AMERICAN PATIENTS UNITED

By Donna Smith

OK, if this wasn’t personal enough just yet for me, it just got a whole lot more so.  And if you think for one instant that in this nation at this point in history and with this popularly elected President and Democratic Congress you will be treated for a heart attack simply because you might die if you are not treated, think again.  And if you think having insurance helps, think some more.

On Friday, my husband was denied a blood test because a computer record from some distant time past and some other state showed he had a $7 balance with LabCorp.  I am not making this up.

My husband had a heart attack this week.  He woke up one morning sweating profusely and with a heart rate dropping.  I watched his color turn first ruddy then ashen, and then he felt as though he was going to pass out.  He would not allow me to call 911 as he slowly began to feel sick to his stomach and he believed his symptoms were digestive rather than cardiac.

We have learned over the years to wait to seek care – it is expensive to do otherwise and dooms us to the endless loop of bills and collection notices and more damage to our already badly bruised credit rating.  So we always wait to seek care until there seems to be no other option.  We are not alone.  Millions of Americans do the same.  We do not want to use the emergency rooms or doctors’ offices.  We don’t want anything to do with the whole mess.

We moved to Maryland in March, but have fought Humana insurance and Medicare transfer since then to even make sure my husband can get any care at all.  And, by God, we were paying the premiums the whole time the insurance folks hemmed and hawed and stalled.  It took three months to get that all straightened out, during which time they repeated over and over, “we’re not denying treatment,” and technically I suppose they weren’t as they want us all just to get out our checkbooks and debit cards and pay up. And in the meantime, my husband waited for any doctors’ appointment and got meds by calling back to Chicago to get prescriptions refilled.

My husband is a cardiac patient and a vascular patient with a complicated medical history and needs follow-up care on a regular basis.  He is a responsible guy who has always maintained his insurance coverage and who avoids seeking care unless it is needed.  He does not seek to overuse or abuse the system.  To stay relatively healthy, he needs regular check-ups and decent intervention when necessary.

But, I insisted my husband follow up in the way we all are told is more sensible and cost effective.  He went to a primary care doc on Wednesday who shuffled him off to a cardiologist after a visit barely long enough to be billed as an “extended, new patient visit.”  An EKG showed the grim reality.  “Abnormal, negative T-waves.  Inferior infarct.”

Blood work was ordered in advance of the cardiologist visit set for Friday.  He was to fast overnight, see the cardiologist and then get his blood drawn.  Seems to be progressing, eh?

Well, only until he sat down in the LabCorp office to get his blood drawn.  The LabCorp employee typed in my husband’s Social Security Number, and promptly told him he could not have his blood drawn or have his test administered until he cleared up his old bill with LabCorp.  The bill?  $7.  That’s right — $7.

And my husband has been covered by insurance for many years.  But now he sat – post myocardial infarction or heart attack – being told by a laboratory employee that he would be denied care due to an unpaid $7 bill.  He did not have $7 with him.  He was fasting.  He tried to explain.  They did not budge.  They did call the supervisor.  She confirmed and stood her ground for LabCorp.  No test for Larry Smith.  He owes $7.

David King, the CEO of LabCorp, made $8.2 million in 2008.  He’s one of the people and LabCorp is one of the companies President Obama is celebrating who will help transform our nation’s healthcare system.  Indeed.  And LabCorp’s political participation committee donated funds to several candidates in 2008, including Sen. Max Baucus and Sen. Charles Grassley, both of the Senate Finance Committee that is working on the nation’s healthcare reform.

Lest we think the insurance giants are the only people hurting, harming and killing Americans like my husband as they shore up their profits, follow the money in this story alone.  One doctor’s office, another doctor’s office, one insurance company and finally a lab – all worked together to make what they could individually off my husband and then ultimately denied his care for $7.  Everybody got their bite of the apple and then left him in the dust as they moved on to the next source of revenue, oops, I mean the next patient.

Where do we stand today?  Still no blood work drawn.  Waiting for next week to see what we can do to set the tests and exams the cardiologist ordered before she got busy with another patient.  Did my husband return to the doctor’s office to tell them what happened and ask for their help?  Yes.  And he said not one person, not one, would reach into their pockets and give him the $7 or pick up the phone and try to help him resolve this.  So what was his life worth?  $7.

We’ll get the tests done somehow.  But the point is, we’ll have to fight for it.  And his heart will be stressed more and so on and so on and so on.  This is the travesty of healthcare in this nation.  And this Congress and this President are so damned concerned with their own political futures they cannot even see this reality for the rest of us.  I am so angry.

And don’t tell me that a single payer – publicly funded and privately delivered system — wouldn’t stop heart attack patients from being denied care due to old debts of $7. It’s the only system that could stop that sort of abuse.

The LabCorp supervisor who denied Larry Smith’s test on Friday, June 26, in Elkridge, Maryland, is named Shirley Smith (no relation to Larry) at LabCorp’s Maryland office: 410-365-1264.  LabCorp’s customer service line for billing can be reached at: 1-800-845-6167.

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National Organization of Women honors Donna Smith as 2009 Women of Action honoree.

A Woman of Action symbolizes the very core of NOW’s mission – to spur feminists – women and men – to take action on behalf of justice and equality for women.

Our honoree for 2009, Donna Smith, epitomizes how to best confront the injustices in this world. Donna is speaking out, organizing, pressuring, and advocating for solutions to fix the long-standing crisis produced by our unfair for-profit health care system.

Donna’s personal story drew national attention to the health care crisis when she appeared in Michael Moore’s 2007 movie, “SiCKO”. Despite having health insurance and even a health savings account, Donna and her husband Larry were forced to move into their daughter’s basement after being unable to pay staggering health care costs — and were left in financial ruin.

Donna’s husband, Larry, suffered three heart attacks and Donna was diagnosed and treated for uterine cancer. There is even a scene in the movie “SiCKO” where Michael Moore takes Donna to Cuba to get the necessary treatment their insurance wouldn’t pay for.

Donna instantly became a memorable character because her story spoke to millions of people who faced the same problems. But Donna used her fame to make change. She’s currently a community organizer and legislative advocate for the California Nurses Association, the 150-thousand member strong union that pushes for single payer health insurance. Single payer is a progressively financed, guaranteed single standard of high quality healthcare for all.

She has gone to protests, town hall meetings, spoken at a Congressional hearing on health care reform where she boldly told lawmakers, “Remember the hardworking people who elected you. Their bankruptcy shame due to medical crisis is really your shame”.

Donna’s story is remarkable – from illness, bankruptcy, financial ruin — to fighting back and becoming an icon to millions as a health insurance reform advocate. We salute Donna for her hard work and tenacity.

Donna come up here — it is my honor to present this award to you – NOW’s Woman of Action Honoree for 2009, Donna Smith

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Watch:

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By Donna Smith

Wow. America’s Health insurance Plan’s (AHIP) czar — and the woman our Congress and president have anointed as the nation’s architect of health reform — has offered a gift to all of America’s moms and women. The health insurance industry will stop charging you more – they’ll stop discriminating against you – so long as all of you are legally forced to buy their product.

It sounds to me a little like the old saw, “When did you stop beating your wife?” But then when I really thought about it, it made me sicker and sadder and more acutely aware of exactly what this nation’s leaders think of all of the mothers and daughters in the land this Mother’s Day 2009.

Here’s how the New York Times’ Robert Pear wrote it, “Insurance companies offered Tuesday to end the practice of charging higher premiums to women than to men for the same coverage.

Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, made the offer in testifying before the Senate Finance Committee.”

Yes sir and yes maam, Mr. Pear. Karen’s going to stop beating us real soon. I don’t buy that for a moment until they actually go all the way back and acknowledge the fact that the men who impregnated the women charged more for their gender-based ability to be impregnated are made to pay up for all the losses women have suffered at the hands of this unscrupulous industry.

Never mind for one moment that the single payer point of view was systematically shut out of that hearing and nearly all others (as evidenced by the arrests of eight advocates this week at the same hearing – though Mr. Pear chose not to report on those arrests, favoring to lead his piece with an Ignagni tribute).

If we could go back and try to fix the damage from the admitted industry discriminatory practices, how do we charge for the lost lives? The moms who buried children they couldn’t afford to buy insurance for? The moms who suffered severe illness and unthinkable pain because Karen and crew deemed them uninsurable?

Now they want to charge women the same as men for this defective product that has been allowed to cause hundreds of thousands of women and kids to suffer?

I’ve heard some friends in political circles say that Karen Ignagni and AHIP are not the real problem in this health care travesty of a U.S. healthcare system. Some say it’s the Dems and the Congress that fail to act that are the real problem, that Karen is just doing the job she’s paid so very well to do.

Can’t buy that one. It would be like folks saying Hitler wasn’t the real problem behind the Holocaust and that the folks who ignored him or feared him were really to blame.

Karen and AHIP have given us exactly the same sort of death and destruction as any of the other major human rights disasters over the past century have done, including the Holocaust. These people are the architects of pain and of long and prolonged suffering for millions of women and kids and families. All for the almighty buck.

So now that in 2009, just in time for Mother’s Day, she has agreed to stop charging more for health insurance for women, it does not mean she’s agreed to stop the death marches across time for millions of people who will not be able to access the best level of care that this nation has to offer.

Sen. Baucus, and all of his committee members on the Senate Finance Committee, are the observers of an American tragedy. And if Hitler had appeared before them in 1944 and said he’d stop gassing the Jews, what would our Senate have said to him?

Here’s what I wish they had said in 2009 to the for-profit health insurance industry folks who have overseen the suffering and deaths of so many women for decades.

And as soon as Ms. Ignagni opened her mouth and acknowledged publicly the discrimination against the mothers of this land, you’d think one of them might have stood for us all and said, “We find it wholly unacceptable that you have violated for many years without shame if not the letter then the clear purpose and intent of the law of these great United States of America in which we have determined some time ago that women are to be treated as equal citizens to men, mothers are equal to fathers, and therefore entitled to equal treatment. And as a consequence, we – the U.S. Senators elected to serve the women and men of this land – find you unacceptable to participate in the delivery in any way whatsoever of healthcare, a basic human right, in these United States.”

The house would have come down in honor of that Senator and the Senate would have finally honored all moms and children and dads and families in this great debate. It’s not too late. It could still happen.

Happy Mother’s Day.

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by Donna Smith

Many know by now that a single payer healthcare system is the type of reform most widely supported by the American people and a majority of nurses, doctors and healthcare professionals. Many also know that Congress has so far deftly and purposely shunned most expert witnesses who would offer evidence in favor of that publicly funded, privately delivered system. The media has also done its part to keep the message targeted away from single payer as recent independent studies showed how the mainstream media did its level best to keep big insurance and pharmaceutical advertisers happy by not reporting fairly on the topic.

Congress isn’t alone in its shading the discussion nor is the media. Both followed President Obama’s lead as he locked out the single payer voice from the first White House forum on health reform until the phone lines jammed with reports of planned protests by nurses in scrubs and white-coated docs marching outside the gates of the executive mansion while the industry “stakeholders” and the elected officials they support so mightily met inside at the invitation of Mr. Obama.

We might expect the fawning and fainting with glee over the cooperation between the usual suspects in this health reform period. With the most power-challenging and boat-rocking alternative kept out of the picture for now, those who profit most under a for-profit insurance based reform would be expected to act as if they have previously been enemies but are now ever so generously working together.

This is political theater staged by those with lots and lots of money in the game, and it is a fight for human rights being waged outside that political theater by those of us with lots and lots of real skin in the game. Millions of Americans have lost loved ones and homes and careers and good health and credit ratings to this travesty of a system, and none of the plans currently being “vetted” by this Congress or this President do much to mitigate that at all. It is a classic struggle of epic proportions.

But some of what is being offered and accepted as expert Congressional testimony is shocking even within this skewed and staged arena. There are some real rotten apples now in this Congressional record. And those rotten apples will spoil the whole process unless we all demand better. This fight for healthcare justice demands that we call for our best experts, our finest minds and not simply the most well-connected ones.

One example of the terribly biased testimonies being taken is that of the testimony submitted by Richard Scott to the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, subcommittee on health, on March 24, 2009. Mr. Scott reports that he was asked to submit his testimony to the committee. On his website, Conservatives for Patient Rights, Scott touts his own experience in the delivery of healthcare in this nation as reason enough to consider him an expert. And Scott is also launching some very inaccurate advertising on behalf of his “organization” in the effort to keep himself and his closet allies in the insurance and private provider industry in a very preferred position in the U.S. healthcare system.

Here’s a bit of this Congressional expert witness’s biography: Scott founded the Columbia Hospital Corporation in 1987, but dumped by the company’s board of directors in 1997 in the midst of the nation’s biggest healthcare (Medicare and Medicaid) fraud scandal. In 2001, Scott co-founded the Solantic Corporation, which operates walk-in medical care centers.

We need to know more about who is influencing Congress and the media now in the discussion. So, here’s more about witness Scott: In July 1997, when Scott was then the chairman and CEO of Columbia/Hospital Corporation of America and was forced out by the company’s board of directors, he left with a $10 million severance deal and 10 million shares of stock. At that time, the shares were worth more than $300 million. Scott was replaced by Dr. Thomas Frist, Jr., the co-founder of HCA and the brother of Senator Bill Frist, then Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate.

It’s all just a little incestuous, don’t you think?

But wait, our 2009 expert witness on healthcare reform in the U.S. left a little more than history behind at his company that speaks to how he views what is most important to him: making a buck in this system.

In 2001, HCA reached a plea agreement to pay $95 million in fines to the federal government to avoid criminal charges against the company. In late 2002, HCA agreed to pay the government $631 million, plus interest, and paid another $17.5 million to state Medicaid agencies, in addition to $250 million paid up to that point to resolve outstanding Medicare expense claims. In all, civil law suits cost HCA more than $1.7 billion to settle, including more than $500 million paid in 2003 to two whistleblowers.

$1.7 billion with a great big “B” was paid by HCA to resolve the Medicare and Medicaid fraud mess orchestrated under Mr. Scott’s watch who walked away with his own sweet deal. The largest Medicare and Medicaid fraud case in U.S. history, an investigation of over 10 years and he walks away with hundreds of millions of dollars only to return as one of our current expert witnesses on health reform? Whew. That’s an epic award and an epic injustice.

I worked for a Columbia-owned hospital in 1990. I was the billing manager. I was asked to do some very creative bookkeeping and went to the Medicare law and read that I would be risking prosecution if “I knew or should have known” what I was doing was illegal under federal law. As I read the law, it broadly imposed appropriate sanctions upon those who might consider bilking the taxpayer-funded system. My bosses told me if I wouldn’t do the transactions, they would hire someone who would.

As a consequence of what I read about the law, I packed up my belongings, walked to my car and drove away from that hospital rather than break the law. My husband was three weeks away from having his first open-heart surgery, and it was two weeks before Christmas. We had no other source of income.

What I had been asked to do in order to keep my job - my $35,000 a year job - was not right and I knew it even as a relatively “green” billing manager. How in the world am I to believe that Richard Scott knew less than I did about what was right and what was wrong under the Medicare program? And why was my life’s course forever altered in ways so very much different? He walked away with hundreds of millions. I certainly was not rewarded in any way for my honesty. I reported what I saw by way of letters to the government, but never heard anything back from my letters, save one response from a Senator who said they’d look into it.

And the fraud cases that were settled didn’t even touch on all the ways companies headed up by some of 2009’s “expert witnesses” like Richard Scott came up with to skirt the rules and bump up the bottom line. What I saw related to how Medicare bad debt is reimbursed - and it’s still an area where rules are broken today. Scott never went to jail. He took his hundreds of millions and now returns to say what’s needed in healthcare reform.

It’s all about the money folks. It’s all about the money.

We must demand that our Congress and our president hear from experts that are not of this ilk. We are better people than this. And our healthcare system must reflect our values of justice, decency and compassion. Dr. David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program testified finally a couple of weeks ago - but so far he has been the only expert from outside the corporate fold allowed to utter a word on the Congressional record on behalf of single payer. The Senate has invited no witness who strays from the canned agenda that will force us all to buy the defective product that is for-profit health insurance.

Mr. Scott didn’t care one bit about ripping off you and ripping off me and ripping off any other patient or taxpayer in this nation. He should not be an expert now advising Congress or anyone else on healthcare reform. His commercials and his organization’s communications should have to carry a disclaimer fully disclosing his involvement in the Columbia/HCA fraud case.

In fact, every witness ought to have to disclose their current source of any income as well as their conflicts of interest. Otherwise, we’ll end up with a system crafted in large part by those whose interests are not shared by hard-working Americans who don’t get rewarded if they break the law. How could Congress - our lawmakers - do less than demand full disclosure?

And, I would sure like to hear from a few witnesses whose salaries are not paid by the largest corporate interests in healthcare insurance, big Pharma or for-profit provider corporations. Congress needs to reverse this right now and invite real expert testimony from the broadest spectrum of law-abiding true stakeholders - not liars and cheats and gamers who would pretend they have conservative values at their core and as their reasons for opposing a single payer system.

Look at all the truths. Look at the evidence not the scare tactics. Listen to economic and social policy experts and clinical professionals and patients. But for God’s sake, stop taking testimony from solely the big-money interests - else you’ll get just the long-term results people like Scott would embrace.

Donna Smith is the founder of American Patients United, a community organizer for the California Nurses Association and National Co-Chair for the Progressive Democrats of America Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.

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Donna Smith and APU are inviting you to join us at the world premiere of the film Do No Harm.
Do No Harm tells the story of two reluctant whistleblowers in a small Georgia town who endure relentless attacks as they struggle to draw national attention to hospital corruption and the plight of the uninsured.

At the center of this story is Phoebe Putney, a non-profit hospital in Albany, Georgia whose influence is felt by most residents - everyone knows someone who works at Phoebe, owes Phoebe money, or who has been to the hospital for treatment. In 2003, Dr. John Bagnato and accountant Charles Rehberg stumble upon evidence that the hospital is overcharging uninsured and indigent patients and is using aggressive collections tactics to recover costs. Their subsequent investigation uncovers millions of dollars in offshore bank accounts and lucrative for-profit businesses under the control of the non-profit hospital - not only at Phoebe, but also at non-profit hospitals around the country. And shockingly – this is all entirely legal.

When these discoveries become public, Bagnato and Rehberg become the targets of threats and intimidation, and are eventually prosecuted by local authorities for blowing the whistle on the hospital’s practices. With their reputations and livelihoods on the line, Bagnato and Rehberg must confront what they’re willing to sacrifice to bring about justice.

Do No Harm will have its Chicago premiere on May 21, 2009 at a private screening at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan will introduce the film, and there will be a panel discussion following the screening featuring Dr. Quentin Young, nationally recognized advocate for single-payer health care; Mark Rukavina, Executive Director of The Access Project, whose research has been essential to exposing the injustice of medical debt and unfair hospital billing and collection issues; and Donna Smith, Founder of American Patients United, an organization of patients and their families who believe that access to quality health care is a human right.

If you wish to attend the screening contact us http://www.donoharmdoc.com/rsvp/

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Title: Donna is speaking
Location: Chautauqua Institute
Description: Chautauqua is perhaps best known for its morning lecture series when the Amphitheater stage becomes the platform for distinguished speakers across a broad range of disciplines. Susan B. Anthony argued for women’s suffrage in 1892, and Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his \”I Hate War\” speech in 1936. Margaret Mead, Amelia Earhart, Thurgood Marshall, Freeman Dyson, Jane Goodall, Sandra Day O’Connor and Kurt Vonnegut have all spoken here.

Founded in 1874 as a training camp for Sunday school teachers, the Institution’s Christian tradition continues with Sunday through Friday morning worship services. There are daily Roman Catholic Masses and Saturday morning Jewish services. The Abrahamic Program endeavors to teach about and build relationships among the Family of Abraham: Jews, Christians and Muslims.
http://www.ciweb.org/contemporary-issues
Date: 2009-07-11

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by Donna Smith

Maybe I am getting old as I look to the past for some better times, but maybe I have grown a bit wiser about recognizing what quality is and what it is not. When it comes to my health, I pay much more than I ever did for care and I get far less — and what I am able to afford is often of far worse quality than it used to be. I do think about how healthcare has changed in my lifetime and all that my children will never know is possible. And I remember one little engagement ring and how its story foretold my healthcare journey as a once middle class, American wife and mother.

It’s not that I long for the good old days - but I do think many Americans still just want simple quality and value in healthcare, and in our current system we certainly have complicated and convoluted many issues at the expense of not only our human compassion but also our American common sense.

When I was a young bride, my husband and I walked by the jewelry counter at our favorite JC Penney store and saw a small but elegant engagement ring. At $199, it seemed expensive to us, but the salesperson told us it was a ring with a tiny Harry Winston diamond - with beautiful facets - and it sparkled on my finger like nothing I had ever worn before. And we stood at the beginnings of our now-33 year marriage with great hope and all the deep passion and love that our young relationship could hold.

Soon, I would give birth to our first child. In the months leading up to our baby’s birth, even as my little Harry Winston ring grew a bit more snug on my finger, I saw my doctor for regular pre-natal care and routinely spent 15 or 20 minutes with him as we discussed my pregnancy and my health. His charges for the full seven months of care and the delivery of my child were set in advance, along with the routine lab work. And, because my labor was so fast and my good doctor did not make it to the hospital in time to actually attend the delivery, a nurse delivered my beautiful son and my doctor adjusted his set fee to reflect missing the delivery. Hmm…

When I left the hospital after three days of terrific nursing care for me and for my baby, including lots of wonderful advice from maternity ward nurses, my husband checked me out through the hospital administrative office, but I never worried once about being slammed with financial issues either while in the hospital or upon discharge. As a patient, I was able to focus on my care and my baby’s start in life. What a marvelous time for me as a wife and mom. I recall small bills but nothing onerous or crushing - and certainly nothing that robbed me of my own well-being or threatened my child’s health in any way.

Fast forward 33 years. I avoid the doctor whenever possible. I hate going to the doctor as it is unpleasant and humiliating to be checked out financially and made to pay my portion of the bill before anyone even provides one moment of service or any healthcare at all. My healthcare insurance costs - for myself and my husband - have escalated far faster than my income. And I never plan to seek care before I gauge if I feel sick enough to warrant the expenditure from the family budget. As my story was already told in SiCKO, everyone knows I lost my house, went bankrupt and gave up nearly everything I owned even though I had insurance - and lots of insurance.

I have a lot of skin in the game, as the popular saying goes. And I never see a doctor for more than a few moments at a time any more. Cancer check-ups be damned, it’s a whole day off to get one test done.

I let chronic pain linger. I let symptoms wait. I take huge amounts of over-the-counter medications in the attempt to avoid any interaction with the healthcare system. I don’t want to ever take time off work for being sick or worse yet for a family member’s illness, and I cannot remember the last time a doctor called me in response to a simple question or test result - I always have to be assertive to even get a response. And many times, healthcare providers seem truly annoyed when having to deal with any patient follow-up at all.

Let it not be said that Americans don’t wait for care. We wait for weeks before we go to seek care. We wait in waiting rooms and business offices for forms and insurance benefits to be scrutinized and co-pays and deductibles to be collected brashly and crudely as our financial transactions are open for everyone in the waiting room to hear. We wait inside the doctor’s office or exam room - often in some state of undress with no word on approximate time for a doctor to come in. And then we wait for scripts and follow-up appointments. Question any of those waits, and we are often subject to verbal scolding or fear that our daring to speak up might slow the process even more. Healthcare in America? For an average, insured woman like me in 2009? It is to be survived when absolutely necessary only.

If I could avoid being in this mess of a system until I just die in my sleep some day, I’d be happy.

But that’s not likely. The healthcare system is a monster of profit-making potential and force now - for not only our healthcare providers but also many of our political leaders. I am incidental to their feeding frenzy. I am only needed as a payer of premiums, co-pays, deductibles, prescriptions and all the other high costs for my husband and myself. I get expensive tests and procedures not always because I need them (though I may not know that) - I get the tests that my insurance says I am allowed to have and that have been deemed profitable by some business folks wheeling and dealing behind the scenes. If I am deemed worthy financially, I get care.

Listen to those who testified yesterday for the Senate Finance Committee as they talk about us as metrics and how to mold and shape our healthcare system - listen for any hint of humanity in these talks.

Don’t be fooled by the double-speak you hear. Having a national health care system is not the same as allowing the government to control your healthcare. In fact, giving over your power as a patient to an insurance company because the insurance industry bought and paid for health reform that forces us all to buy their for-profit, financial product is not healthcare but is the highest form of control you can give away - control over your own body.

It doesn’t have to be this way. It could be a just and responsible system. It could be a sound, caring and competitive system in which we all pay fairly into one public pool, we all get care when we need it and we all are allowed to choose those private or public doctors, hospitals, clinics and other providers that deliver the kind of care we want to receive.

I want a publicly funded, privately delivered system in which I choose my care and my provider. And so do more than 60 percent of my fellow Americans. My choice. My care. My life. My nation’s system.

So, what happened to my little Harry Winston diamond? It went the way of our healthcare system. One cloudy afternoon about 15 years ago when my husband was in the hospital and needing more medication, I sat in a pawn shop office and bargained for $120 in cash for my engagement ring. I left the pawn shop shaking and beaten-down but drove to the pharmacy where I picked up my man’s meds.

Donna Smith is a community organizer for the California Nurses Association and National Co-Chair for the Progressive Democrats of America Healthcare Not Warfare campaign. She is the founder of American Patients United

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Chicago area non-profit hospitals spend only one dollar on charity care for nearly three dollars they receive in tax breaks.  This Gap suggests non-profit hospitals are not fulfilling their public obligation to provide free or discounted care to low-income, uninsured families, according to a new study released by the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability.

THe 47 Chicago area non-profit hospitals included in the study are collectively awarded $489 Million annually in tax exemptions, yet together they provide only $176 million in free or reduced-cost health care services to the poor, uninsured patients, known as “charity care”.

“Tax breaks are essentially an expenditure of public funds. The value of the tax breaks given to non-profit hospitals are public dollars in the hands of those hospitals that lawmakers intended to be spent on charity care. Given rising health care costs and the ever-growing number of uninsured, it is essential that all public health care dollars are actually used to ensure access to basic medical care for the less fortunate,” said Heather O’Donnell, author of the study. “It is clear that there is a significant gap between the tax benefits granted to non-profit hospitals and the amount of health care actually delivered to low-income families in an affordable manner.”

To read the report

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By Donna Smith

The full story just aired on 60 Minutes, so I hope if you didn’t see it you will watch it on-line. Watch this segment, please, if you have any remaining doubt about what the healthcare crisis in this nation is doing to us all. Have you ever gasped for breath and need oxygen to even take a step? Have you ever had an untreated broken hip? Have you ever had your medical supplies repossessed while fighting breast cancer? It is all happening now, in ever increasing numbers – but this 60 Minutes report was just devastating to watch. Oh my God. I am so upset.

Read some of the comments after the story – we are allowing our fellow citizens to die – and to suffer terribly while doing so. Why Harry Reid isn’t right there in the state calling for immediate action, I do not understand.

This 60 Minutes segment was far more impactful than the “Sick Around America” piece.

The Recession’s Impact: Closing The Clinic

60 Minutes: Bad Economy Leaves Cancer Patients Without Health Insurance In Dire Straits

(CBS) The economic crisis is hurting society’s most vulnerable. For some people these days - especially cancer patients - losing a job and health insurance could mean losing life-saving care as cash-strapped public hospitals are forced to cut critical charity care.
60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley reports from Las Vegas, where cancer sufferers were recently told the county hospital would no longer provide outpatient cancer treatments, leaving uninsured patients searching for help.

Helen Sharp, 63, has been battling lymphoma for eight months. Her illness prevents her from working, she has no health insurance and she has relied on charity chemotherapy provided by the county hospital, University Medical Center in Las Vegas. She was one of 2,000 patients told recently that UMC’s outpatient chemotherapy was ending. “I don’t want to die. I shouldn’t have to die,” she tells Pelley. “This is a county hospital…for people that, like me…have lost their insurance [and do not] have any other resources,” says Sharp.
Sharp called private cancer treatment centers on a list provided by UMC to ask for help. “One drug is almost $50,000…Who can afford that?” she wonders. After weeks of uncertainty, Sharp was admitted to UMC and given chemotherapy under an exception for inpatients.

Roy Scales, a laid-off security guard, has spent months searching for treatment for his lung cancer. “Where am I going to find help? I am messing with a disease that will kill you.” He called the private cancer centers on UMC’s list and, of the 25 he estimated he called, none would accept payment from a county medical assistance program. Asked what he was going to do, Scales answers, “Die peacefully.” After finally consulting a doctor, he has entered a hospice.
Sharp, Scales and others like them are the indirect victims of a slowdown in tourism revenues in Las Vegas that have greatly impacted Nevada’s ability to fund programs like UMC’s outpatient cancer clinic. UMC’s budget lost $21 million overnight, says its CEO, Kathy Silver.
The hardest hit area for us was the Medicaid budget. We were already…budgeted to lose $51 million….that brought our loss… to $72 million,” she says. She has been forced to choose among programs, keeping the ones unique to her facility, like trauma care, and cutting others, such as the outpatient oncology clinic, that are duplicated at private hospitals.

It’s bad news for all involved. “The financial situation that we find ourselves in caused us to make some decisions…all of us…would rather have not made,” she tells Pelley. “I think this is happening to some degree, probably, in every public hospital across the country,” says Silver.

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