Much of the health care reform debate now will be negative campaigning.  All the other various reform groups will be focused on their ads and negative press, but CodeBlueNow! and a few other groups are bringing new possibility to the table.

Or country has had enough negativity – it’s time we rally around a fresh vision and take health care out of a partisan political fight. We are working on a health care platform for the people, a template we can then present to Congress. Another group is doing things in a positive way, also.

Faithful Reform in Health Care is trying to raise 100,000 voices to bring compassion, value and vision to health care.  Click here to support their campaign.

Faithful Reform, like CodeBlueNow! is a national, nonpartisan, 501(c)3.

This coming Tuesday, July 22, the American Health Insurance Association (the folks who brought us Harry and Louise), are starting their Campaign for American Solution, a “listening tour” combined with an advertisement and recruitment campaign.

The first event is a conversation with the uninsured in Columbus, Ohio. They are not saying how much money they are putting into this, but we are sure it is as much, if not more than the Health Care for America Now campaign which launched Tuesday, July 8th and makes no bones about the fact that they have a campaign chest of $40 million.

The steering committee consists of groups that gave half a million dollars to the campaign, something that most organizations could never afford no matter how good their work is. This Tuesday, July 15th, the National Coalition on Health Care launched its campaign to put aside partisan politics and act on reform. Their principles are outlined in their letter to Congress, and are very similar to our own.  Consumers Union has a bus tour on health care reform, Cover America Tour.

Clearly health care reform is a hot issue and lots of new groups are trying to tackle it in their own way. Well, we’re doing things differently. We aren’t collecting stories, we aren’t launching ads, and we do not have $40 million.

We have a quiet campaign, which has been spending its time doing very important work in the background. What we bring to this myriad of health care groups, is the Declaration for the Health of America and solid market research, two ways we are spreading our message that Americans do largely agree on what reform should look like. CodeBlueNow! knows the public is not as conflicted as all these different groups and politicians make it seem. Our good work is publicity such as our July 2nd op-ed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and our upcoming Town Hall, and ongoing research to prove that reform does not have to be a divided process.

Don’t let both politics and the grass roots be dominated by big money. Support the campaign that knows the American public is vastly smarter than they are given credit for when it comes to health care. Support CodeBlueNow! today.

Cheers and more later. Kathleen

We don’t usually focus on the negative aspects of health care because nearly everyone else does.  But, this particular episode from a friend caught our attention on some of the idiocy that happens.  This from Mary Koch in Omak, Washington. 

Lady Liberty Reigns: A Widow Bit

My mother slipped her halo just in time to avoid the rockets’ red glare.
           
Three months ago Mom, 91, fell and broke her neck. She ended up in a device called a “halo,” which is literally screwed into the patient’s skull – like Lady Liberty’s crown – to anchor four vertical titanium rods that point into the air several inches above the patient’s head. The halo keeps the neck absolutely stable while the broken bones heal – for three months.         
           
Mother’s beloved granddaughter calculated the timeline and said cheerfully, “Well, Grandma, if you’re still wearing it on the Fourth of July, we can use it to launch bottle rockets!”
           
It was that kind of humor, plus her own faith and determination, that would get Mother through the three-month ordeal. She posted a sign by her bed, pronouncing: “Blessed is she who breaks her neck, for she shall wear a halo.”
           
Late in the afternoon on the Friday before the Fourth, we visited the neurosurgeon. He would remove the vertical rods, send Mother across the street to the hospital for X-rays, and if the bones looked good, the halo itself would go. Problem was, he couldn’t find the proper-size wrench to remove the rods.
           
The tool he had in his office “fidn’t dit,” as my late husband would have said. The doctor excused himself, ran across the street and returned with an automobile tool kit – the kind you get with expensive, luxury cars. Nothing fit. Finally, his nurse called the medical device company that had supplied the halo. Apparently there is only one halo wrench in all of the greater Tacoma metropolitan region, and the technician was loathe to let go of it late on a Friday afternoon. Someone else might need screwing or unscrewing over the weekend. After intense negotiations,  this unique and highly valuable piece of medical equipment was delivered in a brown paper bag and the rods quickly removed.
          
The surgeon put a temporary brace on Mother’s neck to stabilize her for the trip across the street in her wheelchair. Despite the doctor’s specific orders to remove the brace for the X-rays, the technicians said they weren’t “allowed” to.  I don’t know if I was “allowed,” but time was a-wasting, so I took it off. Mother remained in good humor as the technicians posed her in one odd position after another. When they had her raise one arm straight up and cross the other over her chest, she intoned, “I pledge allegiance . . .”

After many communication failures too exasperating to describe, the doctor eventually appeared. By that time, his office was closed, so we couldn’t return to remove the halo. (What!? They don’t trust the surgeon with a key to his own office?!)

BUT, he had the precious wrench, in its brown paper bag, and there, in the radiology waiting room of Tacoma General Hospital, he removed Mother’s halo.

No bottle rockets for Mom, but the brilliant fireworks displays on the Fourth paled in comparison with our pride and joy in her determination and resiliency. 
 
Mary Koch, Freelance Writer & Editor
www.marykoch.com

This Op-Ed written by CodeBlueNow! CEO Kathleen O'Connor, appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on July 3rd, 2008.

The coming months will be laden with laments on the sorry state of our health care system. Meetings will be held with story after horror story. We don't need more horror stories. They won't fix the system. We need action -- but not rote mindless action on "solutions" that have failed consistently.

Health care reform has been dominated for 80 years by two equal and opposing forces: single payer vs. marketplace. We know the public will support neither of those two polarized alternatives. Data from our CodeBlueNow! Pulse surveys prove that, as does data from Commonwealth Fund and Kaiser Family Foundation, among other national studies. Neither solution is acceptable to the majority of the American public.

A solid majority of Americans think we must cover all our citizens, but until recently there has been no consensus on how. Until recently, precious few groups have tried to build consensus. Reform has been dominated by single-solution advocacy groups and has traditionally been very partisan. But we know from history that partisan solutions to health care will not work. Former Sen. Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, agree that partisan political solutions cannot succeed.

In CodeBlueNow!'s research to identify areas of common ground and consensus in health care reform, we found considerable consensus exists on key issues. Our surveys in Washington and Iowa mirror other national surveys that indicate what Americans want in their health system: affordability, accountability, choice, information, prevention over high-tech cures, efficiency, researched treatment outcomes and a shared responsibility in financing and management with employers, the government and the individual.

The challenge in moving forward with that approach is significant. Neither the parties nor the advocacy organizations on both ends of the spectrum want that message told. Consensus must not be considered newsworthy. But in our surveys in Iowa (red state) and Washington (blue state), there was only one statement that had a statistically significant difference: More people in Washington (75 percent) than Iowa (69 percent) thought a basic benefit package should include any licensed health care professional.

Other than that one issue, there was less than a five-point difference on any statement. When we asked the market research firm what that data means -- to have the two states be mirror images of each other -- the staff replied: "In the absence of action from our leaders, the American public has come to some pretty solid conclusions."

But that consensus has not been reported because many voices want it silenced. So, we have taken our Declaration for the Health of America, a collection of principles and core elements for America's health care system that reflect the views of the American public, and have now documented it with data from our research and the research of others.

We urge you now to read our declaration, send it to your elected representatives and the presidential candidates, and ask that any health care solution address those points. We have some solid, nonpartisan first steps toward a voters' health care platform.

Kathleen O'Connor is founder and CEO of CodeBlueNow!, a nonpartisan, nonprofit based in Seattle that is building consensus on health care reform; thethecodebluenow.org.

Today’s Boston Globe announced Senator Kennedy’s leadership in pressing for bipartisan health care reform.

But a review of the article shows the folks working on this “bipartisan” effort are all the usual suspects looking to flawed ideas.  Congress and key advocacy groups have made up their mind on what we need to do, without consulting the public.

Congress is incapable of finding a bipartisan solution. It is a bitterly partisan institution that doesn’t listen to the other side.  I think the Democrats are hoping they will get a large enough majority in the House and Senate to pass a health care bill in 2009.  But, to pass this bill, they will need some Republican support, especially in the Senate.  The Massachusetts bill is badly flawed.  There are no cost containment measures. 

The public is deeply concerned about the Wyden-Bennett Bill. 

What Congress and/or the Candidates should be doing is building consensus on some core elements of a plan that would have support across party lines. It clearly exists, as CodeBlueNow!’s research shows.

This should be a wakeup call to the parties and the candidates.  What is the definition of insanity? “Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.” 

We can no longer leave health care reform to the candidates and advocacy organizations, they have failed us since 1929. 

Cheers and more later. Kathleen

Here’s a headline you would not see in Germany, France, Canada, Japan, England, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, not to mention Norway, Sweden, and Finland:

A day in bankruptcy court would make you sick

In reflecting on what other countries do for health care, it is fascinating the misinformation that is out there.  Germany had private, but nonprofit, insurance companies.  They organize health care around employers, just as we do.  There is one basic benefit package everyone gets; both employers and individuals can buy more. There are over 400 different insurance packages.  Doctors have private practices.  Rates there, like here, are set by the government. 

If someone cannot afford their insurance premiums, the government pays the premium and the individual continues to see their doctor.  There is no major separate public program.

We win the prize as having the best ‘paper care’ system in the world. Rules for what Medicare will and will not cover are thicker than the IRS tax code.  We have the best well-kept paper system in the world. No one knows what they are buying or what it will cover. 

It doesn’t have to be that way.  Think how easy it would be to have one set of benefits and one claim form.  Say goodbye to fleets of rules and regulation that offer no value.  You can do that and still have insurance companies and choices of health plans. 

Save the date: September 18th -- when we launch our Bipartisan Voters’ Health Care Platform.  More consensus exists than we are told by the parties and the press.  We need to act now to tell the candidates what we want and what would work.