Joan and Margie at FamiliesUSA, Washington
DC, January 2007
Note: all the presentations reference below should be available
soon on the Families USA Website, www.familiesusa.org.
Joan and Margie recently spent 5 days in Washington
DC as part of the Gray Panthers California delegation of health
advocates. WE attended teh 3 day FamilesUSA yearly conference,
and we stayed on to meet with national Gray Panthers Director
Susan Murany. The three of us participated in the “Out of
Iraq” Peace march, and had time to do some sightseeing.
Highlights of our time in DC included a trip to the Hill to advocate
with Pelosi and Stark representatives, speeches by Barack Obama,
Sherrod Brown, and Ted Kennedy, and wonderful workshops. We also
attended the PAL (Prescription Access Litigation Coalition) dinner,
with a terrific speech by Dr. John Abramson, author of Overdosed
America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine; a new documentary,
Collateral Damage, about the destruction of Tennessee’s
Medicaid program and its impact on the people of the state (with
warnings for the rest of the states!) (I bought the DVD and it’s
available to any of you); a showing of the film, "A Closer
Walk", about AIDS and global health; and Thom Hartmann’s
book signing! (I bought his book and had him sign it, listened
to him speak, and talked to him about the loss of his program
in Sacramento!)
Thom doing his radio show in the hall (along
with about 10 other talk show hosts) |
Thom at the book signing for Screwed:
The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class (Thom will
be available in Sac. on AM 1320, Air America, as of Feb.
15, 9 till noon.) |
Highlights of our time on the sightseeing trail
were a visit and partial church service, with incredible pipe
organ, in the Washington National Cathedral; a tearful visit to
the FDR memorial; and a tour of Arlington Cemetery.
The Families USA Conference (Health Action
2007: http://www.familiesusa.org/conference/health-action-2007/health-action-2007-highlights.html
) (This includes videos of some of the main speakers!)
Since 1982, Families USA has worked as a national
nonprofit, nonpartisan organization at the federal, state, and
community level to promote high-quality, affordable health care
for all Americans. This conference is an annual, 3+ day event.
The keynote speech, by Barack
Obama, was a workmanship talk and noted that all we’ve
had so far in terms of Universal Health care is “tinkering
and halfway measure”, and he added that it “not a
question of whether, it’s a question of how.” He said
that the fact that politicians treat healthcare policies like
a sporting event is “morally offensive” and said the
current administration’s best idea is to “let the
market do its will and tinker at the edges.” The speech
was Obama’s announcement of his support for Universal Healthcare,
but was so low-key I didn’t realize its significance until
later.
Barack Obama’s speech was followed by what turned out to
be an even better one by Uwe Reinhardt, Professor of Economics
& Public Affairs, Princeton University. Dr. Reinhardt, who
has a wicked sense of humor noted that the current “health
system” costs each of us $1000/year and amounts to deregulation
on the supply side and nothing on the demand side. This has led
to managed care and high deductible policies, “frogs, and
locusts” and the aptly renamed Senior Health Insurance Trust,
or S.H.I.T. Health care in this country has increased yearly by
a rate 2.5% higher than our GDP, and is now 20% of our GDP. He
noted that “We are the least kind nation to mothers,”
and calls what we have “unsurance, not insurance.”
He noted that while Medicare currently spends 2% on overhead costs,
the private insurance companies providing service are paying 15-20%
on overhead costs. We are also paying $80-100 billion in public
subsidies to private companies. He asked “Where in the New
Testament do you find that?” and “why would we use
our tax system to punish chronically ill people”, who are
those that no private insurer would touch. He noted that Bush
touts “consumer-driven health care” and asked ”would
you really like to fly in a consumer-driven airplane?” (Click
here
for Obama and Reinhardt talks) (Click here
for transcripts of both talks)
Sherrod Brown (see transcript)
spoke about the evaporation of healthcare in this country and
said the “days of playing defense on all this are over.”
He decried "this whole belief among a lot of conservatives
in this town that people will overuse and abuse the health care
system because they're not paying enough deductible or co-pay.
I remember sitting in a meeting ...Ron, at that time the chairman
of the health subcommittee where I was ranking, a guy from Georgia
— and I remember he talked about “All these Medicaid
people just keep going to the doctor when they don't need to.”
It was sort of this whole thing that you're a low-income worker,
you don't have health insurance, you have to take a day off, you
have to take a bus, you have to change buses, it takes you an
hour and a half to get there. You have to sit in the waiting room
with other Medicaid beneficiaries that a doctor is backed up on
and you wait another hour and you get this health care as if that's
like going to an Atlanta Braves game. [Laughter] It was such an
interesting view that so many of them have, that people have too
much health care in this country. The President's plan is predicated
in part on raising revenues from those who have, quote/unquote,
too much health care. We're going to tax those — those aren't
the poor; those are people generally with good, pretty good union
contracts that actually have decent health care. We're going to
tax them in order to pay for some others and move it around and
then we're going to cut public hospitals in order to pay for others.
It simply — it simply just doesn’t make sense."
Sen. Edward Kennedy (MA) was the highlight of the conference for
me. He has lost none of his fight and he still roars. He had just
come from Minimum wage negotiations and said that Britain now
has a minimum wage of $9.85, which has lifted 40% of their children
out of poverty. In this country, 8 of 10 uninsured people are
in working families. He noted that Health Savings Accounts are
no help; 70% of people using Health Savings Accounts already have
insurance. He said we have the worst child poverty in the developed
world, with 12.5 million going hungry. He thundered that the SCHIP
program works and MUST be reinstituted and funded. He told us
to take our outrage to the Budget committee, and not take NO for
an answer. He told us to talk with Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans;
this is going to be difficult to sell because of PAYGO and will
need either a waiver of the budget rules or another funding source.
It will need a veto-proof vote: 60 Senators.
Workshops
Plenary: Red Flags and Red Herrings: The
Outlook for Medicare
Tricia Neuman (Medicare Policy Project, Kaiser Family Foundation)-
PowerPoint Presentation: Part
1 Part
2
Thurs 10:45: Medicare Part D: Where do We Stand? Where
are We Going? (Presentation1)
(Part D Price
Negotiations presentation) Part D Price Negotiation: Why we
need it
Policy
and Advocacy Efforts to Eliminate Disparities in Massachusetts
Thurs. 4:00: New Leadership, New Opportunities: What the
Change in Congress Means for Health Care Legislation
Friday, 10:45: The Blogging of Health Care: An Overview
of the Progressive Healthcare Blogosphere
Sat. 9:00: Hurting Real People: The TennCare Example (movie,
Collateral Damage, and discussion)
Sat. 10:45: A
Prescription for Savings: Ensuring Drug Quality, Controlling Drug
Prices
