We are healthcare professionals in the state of Montana making a difference in health care reform. Join us, right now, by calling your fellow healthcare workers in Montana.

As Montana caregivers, now is a crucial time for making our voices heard. Our senior Senator, Max Baucus, chairs the Senate Finance Committee and will be a leader next year in fixing our nation's broken healthcare system.

Who better to tell our elected leaders how to fix our country's healthcare system than healthcare workers? Every day, we witness how their decisions can impact the quality of patient care. Get Involved. Start making a difference. Pick up your phones and start calling your fellow healthcare workers today Click here to get started calling fellow Montana caregivers. 

The Big Sky Healthcare United Chapter Headquarters is in Helena, but we are active across the state. To find out more about ways to get involved, please contact the chapter coordinator, Shaine Truscott. She's looking forward to working with caregivers like you throughout Montana!

When critiques of Senator McCain’s healthcare plan come from his usual opponents across the aisle, that’s one thing. When they come from the leading trade groups for American business four weeks out from election day, it’s quite another.
 
That’s why jaws dropped yesterday when the New York Times reported that “American business, typically a Republican cheerleader, is decidedly lukewarm about Senator John McCain’s proposal to overhaul the health care system by revamping the tax treatment of health benefits.”

According the NYT, “the officials, with organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Federation of Independent Business, predicted in recent interviews that the McCain plan, which eliminates the exclusion of health benefits from income taxes, would accelerate the erosion of employer-sponsored health insurance and do little to reduce the number of uninsured from 45 million.”
 
“To some in the business community, this is very discomforting,” said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the Chamber of Commerce. “The private marketplace, in my opinion, is ill prepared today with an infrastructure for an individual-based health insurance system.”
 
Coming on the heels of news Monday that Senator McCain’s health care plan also includes huge cuts in healthcare funding for seniors and people with disabilities (Medicare and Medicaid), it’s making for quite a week of revelations about Senator McCain and health care. We’ll try to keep up!

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/us/politics/07health.html

Last week, we sent an e-mail to you and your fellow Healthcare United caregivers, urging you to submit a healthcare question to Steve Chaggaris, the Political Director of CBS News for the Oct. 15th Presidential Debate.

Already, we’ve received 1,125+ questions from caregivers all over the country, all of which have been sent to Mr. Chaggaris.  

We wanted to share with you a few of our favorites, so far:

One caregiver writes:

“Although health care and insurance are considered one of the most important issues facing the voters, it has largely been overshadowed by the economic failures on Wall Street.  However, healthcare insurance is by and large perhaps the single most likely cause of bankruptcy on Main Street. Washington seems anxious to lend a hand full of money to banks and insurance companies with financial problems, but tends to ignore families and small businesses who struggle every month to pay ever increasing medical coverage premiums with ever decreasing coverage. Many of us are a skipped heartbeat away from financial collapse."

Another asks:

"When was the last time you paid for your own health insurance? How much was your premium for you and your family? Do you know what the average middle class family pays for health care now, including premiums, copays, coinsurance, deductibles, and uncovered care, and what percentage of their income this is?"

And one of our other favorites:

“Our system is currently is dire need of healthcare professionals at all level, but especially bedside nurse. What plan is there for our healthcare needs and staffing needs?  Which candidate would be willing to place his healthcare in the hands of an overworked, understaffed healthcare worker working in a broken down system that is falling apart?”

If you’ve yet to submit your questions to Mr. Chaggaris, click here.  Of course, if you have friends or co-workers who always ask healthcare questions, now’s the time to get them to formally submit them for debate consideration.  Invite them to submit theirs by clicking here!

There was some fairly attention-grabbing healthcare news published today in the Wall Street Journal.

In an article entitled “McCain Plans Federal Health Cuts” and written by Laura Meckler, the story reveals that Senator John McCain “would pay for his health plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid.”

According to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Sen. McCain’s senior policy adviser, the campaign has always planned to fund the tax credits, in part, with savings from Medicare and Medicaid.”

Meckler writes that the cuts would allow for “enough savings in Medicare and Medicaid spending” to “keep the McCain healthcare plan budget neutral.”

Independent analysts estimate the cuts could be as large as “$1.3 trillion over 10 years to the government programs.”  The McCain campaign “hasn’t given a specific figure for the cuts, but didn’t dispute the analysts’ estimate.

You can read the full article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122315505846605217.html

Across the Commonwealth, healthcare professionals are on the move to create lasting reform to repair our broken system.  If you live in Virginia, this is your chance to make change.

Just in the past few weeks Healthcare United has sent delegations of activists to meet with Congressman Dick Wolf and his opponent, Judy Feder. We’ve met with Congressman Jim Moran and his opponent, Mark Ellmore.  We sat down with candidate Gerry Connolly and shared ideas on how to address the great need for affordable care in our communities.  In the Tidewater area a delegation is preparing to meet with Glenn Nye, candidate for Congress in the Second District.  

How can you join us?  Well, for starters you can attend two important events that will turn up the volume on the importance of the healthcare issue for congressional candidates.  On Saturday, October 18, it’s our Get Out The Vote Kickoff in Herndon and we have invited the Congressional Candidates to address the walkers on what their plans are for addressing the healthcare issue. On Saturday, October 25, it’s a chance to Meet the Candidates at our Healthcare Forum in Fairfax.  We are planning a similar event in the Tidewater area as well. 

You can also help us make calls to healthcare workers across the state from our office phone bank in Fairfax and Virginia Beach or right from your own home by clicking on the Make Calls button right on this page.

We are Healthcare United Virginia. We’re going to make real reform happen.  Join us!

As the days are getting shorter and colder and campaign season is almost to an end, I am sure you are asking yourself - "What is Healthcare United in Michigan doing these days?"

The answer? A lot!

We are out talking to healthcare workers all over the state about healthcare and this election. Now is the time to make this happen - we have a unique opportunity this election to get folks into office who will truly fight for healthcare reform and it is incredibly important that healthcare workers make their voices heard.

How are we doing this?  Primarily and the most effective way is to call them and calling we are. The easiest way is to login to our online phone bank and make calls from the comfort of your home - just click on this link:
http://www.healthcareunited.org/page/contact/splash/MIPECalls

We also have phone banks running from our office every Thursday night at 6:30pm - come and join us!

• Thursday, October 9th
• Thursday, October 16th
• Thursday, October 23rd
• Thursday, October 30th

Lastly, we want to invite every healthcare worker we can find to attend a Healthcare Forum on Tuesday, October 21st.  Residents of CD9 will gather together to discuss the need for fixing our healthcare system and ask that Congressman Knollenberg join Gary Peters in signing the HCAN pledge - we hope you can join us.

 

Welcome to another edition of our weekly MedBlogger Roundup. This week, we've got an eclectic mix of posts -- some are frontline caregiver perspectives, some are election-themed, and others are about, well, blogging.

1) As everyone knows, last week was the Vice Presidential Debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin, and one of the topics discussed was, in fact, healthcare. A few blogs covered this, including The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog and Managed Care Matters.

The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog provides a fairly balanced pro/con overview of the healthcare exchange:

"Joe Biden cited an estimate that 20 million people would lose their employer-sponsored health insurance under the McCain plan...Several analyses of the McCain plan found that it's likely to lead to a decrease in the number of uninsured in the short term, but an increase in the number over the long term, the Post says."

"Sarah Palin referred to Obama's 'plan to mandate health care coverage and have [a] universal government-run program.' As the AP points out, Obama would only mandate health insurance for children; he wouldn't require adults to buy coverage. Nor has he proposed a "universal, government-run program." He would allow people to choose between buying private health insurance and buying insurance from a government-backed plan like the one that covers Congress."

For the full article: http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/10/03/sarah-palin-and-joe-biden-tussle-briefly-over-health-policy/

Joe Paduda at Managed Care Matters took a slightly more, shall we say, partisan approach, with his summary, entitled "Palin Doesn't Understand Health Insurance."

Says Joe:

"The woman who, according to her, once went without health insurance (fact check please) said once again that eliminating state regulation of health insurers (the real world impact of allowing interstate sale of individual policies) would solve the health insurance crisis."

"Not..."

"Palin also said that McCain's proposed health insurance tax credit would help families buy insurance. What kind of policy would $5000 buy a family? Perhaps a 'mini-med' without coverage for hospital stays and a $5000 deductible."

Read the full article here: http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001320.html

2) Shadowfax over at Movin' Meat (who gets the honor of being "linked to" twice in two weeks) makes a really interesting semantic argument against the phrase that "healthcare is a right," arguing that healthcare is instead a moral obligation. Shadowfax, fairly convincingly (in my own personal opinion), says that using the term "right" provides for some good fodder for pushback from opponents.

Says Shadowfax:

"Fellow bleeding heart (and shyster) JimII said it well in the comments the other day: rights are limitations on government power. Exactly. When we use the language of "rights," we are generally discussing very fundamental liberties, which are conferred on us at birth, and which no government is permitted to take away: free speech; religion and conscience; property; assembly and petition; bodily self-determination; self-defense, and the like. Freedoms. Nowhere in that list is there anything which must be given to you by others. These are freedoms which are yours, not obligations which you are due from somebody else. There is no right to an education, nor to a comfortable retirement, nor to otherwise profit by the sweat of someone else's labor."

"Now some societies, ours included, from time to time decide that its citizens, or certain groups of them, should be entitled to certain benefits. Sometimes this justified by the common good -- a well-educated populace serves society well, so we guarantee an education to all children. Sometimes this is derived from humanitarian principles -- children should not go hungry, so we create childhood nutrition programs. Healthcare would, in my estimation, fall into the category of an entitlement rather than a right."

(Please) read the full article here: http://allbleedingstops.blogspot.com/2008/10/healthcare-is-not-right.html

3) Nurse Bear over at Nursa Minor gives some insider tips on making sure that your hospitalized family members get the best care possible. It took me a few seconds to get the joke. Here's what she starts out with:

"Complain early and complain often. Make sure that the administration knows that your family member is important and you're not going to let any mistakes be made on your watch. Drop your lawyer's name while you're at it. As always, be firm and unyielding, and let the administrators know that you're not going to back down about anything."

A few more lines like this, and then, the joke:

"...Which is great, if your aim is to antagonize every member of the medical staff you come in contact with. The problem is, you actually get worse care, because the staff become afraid of you, or simply sick of being yelled at and insulted. Because it's very insulting to be told that i don't know what i'm doing, or that i'm doing anything other than my best when i'm caring for your loved one."

"The patients who get the best care are the ones who treat us with respect, who are nice and who don't treat us like idiots. They're the ones we make sure to check in on often; they're the ones who get service above and beyond, from all members of the staff; they're the ones we're more likely to make sure are fully invested in all aspects of their treatment."

Full article here: http://nursaminor.com/?p=44

4) And finally, if you don't know what Twitter is, check out this post by Clinical Cases and Images:

"Micro-blogging on Twitter is easy, fun and can be useful and educational if you follow/subscribe to interesting people. Two interesting discussion threads are posted below -- one comments on the demise of physical diagnosis in clinical medicine and the other one on the importance of radiology for development of medicine. Check for yourself to see why you should listen to the doctors on Twitter."

Kevin MD chimes in:

"We've talked earlier about the demise of the doctor's lounge."

"But here's an example of the power of Twitter, a popular microblogging service. Imaging if doctors were connected here, and able to converse and curbside akin to a 'virtual' lounge?"

Check out the articles here: http://casesblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-you-should-listen-to-doctors-on.html and here: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2008/10/doctors-and-twitter.html

Healthcare United is on the move in Wisconsin. We’ve held meetups of caregivers across the state as we work to create a healthcare system that functions better for us and our patients.

October is a busy month with the excitement of the Presidential race. We’re busy educating other healthcare professionals about our great new nonpartisan comparison of the healthcare voting records of Obama and McCain, with weekly phonebanks in Green Bay, Milwaukee and Madison. Those who aren’t coming in for phonebanks are calling from their own homes using our website’s “take action – make calls” section.

On October 6, healthcare workers who live in US Rep. Steve Kagen MD’s district met with his office to discuss their concerns about the healthcare system and what they would change. We’re busy working with JOSHUA, a network of churches working on social justice issues, to host a healthcare issues forum between US Rep. Kagen and his challenger John Gard. In Oak Creek, WI, south of Milwaukee, we’re holding a similar healthcare issues forum for candidates for the 21st Assembly, Glen Brower and Rep. Mark Honadel, on October 22 at 6pm at the Oak Creek Community Center, 8580 S Howell Avenue. On Wednesday, October 15, at 7pm, we’re holding a conference call about why RNs and other healthcare workers need to get involved with Sandy Pasch RN, who is shaking things up by running for office (RSVP for the toll-free conference call at patrickf@heatlhcareunited.org).

For more information about Healthcare United in Wisconsin, call (414) 257-1035.

We're rockin' and rollin' in Indianapolis! We've been meeting with healthcare givers all over the city to educate them about BOTH the candidates' healthcare plans. Social workers, dentists, CNAs and RNs wanna know...who has the best healthcare plan for America?

We are making calls and walking neighborhoods..we even hosted a Popcorn and Politics debate watching party! Check out this picture!

 

There is only one more month to go and healthcare givers need to hear from you!

I'm a Healthcare Worker and I Vote - Kickoff:
Join us at our meeting on October 18, 2008
1800 N. Meridian
Indianapolis 46202
10:00 am - 12:30 pm

Bring your comfortable shoes -- we'll be making a plan to get the word out and going out to the neighborhoods to speak with our colleagues. Come meet healthcare givers from around the city, make new friends and get your coworkers out to vote.

For more information, contact Mary Timmel at maryt@healthcareunited.org.

If you want to spread the information on BOTH the candidates' healthcare plans and records, click here to MAKE CALLS from the comfort of your own home.

We’d like to share with all of you a 2-minute clip from yesterday’s Vice Presidential Debate, where Sarah Palin and Joe Biden have a back-and-forth exchange on their respective tickets’ healthcare plans:

To learn a bit more about what Senator Biden was discussing in this clip, we’ve put together a resource page that discusses Senator McCain’s plan to increase taxes on healthcare.  You can check this out by clicking here.

If you work in a hospital, chances are you've heard! 

Yesterday, October 1st, Medicare stopped paying hospitals for complications arising from ten preventable Hospital Acquired Conditions (HACs). Learn about the details. 

Many of these HACs are the result of poor infection control, short-staffing, and over reliance on temporary staff and mandatory overtime. Now, it seems Medicare is attempting to address these issues--the question is, will it work?

REPORT TO US: http://www.healthcareunited.org/page/s/CMS

Too often, hospital administrators respond to new regulations with duct tape and Elmers glue. We're asked to produce charting and documentation, paperwork that ultimately leaves us with less time for our patients. 

But we know the reality: Quality patient care requires sensible staffing levels.

And it's not just nurses--the entire patient care team is impacted. Without EVS staff, there will be cleanliness and infection control problems. If there aren't enough nursing assistants, patients are at risk of falls or bedsores. And when respiratory care practitioners are in short supply, Pneumonia cases may increase. To sum it up, safe-staffing matters.

  We want to know, how is your hospital responding to the CMS changes? Are staffing problems being addressed? Or are you seeing more quick fixes instead of real solutions? What other changes are you noticing? Click here to report your experiences: http://www.healthcareunited.org/page/s/CMS

After gathering your responses, we'll deliver your submissions directly to the CMS and report-out to the larger Healthcare United community. I hope you'll join me and other nurses in being part of this effort!

Read the NYTimes.com article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/us/01mistakes.html

While at the ENA conference, we ran into Kim from Emergiblog.  She was very kind for letting us take her picture -- we're, of course, big fans!

Indianapolis Healthcare United activists kicked off their Get Out the Vote! movement on September 27th! Doctors, nurses and social workers committed to a plan that will get the word out to caregivers across the state. Each agreed that the way to win on healthcare was to get more people involved. We trained on how to use the online phonebanking tool and are holding phonebanks each Saturday in October. Come out and join us if you know we need a change!

 

This week, NPR broadcasted a report on Senator John McCain’s healthcare plan, focusing on how it would affect those with pre-existing conditions.

Senator McCain’s plan encourages individual plans, rather than group plans, leaving many with pre-existing conditions unable to purchase coverage.  McCain’s plan is to funnel these people into a high-risk pool.

The segment interviews several experts and patients on the pros and cons of McCain’s plan, including (on the negative side,) the problems of enrollment for these types of pools, the high costs of the pools, delays in coverage for the very conditions that these patients need these high-risk pools in the first place, and (on the positive side,) how these pools may be able to reduce premiums for those who do not have a pre-existing condition.

For the link to this segment, as well as other healthcare segments, click here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95157363

It’s been interesting to watch Senator McCain’s campaign squirm lately as his healthcare plan has come under fire for raising people’s taxes. Now, just weeks out from the election, the campaign is saying, well, it’s just income taxes that employees will have to start paying on their employer health benefits (instead of both income and payroll taxes).
 
Problem is, an income tax on health benefits is still a new tax. The tax credit McCain’s plan would give in exchange? $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families just doesn’t cut it when the average cost of health care coverage is $4,500 for individuals and over $12,000 for families.
 
With that kind of discrepancy – and the value of the credit going down as health costs go up - it’s young and healthy workers who end up leaving employer plans, according to the analysis by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. And that could mean employers deciding to stop offering health benefits altogether.
 
“Some employers, finding that their average premiums increase as the healthy employees opt out, would decide to stop offering coverage,” the nonpartisan analysis states. “This outcome could be especially pronounced among smaller firms, which tend to face the highest premiums and the greatest risk of large premium swings if their employees’ health status worsens.”
 
When that happens, employees who are not so young or not perfectly healthy are going to be on their own. And under Senator McCain’s plan, they’ll be on their own in a private insurance market with no regulation to stop discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions or who become sick or high-risk.
 
“Many of those who would lose coverage have low incomes or high health care costs,” the Tax Policy Center analysis concludes. This isn’t the kind of bottom line we need in healthcare reform.