New Mike Stout Video on Braddock's Need for a New Community Hospital

I received this new video that was put together by Tony Buba of Braddock Films on the need for a new community hospital in Braddock, PA.  Mike Stout who sings the tribute to Braddock Hospital will also be performing on October 7 at the Frick Fine Arts Center at 7:30 with the Human Union Band.  Details can be seen at the Facebook page here.  Buba is also raising money for a documentary profiling the damage done by Braddock Hospital being closed by UPMC called the Kickstarter Campaign.  Info is below.

**Related Posts** 

 

Unbelievable Promises Monopolized Care—UPMC

Mike Stout & the Human Union Band Concert

New Graphic Explaining Medicare and Medicaid

Here is a detailed graphic on the history of Medicare and Medicaid that I found on Reddit. 

Healthy Artists and Dazzletine Presents Review

Below is a Summary of the Healthy Artists event on August 24. 

Partying Down with Artists and Activists

On Friday evening, August 24th, Healthy Artists threw a one-of-a-kind party at Assemble uniting health care advocates, young people, and artists. First, health care advocates, including the Merton Center’s Molly Rush and Be Well! Pittsburgh’s Jude Vachon took the stage. Their talks covered issues such as the Affordable Care Act, Single-Payer, and Voter ID issues. The talks were followed by a creative workshop in which young people and artists created around the issue of health care reform and presented their ideas to the audience. Afterwards, local conceptual artist/folk-singer Jenn Gooch played, followed by the indie glam-rock Dazzletine.

The host of the event was the unique organization, Healthy Artists. The group produces a free to watch, online documentary series in which young Pittsburgh artists discuss their lives, their work, and their experiences with the current health care system. The topic of health care particularly affects the young artist demographic; many artists work non-traditional jobs and part-time jobs that do not provide health insurance. Additionally, the largest uninsured pool in the U.S. is comprised of young people in the 19-29 year age range. Healthy Artists aspires to give voice and exposure to these young artists, while bringing vitality and artistry to a serious social justice issue that has yet to fully connect with a youthful population.

To watch the series and learn about future events, visit: www.healthyartists.org

Julie Sokolow is a filmmaker, musician, and writer, living in Pittsburgh, PA. She is currently directing a feature documentary entitled Aspie Seeks Love and she also produces the Healthy Artists documentary series.

**Related Post**

Mike Stout & the Human Union Band Concert 

 

HEALTHY ARTISTS & DAZZLETINE PRESENTS

National, State, & County Uninsured Estimates

The Census Bureau has two estimates of the uninsured that comes out every year.  One for the national and state level which is based on the Current Population Survey and the other for the State and County level which is the Small Area Health Insurance Estimates or SAHIE that I've written many posts about here.  The bureau has just some out come out with national and state estimates as well as SAHIE.  The national under 65 year old uninsured rate went down from 18.4% in 2010 to 17.9% in 2011 which reflects an estimated total of 47.9 million in 2011 and of 49.1 million in 2010.  Former Gov. Jennifer Granholm (born in Canada) on her Current TV show was stressing how the total number of insured  increased from 256.6 million in 2010 to 260.2 million in 2011 but that increase is mostly due to increases in population.

The estimate for Pennsylvania was 12.7% in 2011, 12.9% in 2010, 12.7 in 2009, and 11.1% in 2008.  This difference is not statistically significant for 2009 thru 2011 which means that we should conclude that there are no differences for those years.  The SAHIE uses a different survey for 2008 to 2001.  2011 will be out next summer.  The estimates won't always agree but the general trends should be close.  The top 10 counties for 2010 and 2008 can be seen below. 

Counties with larger populations have smaller margins of errors or MOEs. the counties with large MOEs such as Bedford (rate 14.4% +/- 1.2%) should have rates that differ from Philadelphia (16.5% +/- 0.7%) but maybe not Sullivan (15.9% */- 1.6%).  We can be confident that the top 10 counties are all significantly higher than the state rate of 12.1% (+/- 0.2%). 

Below are the rates for 2008.  We can see that except for Sullivan County, whose rate and MOE hardly changed, the other top counties significantly increased in the rates of uninsured since 2008.  At the bottom is a table with the state and county trends for all 67 counties in Pennsylvania from 2007 to 2008.   The 2007 estimate are based on the Current Population Survey.  I do this to show what impact the recession is having on Pennsylvania's uninsured.  C3 board member Mike Stout often says we need to "strike while the metal is hot."  Looking at these statistics can show us where the metal is hot.  

**Update**

The Census Bureau came on C-SPAN's Washington Journal to discuss the national numbers with poverty results and information on how it relates to the widening income gap in the US.  You can see the 48 minute segment here.

 

**Related Posts**

New Census Uninsured Data Out: White & Female Rates Getting Worse in PA

 

Most Recent County Level Uninsured Estimates for Pennsylvania

 

Mike Stout & the Human Union Band Concert

Fundraiser for Injured Cyclist

On September 6 a cyclist, Colin Albright, who works at Pittsburgh Pro Bikes was savagely attacked on Pittsburgh's Southside in a road rage incident (details can be read here).  This Saturday there will be a fundraiser for him at the Over The Bar bicycle bar on the East Carson St (details are on the poster at the left).  There will be raffle prizes donated by sponsors listed.

Not specifically mentioned is whether this fundraiser is to pay for his medical expenses but it seems a safe assumption.  These kinds of fundraisers happen frequently and I encourage you all to either attend or if you cannot to donate here at the Bike Pittsburgh page.  It goes without saying that many of these fundraisers would be unnecessary if we had a comprehensive universal health care system that put patients over profits.

**Related Posts**

 

Healthy Artists Video on Bicyclists Injury

 

STOP Obamacare in Pennsylvania and the Uninsured

 

New Census Uninsured Data Out: White & Female Rates Getting Worse in PA

ReCOVERING: Chuck-En-Stein on Addiction & Health Care

Chuck-En-Stein

Ron Stouffer and Rosie Skomitz are writers and bloggers on the Healthcare 4 All PA board.  Here is a post they wrote on drug addicts struggle with health insurance companies for the online journal CommonSense 2.  You can read other posts by them there on health care.

ReCOVERING: Chuck-En-Stein on Addiction & Health Care

By Ron Stouffer and Rosie Skomitz

CS2 editor Chuck Brown’s dear friend, Tina (not her real name), suffers from degenerative disc disease, a fairly common problem. Many Americans share this affliction and can relate to the pain that accompanies back/disc issues. Tina’s doctor prescribed OxyContin, a highly addictive narcotic, and for over two years Tina took narcotic drugs in increasingly higher doses to deal with the agony of her back pain. Chuck shared with us the story of her downward spiral into the world of addiction and his anguish in seeing a close friend caught in the throes of this disease.

Addiction and the Medical Establishment

Chuck calls the medical establishment in the U.S. an assembly line. Even though safeguards are put in place to protect the patient, those safeguards are often lost in the assembly line. Here’s how Chuck describes it: You go to the doctor’s office; go to the receptionist, sign in, and show your insurance information; sit in the waiting area; you’re shown to one of  several exam rooms, all of which contain patients waiting for or being seen by the doctor; a nurse or practitioner preps you; then the doctor comes in. “Doctors are like airlines,” Chuck says. “They overbook and there’s overflow in the waiting room. This is your typical doctor’s office.”

When seeing someone complaining of pain, doctors will often whip out their prescription pad – that’s what they think of first. Tina was eventually prescribed the maximum allowable amount of highly addictive drugs so she needed careful supervision, according to the safeguards in place to protect patients. Chuck describes the procedure: Each time you go to the pharmacy to renew your prescription for narcotics, the pharmacy is required to call the doctor’s office. Even if you are allowed five refills, they still must make the call. Chuck does not believe that call ever reaches the doctor. The likely scenario, as he sees it, “A woman at the desk (in the doctor’s office) handles this kind of thing, looks in her file and sees, oh, yes, this woman is allowed to have this refill and tells the drug store to go right ahead.” There’s no discussion about any problems or red flags, no questions about possible problems such as running out of her supply before the end of the month.

Watching his friend deal with the horrors of addiction prompted Chuck to learn more about it. One thing he discovered is that running out of the drug supply before the end of the month is one of the main tell-tale signs that you’re on the road to becoming an addict, and once you’re addicted to OxyContin, it’s harder to break the addiction than for a coke-head. “It’s much harder,” Chuck says. “It’s one of the most difficult withdrawals of drug addictions. So you would think doctors and the medical establishment would be interested in making sure that this doesn’t happen, with follow-up calls with their patients.” But the addiction experts Chuck consulted told him there’s an epidemic of people in this country hooked on drugs. Some believe doctors over-prescribe.

Chuck believes the system doesn’t encourage doctors to avoid prescribing potentially addictive drugs. “Why would a doctor want to treat you with holistic ways to address your pain when you’re not going to be coming back to him with your pain? They get these people on drugs, and they’re on drugs for the rest of their lives.”

Withdrawal

Withdrawal occurs on the discontinuance of the use of a drug to which one is addicted. The portrayal of withdrawal in the Ray Charles movie is not at all exaggerated, Chuck tells us. He says, “I’ve watched my friend in withdrawal, and it’s horrifying. Addicts will do anything to avoid that. They’ll stick up their mother. That’s why there’s so much crime in Reading and places like that. They can’t help themselves. They will take your purse, knock you over the head, whatever they need to do because they know what that withdrawal is like, and they’ll do anything to avoid it.” Often, these are people who end up in jail. Addictions counselor Cheryl Dawson (not her real name) contends, “They shouldn’t be in prison. They should be in treatment.”

Withdrawal without medical supervision is extraordinarily difficult. In fact, even when taking withdrawal medicine (known as a taper) in a treatment center, it’s nasty. The physical pain of the withdrawal process is very real.

Addiction and the Health Insurance Industry

Tina wanted to get help to kick her addiction, one of the hardest battles she will ever face. But the harsh reality of health insurance in the U.S. kicked her in the teeth. She discovered that her insurance company, at its whim, can decide if they’re going to pay for her rehabilitation or not. “Why is this choice left to a private, for-profit company?” Chuck wonders. “Who are they to say whether treatment for addiction should be paid for or not? Why is it their decision?” Chuck explained that in the Netherlands, the government writes the insurance policy and private insurers bid on selling it.

Furious, and rightly so, Chuck lashed out at the U.S. health insurance system. “In America, not only do we let insurance companies make decisions on whether or not we get covered, they make decisions on what drug you can take. They also make decisions on your care – how many days for treatment. If the doctor says you need a month in rehab and the insurance company says they’ll pay for three days, how’s that their decision? Why do we allow this to be in the hands of private industry?” For this reason, some of the most prestigious (and expensive) treatment facilities do not accept insurance. They refuse to take treatment orders from insurance companies. Consequently, these facilities are financially out of reach of poor and many middle class addicts.

Like Chuck, we are old enough to remember that it wasn’t always like this. Chuck reminds us, “There was a time in this country when there was a social contract. When our parents came home from World War II, they got a job.If they kept their nose clean and worked at that job for 30 years, they got a nice pension/retirement. And during that 30 years they got their health care paid. They didn’t get it taken out of their paycheck every two weeks. It was paid for. In return, you gave your loyalty and your hard work to the company. That social contract doesn’t exist any more…No one will stand up for the average person in this country.”

So Tina’s insurer refused to pay for the treatment she so obviously needed, deeming that her addiction was not life-threatening. Her request denied, Tina had to pay out of her own pocket to check herself into a facility. This young, professional woman in her early 30s took out as much of a loan as she could to pay for as much of a program as she could afford. Her doctor thinks she needs a longer treatment program, but she can’t stay longer because she can’t afford to. What’s more, there are programs that will teach her how to deal with her back pain without narcotic drugs, but, no surprise here, the insurance company won’t pay for those either.

We can only hope that the brief stint Tina spends in rehab is sufficient to help her conquer her disease. If it is not, then her health insurance company surely has sentenced her to more misery down the road. A worst case scenario: Her employer knows about her addiction since she tried to use employer-provided health insurance for treatment. Chances are the employer will keep a closer eye on her job performance when she returns to work. Her previous stellar evaluations may matter little. Miss a few days of work or have an occasional bad day and she’s looking at a pink slip. This could open a Pandora’s box of nasty possibilities. Unemployed, uninsured, she cannot afford her expensive pain medication if she isn’t in recovery. Chuck informs us that heroin on the street is 1/3 the price of OxyContin. Heroin users have only a 5% success rate of beating their addiction. Chuck sums up the dilemma, “So we make them into heroin addicts, and their life is in jeopardy. Then when they’re on the street with nothing left, then I guess it’s life-threatening and insurance might pay.”

What About the Affordable Care Act?

“There’s nothing in Obamacare that changes anything that I just described,” Chuck stresses. The ACA, according to some estimates including President Obama’s own assessment, will leave at least 26 million uninsured. And there’s no guarantee that those who do get coverage will have a quality plan with deductibles they can afford. Insurance companies can still decide what’s covered and what’s not covered. A system, now codified in law, that puts profits over people makes Chuck see red. “It’s outrageous, and to have this situation in a country as rich as we are says something about who we are…I see the reality of what’s happening to the people. You know, my friend didn’t have $20,000 or credit for treatment – tough luck! Most people don’t have that much credit…so they’re out of luck. This country doesn’t give a damn that they’re out of luck…They tell us (ACA) is the American version of health care. What is it? It’s Wall Street’s version of health care, and there’s nothing American about it. You want an American program?…Medicare’s an American program.”

Single-Payer to the Rescue

The PA Family and Business Health Care Security Act is a state-wide single-payer (improved Medicare for all) bill that would cover all Pennsylvanians. Among its many other benefits, it covers 100% of addiction treatment. That’s it – plain, simple, straightforward. Responding to the current lack of such coverage, Chuck says, “Every civilized society has single-payer. We are uncivilized. We don’t take care of our people…There’s no lack of money for drones. We have all the money in the world when it comes to doing something destructive. But we have no money to take care of our own people.”

The PA single-payer legislation recognizes that addiction is a disease even though some in our society consider it a moral weakness. We urge you to learn more about single-payer legislation and become part of a grassroots movement to achieve it. Also, save the date of October 27 for a single-payer forum at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Kutztown. More details will follow later.

Addiction, the Land of Equal Opportunity

Addiction does not discriminate. It hits people in all socio-economic levels, from those living in the streets to the middle class and the well-to-do. Middle class people like Tina, with legitimate health issues, get tossed into this spiral. So, too, do the poverty-stricken who turn to drugs to deal with hopelessness. Author Chris Hedges, in a report published by TomDispatch, tells of the poor who inhabit abandoned West Virginia coal towns whose drug of choice is OxyContin – “hillbilly heroin.” According to Hedges, “…The speech and movements of those we met were so bogged down by opiates that they were often hard to understand.” Many of these unfortunate souls get by on relief checks such as Social Security, Disability, Assistance for Needy Families, retirement or unemployment benefits.

Al-Anon is a support group for those whose loved ones suffer from addiction. Chuck has attended Al-Anon meetings in an attempt to better understand his friend’s situation. There, he has seen people ranging from the very poor to corporate executives. Yes, indeed, addiction does not discriminate. Standing room only at Al-Anon meetings indicates the breadth of the problem.

More on Al-Anon

Chuck found that Al-Anon is concerned not only with the addict, but the survival of the family. The difficult lesson to be learned by friends and family members of addicts is that you can’t help. The inclination to intervene by confiscating pills or other attempts at helping actually enable the addict. The inability to help is “a hard thing for friends and family to accept,” Chuck discovered. The addict is the one responsible for his/her sobriety.

The Nature of the Beast

The hard reality of addiction is that no matter how you arrived there, you cannot be cured. You can only be recovering – a constant struggle. Drug counselors have told Chuck that these drugs get into the brain. As he describes it, “They take over the reasoning center, and they trick you. In the brain is a survival center. When the drug stops, the brain goes into survival mode – we are going to get that drug. If the person doesn’t listen, the pain is so severe, it feels like appendicitis…The brain must go through several months without drugs to readjust.”

According to an article in the Reading Eagle, reporter Dan Kelly spoke with Dr. William Santoro, director of detoxification and rehabilitation services at Reading Hospital. Kelly writes, “Santoro explained that heroin, morphine, OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet and generic versions of oxycodone are all opiates. They are made from the opium poppy plant and then are manufactured into different forms, but the effect on the brain and the body are the same.”

Final Thoughts

One thing Tina will have to understand in recovery is that she can never have narcotics again. As counselor Dawson put it, “Once you’re a pickle you can never be a cucumber again.”

For all the Tinas in our country, it behooves each and every one of us to do our utmost to promote single-payer legislation in Pennsylvania (and in the 20 other states working toward state-based legislation). We simply cannot continue to allow insurance companies to dictate if, when, and for how long an addict may receive treatment. The current asinine system is unacceptable!

New Census Uninsured Data Out: White & Female Rates Getting Worse in PA

The new Small Area Health Insurance Estimates or SAHIE are out for 2010 for each county and state in the US.  The overall uninsured rate for Pennsylvania is 12.1% (with a margin of error or MOE of +/- 0.2%), up from 11.7% in 2009 and 10.6% in 2008.  The total uninsured is estimated to be 1,250,000 (MOE +/- 20,000) up from 1,080,000 (MOE +/-18,800) in 2008 when the recession began.

gender	%2010	MOE +/- %	% 2009	MOE +/- %	% 2008	MOE +/- %
Male	13.3	0.3	13.3	0.3	11.7	0.3
Female	10.8	0.3	10.0	0.2	9.5	0.2

 

The Census Bureau provides gender level estimates at the state and county level for Pennsylvania and the US.  The male and female rates are summarized at the state level for Pennsylvania.  While the male rates was unchanged from 2009, the female rate increased by 0.8% (outside the MOE of +/- 0.3%).  Male uninsured rates are still well ahead of female in PA.

 

year	% uninsured White	MOE +/- %	% uninsured Black	MOE +/- %	% uninsured Hispanic	MOE +/- %
2010	10.40	0.20	16.10	0.70	23.00	1.00
2009	10.10	0.20	16.20	0.70	22.60	1.00
2008	9.10	0.20	15.10	0.70	21.50	1.00

Above is an updated graphic on where the states stand on Medicaid expansion. The ones that are definitely not participating have some of the highest rates in the deep south such as Texas at 26.3% and Florida at 25.3% (also with high Hispanic populations).  Wisconsin previously stated they were definitely not participating but now are listed as undecided.  Pennsylvania is still mum and probably won't decide until after the election.  The Census Bureau has an interactive data and mapping tool that you can use for all counties and states in the US.

I will have county level gender and overall analysis in upcoming posts to try to tease some of these gender and racial trends apart.  Some counties are almost all white in PA.  I'll leave you now with this video clip from the Daily Show which reported on Mexico's healthcare system in 2008 which shows that healthcare is not the reason why they come here.  I posted this in the first PUSH blog post and it seems just as relevant now.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

**Related Posts** 

Racial and Gender Differences in Pennsylvania's Uninsured

 

Most Recent County Level Uninsured Estimates for Pennsylvania 

 

Latino Rates in Pennsylvania's Uninsured

 

States not participating in Medicaid Expansion So Far