Changes

Dear readers (if there are any), I got married in 2011 and my new name is Anne Shepard. I just (finally) started a new blog at storiesnewswonders.blogspot.com.

Health Care: Why I Want Reform

I grew up in one of those "middle of the road" states politically--in a family that votes both Republican and Democrat. My father's more of an Independent than anything, and my mother leans right. Growing up, I knew more about the right side of the aisle (just slightly) than I did the left.

The issue that shaped my political views most? Health care.

At 20, I took a summer job teaching summer school and Vacation Bible School in the Atlanta area. It was my first "big city" experience, and it's about when I started to realize how wide the gap between rich and poor--and, specifically, the gap between those who have health care and those who don't--could be.

While I was in Atlanta, my team partner, Shirley, developed a serious medical condition that required attention. The catch? She didn't have health insurance. Yes, at 20, she was in one of those groups that those who oppose health care reform may tell you shouldn't be counted as uninsured. From the way some talk, you'd think that anyone under 35 never has a health issue.

Of course, we know that's not true, and I believe every one of the more than 46 million Americans without health insurance needs to be counted.

Without health insurance, Shirley had one option to deal with significant pain: the emergency room. She and I were staying with a host family that dropped us off at an Atlanta hospital--they were too nervous about the neighborhood to stay with us, so they told us to call after Shirley got seen--and, once Shirley got registered, the waiting began. We waited a long time.

After awhile, Shirley got called to the second waiting room and, since I wasn't a patient, I waited in the outer room. All around me, people were coughing. People were bleeding. Patients on cots waited next to doors that seemed never to open. Some moaned. Most were quiet. I looked around, and it's not exaggerating to say I was shocked. I was disgusted. I think it's safe to say this: I was changed.

In Iowa, where I'd had health insurance all my life by virtue of my father's job, things were just different. Or maybe my life was different. I realized there were a lot of ways of living--a lot of situations--I'd never seen before. I realized that the gap between those who have good care and those who don't isn't small--it's huge.

Later, my own experiences confirmed what I learned that day: health care in America is broken. As a teacher in Queens, I had health insurance--an HMO. I lived in a working class neighborhood on a very low salary (try living in New York City in the 90's on $20,000 a year). Although I had better care than the uninsured, it wasn't superb by any stretch. Waiting rooms were not pretty places. Waits themselves were long. Doctors were not always top-notch. Yes, care was rationed: by income.

Later, I had health care connected with a job in Prince George's County, Maryland, and, again, I had HMO coverage, though for much of my tenure at the job, I had to pay about $400/month for it. The doctor's office I went to in Hyattsville, the office of Dr. Richard Lilly, had unquestionably the longest waits (often two hours and almost always one) I have ever experienced--and some of the most incompetent administrators.

I had pneumonia while I lived there. Though it was diagnosed right away and I was told to make a follow-up appointment as soon as the X-ray results came back, the office couldn't get me in to the same doctor who made the diagnosis. I had to see another doctor in a satellite office. After dragging myself out to the satellite office, I trusted that they would have had my records transferred--after all, the management was the same.

Instead, when I arrived, the doctor asked me, "Why are you here?" I told Doctor #2 that I had pneumonia and said that the other office, the main office, had already diagnosed me via X-ray. I suggested that she call that office to get my records. She declined. She couldn't even bother to make a phone call. After some arguing, she gave me a weak antibiotic that didn't work. A week later, I had to get another one.

What if I had been in less hearty overall health (sans pneumonia)? Though I know doctors are human and make mistakes, incompetent administrators and a lazy physician were factors in this case. That incompetence and poor care cost me a week of health--it could have cost much more. Was it because the office was in a low-income, mostly minority community? Is that why they could survive though they treated patients poorly--there were just few options for people in the area? I have to wonder.

As a small business owner, I tried to get health insurance that would be better than COBRA, which was running out and cost $400/month with no prescription coverage. I failed and was rejected because I have been treated for mild rosacea and had a shoulder injury along with outpatient counseling after a divorce a few years ago. I have never missed a day of work for any of these conditions, yet I was rejected. Fortunately, in my state, Maryland, a state health insurance program is available, and I qualified for that. What if there had been no such safety net?

What is it like to be uninsured? I know that, too. Briefly, I was uninsured when I was in my 20's--and I had a bicycle accident. I soon found out that no one could tell me how much an X-ray would cost, and I had to guess what care I could afford and ration my own care based on income available. While I was healing, I borrowed a sling from a friend. It didn't fit, but I just made the best of it.

I now have health care through a job, and that's great. But I know what it's like not to have that, or to have poor care. I understand the argument that government health care might lead to lower wages for doctors, but I have to say that I am much more concerned about the millions of people whose only recourse is the emergency room--something taxpayers pick up the bill for, anyway. It sickens me that the debate devolves into name-calling, lies, and exaggerations when so much is at stake.

Though I'm all for examining options carefully, I don't think shouting helps anyone. Though I value debate, I don't think lies about "death panels" or dangerous allegations that President Obama is a "Nazi" help anyone (plus, the latter makes light of something we should never take lightly).

Taxpayers already pay for the uninsured. Care is already rationed. Running health care as a purely market-driven business doesn't work.

So now you know: I'm in favor of health care reform.

Cure International

True Confession from the Land of the Nerds

I've thought often of blog posts I might write, but they just haven't written themselves. Some topics I've considered and even started to write about in my head include the following:

1. Michael Jackson's Death: Why (I'm Ashamed to Say) I Cried
2. Health Care Reform: Why We Need It
3. Homesteading in Wisconsin: Getting My Klemp On

Needless to say, these are very diverse topics, but I've finally decided on yet another topic for this post, with apologies for my long absence. In fairness, work has just been really busy lately, for which I am very grateful.

So, how did I come up with the topic I've finally chosen?

I've been reading a book loaned to me. It's called The Girls from Ames, and it's about women who grew up together in Ames, Iowa and maintained their friendships into adulthood. As you may know if you saw my earlier post on pigs, I grew up in Iowa, too. So, my friend correctly figured I'd like to read The Girls from Ames.

As I've been reading, though, I learned something that I'm sure my friend didn't intend: I was a nerd. I might still be one. I'm not sure.

In the book, the author talks about parties the girls went to, drinking games they played, boys they flirted with. For the most part, that pretty much went on without my knowledge. I most definitely was interested in boys--I just couldn't figure out how to talk to them, and I was convinced I was so ugly I shouldn't. I wasn't a wannabe--I truly had no clue. Really!

NOTE: WHAT I WRITE NEXT IS NOT BRAGGING. IT IS HOW IT WAS. IT'S (SLIGHTLY) TRAGIC IN A VERY COMEDIC SORT OF WAY.

I think it all started when I was a kid. I learned to read before I went to school. The first thing I read was the JCPenney sign, my parents tell me. Apparently, though they thought at first I was just recognizing the shapes, I could read it even when it looked different in different towns--different colors and so on.

I didn't intend to learn to read, but I'm sure having two reading parents and being an only child for the first almost-four years of my life had something to do with it.

Anyway, by the time I got to kindergarten, I could read fluently. They had me read a book to the first graders (nerd alert: danger already presenting itself here). In first grade, I read with the second graders. In second grade, I read with the third graders, but I soon passed them up and ended up having my own reading program. I couldn't help it. I was also a great speller (I see this as an inborn ability having to do with "seeing" words in your head, not an indicator of intelligence).

So, the kicker is this: I was in a spelling bee. I was in second grade, up reading with the third graders who knew I'd already passed them up. Even though I basically had the self-esteem of a turnip, they might have wanted to see me get something wrong just because I usually didn't. I got up to spell and, as it turns out, the word I was given to spell was NERD.

Picture me: I've never heard that word. It doesn't exist in my family! The sad thing is, I didn't know it applied to me! So I spelled it n-u-r-d, and I lost the spelling bee.

When I look back, I am amazed at how clueless I was. I honestly envied the popular kids sometimes (through high school, too), but I can just as honestly say I didn't want to be one of them. I just knew it was, well, beyond me. I mean, I also wore my mother's green pointed sneakers with a pink shirt to school as well as purple pants and red, white, and blue sneakers another time.

I think we all know that academic excellence doesn't always or often equal increased social standing. As a good friend puts it, "If being a National Merit Finalist is so important, why am I still doing my own laundry?"

That's what I've learned this week. Wonder what to do with that?

I think it was nerdy to write this.

Especially on a Friday night.

BLAST Marketing

I've been on LinkedIn for a couple of years now, and one of the best features I use is the "testimonials" feature.  LinkedIn creates an easy way to get and show testimonials, something that I find to be of use when searching for a service. 

When I first meet with a prospective client, I often find them on LinkedIn before or shortly after our first meeting---then I connect with them and give them a way to see the quality of my work without bombarding them with samples.  Works for me!

Strange Fiction

Ever heard of NANOWRIMO? It's also known as National Novel Writing Month--in which writers try to complete an ENTIRE novel in one month.

A few years ago, I made it to 40 pages. It was totally stream of consciousness writing, and what came out was, well, probably not publishable. I can tell it was heavily influenced by fiction like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams--though not a copy. Just in that vein of very strange fiction.

Here's the first minichapter of the mininovel:

Finky knew that standing on the roof-edge of a twenty-story building with his hands tied behind his back was not in his job description. But here he was, anyway.

He stared in front of him, wishing for a broom or King Kong or a huge bat (much as he hated the idea of a huge flying rodent). None of these appeared.

“Your time is up, buddy,” said the little orange man behind him. “Sayonara!”

“Japanese,” thought Finky. “He would have to use that at a time like this.”

He didn’t have much time to think about that, though, because the orange man pushed him hard, and he toppled off the building’s edge, giving a quick nod to the thirty-story building across the street.

A bird flew by, and Finky wondered how he could notice that at a time like this. Instead of his life passing before his eyes, it was a sparrow. “That figures,” he said to himself, thinking those were the lamest last words ever. He tried to think of something profound to say, something people could remember him by when he smashed into them on the sidewalk, but nothing came to mind. Until---“Yes,” he thought. “It’s good to start in the middle.”

He wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but this time he had more time to think, because he landed in a truck full of cotton balls that was speeding by.

“Cotton,” thought Finky. “The other white meat.”

He promptly passed out. It had been a long day, and, as it turned out, it was only half over.

Shocking Statistic

All seriousness aside, this is an illustration I created for a speech I gave yesterday.

According to 2008 statistics garnered from the U.S. Census Bureau and the USDA, there are more than six pigs for every person in the state of Iowa, my home state.

The state in which I now live, Maryland, is fifth in population density (it's five or six times smaller than Iowa but has 2.5 million more people), while Iowa is 35th.

It made for a good speech opener at Rotary and Toastmasters, I think. No deep meanings or criticisms intended--just interesting facts.