal coverage.

That means the major barrier to health care reform is not the stakeholders, insurers, and all the others that people point fingers at.  The barrier to reform is the political parties' inability to signficantly  and sincerely reach across the aisle or to the listen to the people of America.

Therefore, all of their proposals are not what the people want or will ultimately support.

Cheers and more later.  Kathleen

Brown says, "Because the system is unlikely to collapse from within, reformers' best hopes lie with shifts in public sentiment and the election of activists and reform minded political leaders."

We would add to that an engaged citizenry that holds its elected officials accountable for change.  Which is where we – and you – come in.  It's time to speak up on health care.

Read this op-ed, take our Pulse® online and get five friends and family members to do the same. And forward this blog to others who may find it of interest. 

Cheers and more later.  Kathleen

Here’s what several of these seminars offer:

“Connect before you collect: How to establish rapport with a patient before you dig for the dough.
Learn all the profitable secrets about developing target files.”

            and

“In 2006 the AMA changed conscious sedation CPT codes to ‘moderate sedation’
- which resulted in many carrier reimbursement policy changes. If you’re not up to speed on these changes, you could risk losing payment for these sedation services."

"Think a non-par provider can’t get paid for moderate sedation? Think again ... You’ll find out how!
If you’re a non-par provider: How to get paid when your insurance company denies the service.
3 Steps to follow to ensure payment when you¹ve opted out of Medicare.

"But you can learn all you need to know to rake in the deserved bucks in just one hour"
         
                   ***********************

"And all you have to do is enroll for an audio seminar at $239 a CD from audioeducator.  www.audioeducator.com"

And we wonder why health care costs are so high!  Our game and blame health care battlefield has pitched physicians against their patients because of money.  We no longer have time with our physicians because the primary care doctors are paid so poorly that they have to see more and more patients in less and less time to make ends meet.

This is not the way to practice medicine.

And who is really raking in the dough with these ads?  At $239 a CD, I would bet the speaker.

I am a Rotarian. Rotary has a four way test:

1.    Is it the Truth?
2.    Is it Fair to all concerned?
3.    Will it build Good Will and Better Friendships?
4.    Will it be Beneficial to All Concerned?

Sadly, these seminars and nearly all of health care marketing, fail this simple test. 

If there are cases to be made for reform -- these seminars should be part of that case. Our coding and billing system would be a critical thing to reform.  Doctors only get paid by doing something to you. What they do is coded on a CPT scale, which is actually owned by the AMA.

We have so micromanaged our health care system, that we have forgotten what a health care system should really do -- promote people’s health.   We really recommend the books Overtreated by Shannon Brownlee and Epidemic of Care by George Halvorson and George Isham, MD.  We're not the only ones who know that the emperor wears no clothes!

Enough of this game and blame battlefield!  Let¹s build that system together.
Take the CodeBlueNow! Pulse® today and have your voice be heard.   

And, watch our website for some interesting news this coming week.

Cheers and more later.

Kathleen

The Series will give presidential candidates and other public leaders an informal forum to discuss their views on solutions to the health care crisis facing Baby Boomers and Seniors. We believe our participation in this effort is a great opportunity to raise the general awareness of the many challenges we face in transforming our health care system.

Each episode in the series consists of an exclusive half-hour discussion with a presidential candidate or other public leader and the president of The Johns Hopkins University, Dr. William Brody. Respected journalists, such as Diane Rehm, Judy Woodruff, Lea Thompson, and Felicia Taylor, will moderate the interviews. The series will be an ongoing initiative over the next several months.

RLTV, which is accessible to 29 million homes, is making available all programs in the Healthcare 08 series on their website, and we encourage you to make it available on your website for your members, employees and congregants. Please feel free to utilize the below link to view the series, place it on your website, or share the link.

Healthcare '08: Search for Solutions

CodeBlueNow! is a member of the National Coalition. Watch our website for times and dates.

Cheers and more later. Kathleen

Just out from the Commonwealth Fund, is their new study on the Public's Views of Health Care Reform and the Presidential Election.

Interestingly enough, their findings mirror our CodeBlueNow! Pulse: Iowa findings of what the public wants: shared responsibility; keep the employer involved; assuring everyone has coverage. Our Pulse findings, however, indicate that the people don't have much confidence that the presidential election will the shape a vision for a new health care system.

We'll have new research out toward the end of the month. Keep watching our website.

And, our new website should be up and running in few days.

Cheers and more later. Kathleen

And this year, insurers are uping their individual policies by as much as 20%. And guess who has no recourse or clout to bargain. These 270,000 people who only have individual policies.

And, in the walking-their-talk category, check out what the candidates are doing for their health insurance and their campaign staffs' insurance in an NPR story by Julie Rovner.

Guiliani and Edwards should be glad they don't live here in Washington, given their experiences with cancer. They would probably flunk the test. McCain would as well, but at least he has options--VA, Medicare and his wife's policy.

If there is one case that could be made about why we need change, the individual policy market in Washington state would be that case.

Cheers and more later. Kathleen

An absolutely must read book: Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sick, by US News and World Report journalist, Shannon Brownlee. I hate to say it, but her book is better than mine!

This book is a page turning indictment of why we need change. Chapter 2 alone is worth the entire price of the book!

We're not the only ones who feel this way. Please see this review, as well.

Cheers and more later. Kathleen

Bravo for our Governor Gregoire and her proposed health care investments. She is proposing investing $7.89 million to increase patient safety in Washington State.

Specifically, she wants to add $930,000 to strengthen the state's credentialing and licensing and disciplining standards for health care providers;

$2 million to investigate complaints against health care providers;

$1.4 million to provide real time information for providers and pharmacists on prescription drugs to reduce the negative effects of adverse drug reactions, especially for seniors who take multiple drugs;

Hospitals will be required to report adverse events, within existing budgets;

$3 million to help hospitals train more qualified nurses, including innovative partnerships to do so;

$560,000 to increase licensing standards for registered counselors, a move sorely needed in Washington State.

In our last Dispatch, we featured an article on Patient Safety and the incredible variation in hospital and surgical practices. Having greater transparency in the health care system is an important step in the right direction.

We also applaud the several recent articles on the Health Populi Blog related to patient safety and quality care.

Cheers and more later. Kathleen

We visited three blogs on December 12th and found three absolutely wonderful posts that are well worth reading. 

Health Care Reform Now! - This is the blog associated with George Halvorson's book Rx Health Care Reform Now!, in which he advocates for our approach: consensus building!

Health Commentary - Guest blogger on Health Commentary talks about that $618 million from the UnitedHealth Group former chief executive and how it really all comes down to self-interest and a loss of community.

Health Populi - Health Populi talks about “medical credit scores” and challenges of consumer-driven health care and whether hospitals will use this information prior to patients admission to hospitals.

This last one is hair raising in terms of implications for patient care!

I urge you to read these pieces and share them widely.

Best and more later. Kathleen

Potatoes or Potato Chips?  How much you got in your wallet?

The word is out about how important it is to eat healthier and to avoid pre-packaged junk food.  We hear all the time about how trans fats and high fructose corn syrup are out, and how apples, carrots and fresh veggies are back in.  But when you manage a household on a very limited budget, as many Americans do, how feasible is it to feed your family healthy, fresh food?

Not very.  A recent study by the University of Washington tracked food costs in Seattle-based grocery chains between 2004 and 2006, and found that while costs of junk foods went down, healthy foods increased by 20%.  The study was published in the December issue of the Journal of American Dietetic Association.

The study suggests there may be a correlation between dietary choices and economic factors.   According to the article in JADA, “The survey found low-calorie foods increased in price by 19.5 percent over a two-year period, while high-calorie items dropped in price by 1.8 percent.  ‘The findings that energy-dense foods are not only the least expensive but also the most resistant to inflation may help explain why the highest rates of obesity continue to be observed among groups of limited economic means,’ according to the researchers.”

So while the candidates talk about increasing access to preventive medicine by reducing chronic disease, one must step back to ponder the multi-levels of economy influencing our health care crisis.

Consider this:  obesity is tied to the top two chronic diseases in the U.S.—diabetes and heart disease.  Obesity has also been linked to cancer.  However, many families have difficulty affording healthy foods, and thereby risk obesity by filling the pantry with affordable, unhealthy food.  Fresh fruits and vegetables continue to steadily increasing in price.

The point is that our health care crisis spans so much more than “How do we pay for it?” solutions from the politicians.  We need to take a hard look at all of the strata of influence in our society and identify what it is going to take to improve the overall health of our society.  Not only do we need access to basic health care and quality medical information, we also need access to healthy, affordable food.

Sarah Smith

COO CodeBlueNow!

If you have health insurance, please be sure and be thankful for that, because costs went up again last year to almost $8,000 a person, according to a study by Mercer.

Premiums have gone from nearly $700 for a family in 2000 to nearly double that $1100, in 2007.

But, we don't need more numbers to tell us we're heading in the wrong direction, we need to find others who want to find common ground, build consensus and get to system change.

"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing." We must be the wind for change.

Happy Thanksgiving! Kathleen

The program as a whole expires on December 14th. Should there be no funding to renew the program, the states will be faced with the choice of cutting kids or a major fiscal crisis to cover children currently in the program. Congressional Quarterly reported that the Congressional Research Service indicates that 21 states need a combined additional $1.6 billion in federal funds just to keep enrollment at the current level. 

Read the article here

If there were ever a reason why we need to get health care out of the clutches of the politicians, this is a prime example.

Cheers and more later, Kathleen

Enclosed was the business card of Debi Fritz, Director of Coulter Service Excellence with her direct phone number so that she can better direct them to the care they need and have one stop shopping for all their care needs.

They reminded people that in an emergency, they should call 911...and then of course call Debi. As the letter says "If it is necessary to call 911, please also consider calling the Liaison Service after you have called 911. This way we can be sure of your transport and be able to serve you while at
the Medical Center."

I hold two paid for degrees from the University of Washington, and am a card carrying member of the Alumni Association and worked there for 15 years. I was not sent that letter and I wonder how many others were not sent that letter.

So next time you have a heart attack or stroke at 3 AM, or as the letter says, "....massive blood loss or unconsciousness", call 911 first, but then be sure to call Debi. I guess this is what you would call a "class" act from a tax-supported institution.

Cheers and more later. Kathleen

We have to get health care out of the hands of the politicians. We need to tell them what we want, not wait on their solutions.

We spend so much time beating each other up, that we have lost sight of our need for each other to solve a problem. That's why we need you to take our Pulse and get friends and family to do the same.

Cheers and more later, Kathleen

Read our Declaration and print it out and send to the candidates saying this is what we want and we'll vote on these issues.

Meanwhile, word is spreading about our CodeBlueNow! Pulse: Iowa. See www.healthpopuli.com

Cheers and more later. Kathleen

Not only that, but our seniors are being driven into debt by fixed incomes and increasing health care, energy and housing costs (see article in USA Today). And for this, we have the distinction of paying the highest health care costs in the world.

It is clear we cannot leave the health care system to our a partisan political system.  Sign up for CodeBlueNow! Alerts and join our campaign. We are on the move. Soon.

Cheers and more later.  Kathleen

When we wake up after the House votes to uphold or not uphold Bush’s veto of the SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Plan), how do we want to see ourselves as Americans?  As a nation that cares for its own or who throws the poor and vulnerable to the sharks?

That is what we do. We don’t invest in the very thing that makes this country great—or once great nation—We don’t invest in the people who fuel this economy or who cannot help themselves.

Have we lost such touch with each other that we turn care for the poor and vulnerable—our children and our elders—into a divisive no holds barred political attack? 

Shame on us. Shame on us as a people that we have lost our way. Shame on us a nation that seems to have lost its conscience.  Shame on us for not insisting we have higher standards.
Shame on us for not standing up. 

I think we are bigger and better than that as a nation and that we need to re-claim our basic human decency that is being stripped from us by toxic partisan stalemates that drive us to division rather than shape a vision. 

We could start with health care.  Join us at CodeBlueNow! Today to chart a strong, and constant chart for a health care system that works for us, not against us and that invites the American public to solve a problem that no partisan bickering can ruin. 

We at CodeBlueNow! believe the American public needs to be more actively involved in shaping the health care reform debate. So, we surveyed 601 Iowans to see what they need and want from a health care system.

Iowans and the American public are vastly smarter than they are given credit for when it comes to health care reform.

We also surveyed the Presidential Candidates on their health care proposals. Now we want you to get invoved!

Please:

1) Review the Iowa Pulse Results
2) Read the Presidential Candidates Health Proposals
3) Take the CodeBlueNow! Pulse
4) Sign up for CodeBlueNow! Alerts
5) Send this to friends and colleagues.

Health care is too important to be left to partisan politics and special interests. Let your voice be heard today.

Cheers and more later. Kathleen

The National Association of Business Economics, founded in 1958, cites health care costs and an aging population as two of the major long term risks for the American economy, in a study released in August 2007.  Top Threats to U.S. Economy

Now, we would like to hear from you:  How likely do you think the 2008 Presidential campaign will be in shaping a view of a new health care system? 

Send your answers to [email protected] .

Cheers and more later.  Kathleen