'SiCKO' Blog

You Don't Speak for This SiCKO

2008-08-17T09:13:00.015-05:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Founder, American Patients United
National Co-Chair PDA's Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign
Communications specialist, California Nurses Association/NNOC

CHICAGO -- During every national election cycle at about this time in the big races, I start to want to scream into the great abyss of political hype flying around. "You don't speak for me. You haven't seen what it's like to live in America's real middle class for a long time," I want to thunder as loudly as they do their messages of kinship with me.

I am a middle class grandmother. I grew up in Illinois. I was raised to care about God and country. I may not have achieved a great level of renown, but I think I have just as much right to weigh in on this nation's future as those who claim to know me but just don't.

Whether it's Lou Dobbs blowing hard on CNN about his affinity for the great middle class of this nation (and his salary is what?) or Barack Obama or John McCain claiming empathy by slamming down a shot and a beer (and the last time they bought half a tank of gas because payday was still three days away was when?), none of these people know what middle class life feels like right now, today in middle America. They may grab a position or two that they know is sexy enough to get media attention, but they don't get it -- they do not get me -- and they won't be my best advocates unless and until they do.

Let's talk healthcare, for example. And let's talk reality for middle class folks like me. This issue permeates so many different parts of my life. From where I work to where I shop, rising costs for healthcare invade not only my bottom line in wages and benefits but also every business and every product and every service I use.

I know gas prices matter too, but any wonk who claims to speak for me is lying if he or she fails to talk about what the costs of healthcare are doing in a much more insidious way. If today's price for a night in the hospital or an "extended" visit with my doctor was posted on every street corner like gas prices are, I dare say the conversation might shift. And while we're at it, let's post the cost each business paid for health insurance coverage for its employees.

Thank God I have insurance coverage through my employer. And thank God my husband now has coverage through Medicare. So, in theory, the issues of access to care should be golden for us and for millions of others in this nation. Yet I have to spend weeks waiting for care, get just moments being assessed for needed care, then weeks more waiting for more assessment and all the while missing precious work time and not being helped to feel better or have better strategies for preventative care. That is my middle class reality.

And let's talk everyday life, for a moment. I see gas prices rise and fall with little relationship to world conditions to which I am privy. I get the impression that the twists and turns of those markets have more to do with making money and then yanking my chain with prices that fall back just enough to provide minimal relief. During the points when the prices are surging, everything in my world gets more expensive, yet when the pump prices recede just a bit, everything else stays at the inflated price. I am not stupid, and that is my middle class reality.

My middle class reality is that at any moment I might not be middle class. And that reality is what keeps me in constant worry and always listening for some understanding of that reality.

SiCKO was released a year ago, and I often tell audiences I am the blessed one from among those people featured in the film. I have the honor now to work for a great organization -- the California Nurses Association -- and I can pay my rent and my basic bills again. And we even have a newer used car for the first time in eight years. I will never again be a homeowner, though. There are not enough working years left to repair my damaged credit following our bankruptcy due to illness while insured. I am afraid about the "what-if's" -- every single day. My security is tenuous. That is my middle class reality.

I watch my country's infrastructure crumble -- the potholes, the traffic jams, the weakened and old bridges. I worry about the gun violence our young people live with -- and I am married to a hunter, a man who loves guns used for sporting purposes. When I do get to fly, I am herded onto airplanes that may or may not take off on time or at all -- and I have no recourse for time lost, bosses angered or family members inconvenienced. I wonder if any of this will matter if the global warming issues overtake any of the momentary concerns and the planet does not survive our abuse.

And finally, I do love my country and our troops and my freedom. I am sad about our current world situation as I think about what World War II vets like my dad fought for and believed in. Are there times when war must be waged? Yes. But I am afraid we've completely screwed up our set of priorities and really do not like our warring for oil and world dominance while we send mosquito nets and missionaries into areas where tens of millions die enduring conditions we will not fight. That is not my middle class realty nor my values at work.

I am not safe in my homeland. I am bombarded by conditions over which I have no control that threaten my personal safety daily. Healthcare costs and all the deaths related to that crisis right here on American soil are evidence enough for me -- my personal safely is not being protected by anyone.

There are plenty of people in the middle class who could and should speak up during these troubled times. I just want those in the upper classes who claim they speak for me to stop it... tell me the truth for a change. You speak for whatever interest you find potentially profitable at the moment. But you do not speak for me.

I will speak for myself. You will not define which issues to rant about and impose on me. My daily life defines the issues for me. And as one of the middle class reality wonks in this nation, I can tell you I am pretty angry and pretty disgusted with all who claim to know better than I do what the world I live in is like.

Pabulum of the Possible: Incremental Healthcare Reform

2008-07-16T17:14:00.002-05:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, Founder of American Patients United

CHICAGO – So, here it is folks. Many intelligent and gifted leaders believe our healthcare system needs major reform and that a single payer system would be the ideal way to accomplish that overhaul. Yet many of those same bright people opt to support “incremental change” as the way to begin fixing a system that leaves millions without any access to healthcare and millions of others with inadequate access.

Just down and dirty: a single payer system would have every American pay into one pool for healthcare (just as we now pay into Medicare), and all claims would be paid from that one pool to patient-chosen doctors, clinics, hospitals and other providers. Publicly financed, privately delivered healthcare. That’s what single payer is.

Awesomely simple and exquisitely responsible, single payer offers patients maximum flexibility in seeking quality healthcare, and it offers the nation maximum “bang for the buck” by removing the mark-ups for excessive profit necessary in the current for-profit, private health insurance markets.

It’s not a difficult concept.

The incremental health reform plans are quite convoluted and difficult to follow. Designed to protect all the corporate, for-profit entities currently making money in our system, it is nearly impossible to accomplish universal access to care while maintaining the status quo of our national corporate healthcare system.

Make no mistake about it, Americans already pay more for healthcare than any other people on earth, and many don’t even get care at all though they are legally bound to pay it for others. (To read a great piece on this, See “Paying More, Getting Less“ by Joel Harrison in Dollars and Sense. As author Harrison points out, even the uninsured spend at nearly 10 percent of their incomes paying tax burdens for healthcare others will get, including their elected representatives.

We run scared rather than stand tall. We die and let others we love die without healthcare rather then fight the battle against the titan insurance industry and the gigantic pharmaceutical companies. We are not behaving like we give a damn; we are behaving like we need to beg for relief, for care — like we are weak.

We lost our generational fire somewhere between the Sea of Tranquility and the Lower Ninth Ward. How else do we explain our national ability to watch our fellow citizens drowning on rooftops while our national emergency manager worried about whether or not to roll his sleeves up for the cameras?

When did we become a nation of people who settle for the possible? We used to be made up of pioneers with spirits as big as the open plains and dreams to match. We built railroads no one ever thought we could, had the generational fortitude to win World War II, fought against oppression during the civil rights battles in the 60s, clawed and clamored to put a man on the moon first and told ourselves there were no limits to our aspirations.

Then we softened, and we began to settle for only what we thought we could get. I blame my generation – we baby boomers sold out in ways that our children and grandchildren are now dying for. We let our guard down when Viet Nam ended, when Watergate wrapped up, when Jimmy Carter lost and when Ronald Reagan clamped down on the labor movement and used the air traffic controllers as his ghoulish examples of what happens to people if they stand up together for what they believe.

We began to internalize a behavior of settling for the possible rather than losing the farm. America’s leaders behaved in the world like drunken bullies, demanding allegiance and rewarding compliance to what our leaders dictated. We taught ourselves that to succeed one must never break rank, lest you be crushed by those more powerful.

Why were we not in the streets, up in arms – quite literally — for our brothers and sisters in New Orleans? Why are we forgetting them still?

We are no longer our forefathers’ daughters or our foremothers’ sons. We lost our emotional and societal grounding and sought easier, softer ways – earn money, buy stuff, retire early, buy more stuff. We judged one another more based on superficial acquisitions than substantial accomplishments.

Well, it is time for the people of the nation to stop it. Just stop it. We know better than this, and we are smarter than this. Stop settling for the pabulum and demand the best solutions not just the possible. Healthcare for every person in this nation is not a pipe dream nor is it impossible to achieve in our lifetimes. We do not need to cede this battle to the next generation or the generation after that.

Don’t worry about the insurance companies and the pharmaceuticals… they’ll find ways to make cash under a new, single payer system. Some folks will want to buy and have the resources to buy designer meds and procedures. And more power to them. But the vast majority of us will welcome paying into a single pool that will provide us the basic of health and preventative care. When I hear the incrementalists talk, I know they understand that any healthcare system built on profit-making cannot stand the test of justice and compassion – nor can it stand the test of fiscal responsibility, else we wouldn’t be having these problems today.

I admit to my complicity in not fighting soon enough or hard enough. I am ready for this battle. I was trained in life by a World War II veteran and a mom who worked hard to provide me with a good life full of opportunity. Now it is my turn to fight another tough American battle: the battle for sanity and common sense and the exponential potential of single payer. I want to leave this nation a better and stronger one, and unless I help fix this mess, I will surely have failed.

And I am my father’s daughter. I do not like to fail.

Denial of Care: Is This What It Means to Support Our Troops?

2008-06-18T14:36:00.008-05:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee

This isn’t such a day of honor for Michael Baranik of Jennings, LA. His nation doesn’t seem very grateful for his service. He is dying. And he is being denied the medical care that could save his life.

Here’s what Michael wrote in as he told his story on the guaranteedhealthcare.org website: “In January 2007, on the worst day of my life, I sat in a doctor's office and was told I had terminal cancer, and then in the next breath he told me my insurance was not good enough to cover reimbursement of the chemotherapy.

“Now I am a retired military veteran, I spent 24 years in the United States Navy, I served my country for 24 years, now my country is giving up on me.”

Many Americans think that veterans always have access to quality healthcare through the Veterans Administration system. Many Americans think that when our leaders espouse loyalty and admiration for our military personnel that it means these men and women are adequately taken care of as the heroes we all know they must be on our behalf when our nation calls. But as Michael tells us, quality care for our service men and women is often not the reality.

“I have no choice of my insurance. I thought my military insurance was good coverage and was accepted by most doctors. What I found out was most doctors are not accepting military insurance. I had to go and beg doctors to give me a chance to live,” Michael wrote.

He had to beg. A 24-year veteran of the United State Navy was left begging for care. Not exactly the picture of honor and glory we paint as we place wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknowns or place flags on every corner. Michael begged.

“I was shocked at the unpatriotic sense these people have. I will never in my life recommend any person join our armed services. Why should they? So they can get sick and be told, sorry, we know you fought for our country, and this is how we repay you,” he said. “It is insane and un-American.”

While it is true that our VA system is leaps and bounds ahead of what millions of uninsured and under-insured Americans can access, veterans’ healthcare is grossly underfunded in this nation, and those service members and veterans who are covered under Tri-Care (and do not receive their healthcare through the VA) often find themselves victim to the same insurance denials that the general population suffers.

Michael kept trying. “Luckily I begged and begged a doctor who said he would only give me seven treatments, because of insurance. Insurance was his primary concern, he even told me, ‘Tri-Care just doesn't cover enough’ ...like I have anything to do with that. This is what I get for serving my country for 24 years. If I had known this when I joined, I would have never joined, I would have left this country, given up my citizenship and lived in a country where they respect the men and women that protect their freedom.”

Wow. On Memorial Day 2008, this is what we gave Michael. We did not give him honor or glory or blessings or peace. We gave him sorrow and regret and longing for compassion.

If our nation had in place single payer, universal health care, Michael would have a chance to live. With access to the treatments that might abate his cancer, Michael would not spend his days feeling as though his sacrifice was dishonored. With adequate healthcare through publicly funded, privately delivered single payer care, all veterans of this nation – and all the citizens they fought to protect -- would enjoy the peace of mind they truly deserve.

HR676, The National Health Insurance Act, now has 90 Congressional co-sponsors who believe that a single payer system is the right way to address our healthcare crisis. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan is the chief co-sponsor of the bill, and the 80,000 member strong California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee supports this bill and is actively working to encourage its passage. Nurses know that veterans deserve healthcare and that they do not always get that care.

Still, in spite of how his nation is treating him, Michael said, “Thank you for letting me share.”

Isn’t it we who should be thanking him?

I will protest for him in San Francisco tomorrow, June 19th, at noon, 4th and Howard. It’s time to tell the private insurance companies that Michael is a patient not a profit, Michael is a veteran not a bottom line, Michael is a hero not a revenue liability. I will thank him by standing up for him as he stood for me.

To see all the venues for protest of the private health insurance industry, check out:

http://www.healthcare-now.org/june19.html

Tell your story, participate in our blog and find out more at:

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/node/add/user-story

You may also learn more and get more involved at americanpatientsunited.org.

Cindy Sheehan and SiCKO Sisters Donna Smith & Reggie Cervantes Unite

2008-06-02T14:51:00.008-05:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

"Building a New World"
First Summit of the World Prout Assembly
Seminar entitled: Revolution

Left to right, Donna Smith, Cindy Sheehan and Reggie Cervantes together before Cindy delivered her keynote address for a conference session held at Radford University last weekend. Donna and Reggie, both American SiCKOs, participated in the conference as panelists, and Donna keynoted the health care section for activists gathered from throughout the U.S. and beyond. Hundreds attended the event. (Photo by Reggie Cervantes)

Remarks delivered by American SiCKO Donna Smith:

RADFORD, VA — Wow, to be here with Cindy Sheehan, the woman with whom I have shared so much in cyberspace as we both appeared on Michael Moore's website over the months but never met face-to-face. Cindy, I am so sorry for the loss of Casey. But I am also so joyful for you as you welcome Jonah, your first grandchild. And I am grateful to you for your continued heroism on my behalf and on behalf of all American mothers and sons, fathers and daughters. Blessings to you and thank you for being here. And may you be elected to Congress as a new co-sponsor for HR676, the National Health Insurance Act.

My fellow revolutionaries, I bring you glad tidings from your fellow citizens. Over the past nine months, I have visited 27 states and the District of Columbia spreading the single payer, universal health care message. And I can tell you without doubt the revolution has begun.

In some places, there are seedlings popping gently but with determination toward change: in South Dakota, in Mississippi, in West Virginia, in North Carolina and in DC, and even in Dick Cheney's Wyoming.

In other places, saplings are more steady and and beginning to bare witness that will soon hold the steady branches of real change: in Indiana, Pennsylvania, California, Washington state, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama -- even Utah and Colorado, New York and Maryland. Add Florida and Katrina-ravaged Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina and Massachusetts. Delaware, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, and now in Virginia.

These people of the revolution gather and they speak and they plan -- the next action, the next protest -- the real stuff of people on a mission. And they look to us to help provide the passion and the fuel necessary to inspire them onward. The noise of discontent must blossom and mature. And to the extent that each of us here -- engines of revolution in thought, in action and in art -- inspire and conspire with one another and all of our fellow citizens, the revolution will come.

Are there any other Phi Betta kappa members in the room today? Were you taught the "secret' handshake the revolutionary and pre-presidential Thomas Jefferson and the other founding members used to safely identify one another? I was. And with that lesson came my knowledge that this nation was and is still most assuredly subject to conditions that require, that compel, that demand not secrecy so much as loyalty to one another as revolutionaries and to the causes for which we would still die.

For me, that cause is the basic human right of health care for all. And make no mistake. I am a patriot in the most sincere and revolutionary traditions of my foremothers and forefathers.

On November 19, 1864 (and I have an affinity for that date since November 19th is my own birthday), Abraham Lincoln said, "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers set forth upon this continent a new nation -- conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

I am holding him to that promise and to that truth. I am holding you to that promise, and I am holding my nation to that higher purpose that uplifts and empowers us all and all people of the world.

Code word for the new revolution? RADFORD. Onward, my friends to the revolution. Thank you.

Love and Logic and a Little Rage

2008-05-01T17:16:00.003-05:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO and communications specialist for CNA/NNOC

Washington, D.C., Minneapolis and Boston -- The movement to reform healthcare in this nation is growing, and it is edging its way out of the quiet, borrowed conference rooms of social justice organizing meetings and into national labor headquarters, community centers, state houses and the streets. This week alone, I saw Americans from 9 to 90 in three states and six separate venues stand up and even jump in the air calling for true reform.

In Washington, D.C., a noontime showing of Michael Moore’s ‘SiCKO’ at the national AFL-CIO building as part of the 2008 Labor Film Fest and within several hundred yards of the White House drew a great crowd. Rep. John Conyers, chair of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, addressed the crowd and continued to push for his bill, HR676, The National Health Insurance Act, which now has 90 Congressional co-sponsors and which would create a national, single-payer healthcare plan. It was a significant step forward for a film about the travesty that is the current U.S. for-profit healthcare system to be shown in this location at this time.

If national labor organizations would take the endorsements of Conyers’ HR676 by more than 400 labor locals more seriously, the national labor movement might well revolutionize the future of healthcare for its members and the entire nation. Healthcare justice marched forward a bit on that screen at the AFL-CIO headquarters last week.

In Minneapolis, less than 24 hours later, Conyers told attendees of the “Healthcare is a Human Right” conference that we will win single-payer in the future, and we will win it with “love and with logic.” We are so lucky, Chairman Conyers said, to live in a nation where to disagree does not mean we must hate one another. As we go forward, he noted, we will continue showing that not only is HR676 the right and just way to reform healthcare but also the most logical and sensible and sound means as well.

The people attending the Minneapolis conference were largely poor people fighting for all manner of economic justice and good sense. Many shared stories of pain and suffering, and Conyers listened patiently and compassionately. Healthcare justice nudged forward on that cold and snowy April Saturday at a Minnesota community center where one of the nation’s most powerful lawmakers honored the struggle and uplifted the fight.

Then in Boston, fists were blasted into the air and voices raised to acknowledge Tom Morello’s 2008 Justice Tour stop supporting healthcare for all. Morello performs as The Nightwatchman but also played for ‘Rage Against the Machine’ and ‘Audioslave.’ Morello brought with him Gary Cherone of Extreme and rapper Boots Riley of the Coup – and even Wayne Kramer of MC5. The crowd was filled with every imaginable age group, and the concert fired people up and gave them voice and gave them dignity. And Morello donated all of concert proceeds to the movement.

After ‘SiCKO’ was shown in the same auditorium in the Boston state house where the healthcare is a human right amendment to the Massachusetts constitution was buried forever just months ago, Morello convened the Justice Tour performers again on the Boston Commons.

In spite of rain, driving wind and falling temperatures, Morello and his fellow tour members played on. He performed “Alone Without You,” which was written for ‘SiCKO’ as American SiCKOs Adrian Campbell of Detroit and I embraced each other and finally mourned for one another and for all who still suffer at the hands of the broken healthcare system.

As the show wrapped up on the wet and windy Commons and a child tossed a ball in the air as guitar strains wailed and drum throbs pounded, Morello and the other artists led the crowd in a defiant and proud rendition of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.” A park police officer sang next to a protestor and an 80-year-old jumped up and down on stage with Morello.

And last week the movement for healthcare justice marched forward with love and with logic and with a little rage all across this land.

SiCKO Wows the Crowd at St. Louis Ethical Society...

2008-04-21T15:32:00.004-05:00

ST LOUIS – Citizens in the ‘Show Me’ state lived up to their billing when more than 150 people turned out on Saturday night at the St. Louis Ethical Society to watch ‘SiCKO’ and to hear more about healthcare from American SiCKOs Donna and Larry Smith. The event was a huge success with guests enjoying free popcorn and lemonade provided by volunteers and lingering for more than an hour for a lively question and answer session led by Donna.

Earlier in the day, Missourians for Single Payer (MoSP), led a rally and march in University City, MO, where nurses, patients, and healthcare activists joined together to carry signs and even a coffin to call attention to their work for healthcare reform.

On Sunday, the Ethical Society listened to an address by Donna Smith entitled, “Beyond SiCKO” that included a photo slide show presentation and more education on common sense healthcare reform. The crowd gave Donna a standing ovation following her address, and several audience members told her they now understand and fully support single payer reform as a result of her visit and all of the healthcare weekend activities in St. Louis.

At Last, Some Rest for the Weary

2008-03-07T21:06:00.002-06:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

CHICAGO – Pressure and worry robbed me of my sleep for so long that when I slept through the night on Sunday, I thought it a fluke. Then I slept through the night on Monday and again on Tuesday. Though on a hide-a-bed folded out into an apartment living room still jammed with unpacked boxes, my soul and my body have begun to heal.

How many other Americans, I wonder, have spent years as I did struggling to rest with worries about health care and insurance and money and just staying afloat? For the past 20 years, my sleep patterns have drifted from bad to worse as our lives were upended by health concerns and made absolutely terrifying by the financial ruin that followed.

But now, just a year after I first met Michael Moore during the filming of “SiCKO,” I am in a new job with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee – and I have decent insurance benefits and an apartment that is warm and safe.

After the devastation of the past few years, as these blessings unfold for me, I can feel the rising urgency to see that every American family who labors and grieves for dreams crushed and life savings wiped out by the broken health care system find relief through the realization of national, single payer health care for all of us.

There is no way that the kind of mental, emotional and physical stress we have endured has not contributed to some of our health woes. And the stress is being felt and shared by millions of people in our society. Yet, I have not seen anyone truly talk about what that is doing to the burgeoning health costs in this nation or what it is doing to family dynamics or what it does to our communities. Angry, worried, frightened people may be easier to control, but they are costly to maintain in such a state.

Now, my life has not become an overnight utopia. My personal issues and stresses will always have some play on my time and energy. But the gift of sleep and the gift of even this additional measure of peace-of-mind is such a welcome and unexpected relief.

I was prepared to give everything I had and everything I am to the fight for real health care reform. I was giving so much that my body and soul were weary and yet unable to find rest or restoration. But now with greater strength and tenacity, and with the support of this marvelous organization for which I now work, I can truly give the best measure of myself. Talk about empowerment…

And isn’t that what we’d like to see for every American? The opportunity to live and work freely and without fear from for-profit, systemic health care disaster is a gift we can give one another. Single payer is not the evil enemy of the freedom. It is one of the best ways we can reinforce and strengthen personal freedom for every American.

Colorado's 208 Commission Reinvents the Broken Wheel

2008-02-08T12:32:00.000-06:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

DENVER, February 1, 2008 -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s health reform plan that included mandated health insurance purchases crashed and burned early this week on the West Coast legislative highway. But undaunted by that most recent defeat for mandates, Colorado's Blue Ribbon Health Reform panel -- the 208 Commission -- decided to recommend mandates to the Colorado General Assembly on Thursday afternoon even though achieving universal coverage through mandates is already a failed model for reform.

Colorado need not search too hard to see the failures of plans like that recommended by the 208 Commission for Coloradoans. In Massachusetts, a two-tiered system of health care is entrenching itself as the insurance mandates and connectors that were the brainchildren of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney take hold and price average, working-class citizens out of market for buying affordable, quality health coverage.

Meanwhile, the 208 Commission in Colorado patted itself on the back and soaked up the accolades of legislators as their report was offered up in a 12-page Colorful Colorado brochure. The recommendations read, in part: 'Require every legal resident of Colorado to have at least minimum health coverage(enforce through income tax penalties; provide affordability exemptions)' and 'Create a 'Connector' to assist individuals and small businesses and their employees in offering and enrolling in health coverage.'

Americans throughout the land -- and certainly in Colorado -- should now be feeling a distinct feeling of Deja vu. After months of work, millions of taxpayer dollars, the testimony of hundreds (if not thousands) of citizens and even the independent cost and savings assessments that show single-payer reform as much more cost-effective and efficient, state legislatures continue to ignore factual information and simplicity in favor of complexity and punishment. Citizens already punished by not being able to afford health coverage will then be slapped with penalties administered by new government personnel required to enforce the mandates and collect the fines for non-coverage. Those who raised the red flags about government involvement in the delivery of health care don't seem to have any problem creating new bureaucracy to protect insurance company profits.

As reported in the Boston Globe, 'The (Massachusetts) Connector system is encouraging insurance companies to include only a limited network of cheaper physicians and facilities in some plans to hold down premiums. Patients who wish to see more expensive providers will have to dig into their own pockets. Dr. Steffie Wollhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard University, worries that the Connector will revive Gov. Romney's original idea of enrolling poor people in plans that only offer access to neighborhood health centers ill-equipped to treat anything beyond routine ailments. Forcing people to buy substandard care they cannot afford is not universal care, she says. 'It is a hoax.' And so Massachusetts is marching toward a system of two-tiered medicine -- the alleged market inequity that universal care is supposed to cure.'

Back in Colorado and with disregard for what other states are already experiencing, the 208 Commission did not march boldly forward with health care reform the would truly provide access and affordability for Colorado's residents but rather chose to dabble in the disappointing -- a retread of the plan least likely to offend the powerful insurance industry lobbyists who lingered gleefully just outside the Old Supreme Court Chambers and greeted legislators as they went in to listen.

The take home lesson: America’s health insurance industry is the problem. Any reform based on a prominent role for the industry precludes success, because the private health insurance industry is simply too bureaucratic and expensive. The administrative overhead in the current private system approaches 30%. The 208 Commission did recommended work on administrative costs and a restructuring and combining of Medicaid and SCHIP offerings, which the state legislature now says may be the only reform it will move forward this session. To do otherwise is simply too costly, said State Sen. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, in Friday morning's Rocky Mountain News.

He's probably right about the cost issue -- at least if he really read the Lewin Group's assessment of the only reform plan that would save Colorado any money at all -- the Colorado Health Services Program, the single payer option supported at public hearings but considered politically controversial. Mandates do cost a lot, as is evidenced in Massachusetts in dollars spent and in difficulties created for working class citizens.

The failure of the mandate model in the six states that have tried it (and as is unfolding currently in Massachusetts) can be directly attributed to the private insurance industry. Each of these state reform efforts promised cost savings, but none included real cost controls. As the cost of health care soared, legislators backed off from enforcing the mandates or from financing new coverage for the poor. Just last month, Massachusetts projected that its costs for subsidized coverage may run $147 million over budget.

The “mandate model” for reform rests on political surrender: avoid challenging insurance firms’ stranglehold on health care while coercing the uninsured to purchase costly insufficient insurance policies. But it is economic nonsense. The reliance on private insurers makes universal coverage unaffordable.

It is ironic that what started out as a “politically feasible” alternative to the California single payer bill turned out to have little political support when it came under scrutiny in the California Senate. California mandates failed the “politically feasible” test because supporters surrendered to the insurance industry in advance on cost control and then gave them a blank check in the form of millions of new customers.

Far better for Colorado to learn from the damage done in other states and follow California's lead in rejecting mandates. It's no better in the Rocky Mountain West than on the East or West coasts. Mandates never have and never will take the place of true health care reform. And citizens are waiting for leaders who are bold enough to stop paying tax dollars for the rewrites of broken plans.

SiCKOs in the Sanctuary

2008-01-15T16:18:00.000-06:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

DENVER -- The pillars did not crumble and the crosses did not quake as Michael Moore's documentary 'SiCKO' played on the screen in the sanctuary of the First Universalist Church of Denver. More than 100 people attended the forum hosted by the churches Social Justice Committee, and the group lingered for more than an hour after the film to talk with two of the film's subjects, Larry and Donna Smith, of Aurora, Colorado.

The First Universalist's Social Justice Committee has already endorsed single-payer (publicly funded, privately delivered), universal health care, and the forum was one in a series held to give the community an opportunity to explore the issues. Dave Bean, webmaster for Health Care for All Colorado, was also invited to speak about state efforts to pass a single-payer plan.

The Smiths expressed their gratitude in being able to speak within the Denver faith community where the discussion of universal health care is sometimes not so welcome as the ill-informed or ill-intentioned equate single-payer coverage with socialism or even communism. Some more conservative churches never discuss the subject -- nor would they dare show 'SiCKO' -- lest the right-wing elements go on the attack. But Donna Smith thanked the Universalists for being part of the larger faith community which must speak up on behalf of those who are suffering at the hands of the current health system.

Dave Bean spoke about Colorado's effort at health reform, including the upcoming January 31 report of the blue ribbon commission on health reform to the Colorado state legislature. Though a huge number of Coloradoans attended the commission's public hearings in support of single-payer reform, the commission is poised to recommend mandated insurance coverage as part of their own solution while the state's governor, Bill Ritter, takes care to make only incremental, politically cautious plans for change.

Smith reminded the crowd that there already is national legislation for single-payer reform. HR676, the National Health Insurance Act, already has 87 co-sponsors, though no one from Colorado's delegation, sadly. Smith said those who wonder why their Congressional member does not sign on to HR676 need look no further than their campaign contributors for the reasons. 'Democrat or Republican, some of our leaders are plain bought and paid for,' Smith said. In particular, the group asked about Rep. Diana DeGette, D-CO, and Smith urged the group to look at opensecrets.org to find all of the more than 400,000 reasons why the popular Colorado Democrat has not co-sponsored HR676 as yet.

Since it was January 13, the Smiths also asked the audience to say a prayer in remembrance of Tracy Pierce, who 'went to sleep' for the last time on January 13, 2006, and then died five days later after having been denied numerous treatments for the kidney cancer that claimed his life. January 13 is also Julie Pierce's (Tracy's widow) birthday. The group spent a few moments in silence. The Pierce's story is also a part of 'SiCKO,' and the Smiths have become dear friends to Julie and Tracy, Jr.

The church will continue its efforts in support of single-payer health care reform in the months to come.

47,000,001

2008-01-06T19:46:00.000-06:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

DENVER -- I am the one. 47,000,000 and one. As 2008 dawned, I joined the ranks of those people in our nation who have no health insurance coverage. For the first time in my life, I have no way to seek medical care in this nation. No government program will cover me, and there is no private insurance available to me that I could afford.

In my family, I am the only one now uninsured. Children who make more have good policies and coverage, and even children who make much less qualify for some government help.

My husband is covered by Medicare and by the supplemental plan we carry for him. But I am many years away from qualifying for that program. When I picked his prescriptions up from the pharmacy yesterday, I was grateful to pay just $50 for his portion of that bill.

I have already begun weaning myself off the prescription medications I have. I do not think I can ever get away from the thyroid medication I have taken for many years, but I told the pharmacist to put back another medication last week when I learned it would cost me $30 without coverage. I stopped using the Advair inhaler for my asthma almost three weeks ago, and I will just use the rescue inhalers I have left. And no more cancer checks or preventive care of any kind now until I find a way to secure some coverage.

I heard presidential candidate Mitt Romney say last night that a high percentage of those without health insurance can afford the coverage and just choose not to buy it. I do not believe that. I heard him talk about forcing people to take personal responsibility for their health care costs and coverage. I have done that for all of my adult life. In fact, I made sure all of my six children and my husband never went without coverage, even when some of the children's biological parents remained absent from any effort to support their offspring.

Larry and I came together 32 years ago, each bringing two children to our marriage and each having full custody of those children. We then had two kids together. We worked and had a home and put food on the table for many years before the tsunami of health concerns swept through our lives. By then, thankfully, most of the children were raised. They were spared the front row seats in the collapse.

I remember when my dad was dying from pancreatic cancer almost 13 years ago that I cried out to him as he lay in a coma, "Daddy, please don't leave me here alone." My dad was brave -- a World War II vet who worked hard and gave me a marvelous childhood and a deep faith in God and in the goodness of my country. The loss of his presence in my life has been painful. And the loneliness continues, perhaps deepened now by the realization that my life and the value of my life has been reduced to what an insurance company actuary says and not what I worked for and not what I have achieved.

In the living room, Larry is asleep on the couch -- thank God, he rests. He has gone through so much in the past few years with his health struggles. I cannot sleep well at all now. I wake. I think about the "what ifs" and I worry. I think about 2007 when we appeared in 'SiCKO,' testified before a Congressional sub-committee, and rode a 1980 school bus on a grassroots tour to promote real reform that would save our fellow Americans from our fate.

At a meeting of Colorado health care reform activists yesterday, I heard good and committed folks discussing how to keep political pressure on leaders who don't grasp the depth of the problem. I'll admit, I felt diminished sitting there. I felt like a yoke that weighs on society and on a system gone so wrong. Others can argue from a position of strength and confidence in their positions, and I must argue from a position of weakness and personal fear.

Last night I also listened as presidential candidate John Edwards sought to infuse more passion to his position by saying he understands the plight of the working and middle class in this nation. He proudly pointed out his father in the audience and acknowledged that his family gave him the opportunity to achieve what he has as an adult. He said he wants special interests out of the equation in deciding our national agenda. I'm for that, but I don't see how we can do it when so much money buys so much influence. But somebody has to start somewhere.

So, the journey Larry and I began 32 years ago together with hope and with intensely responsible and committed work will wind down with a very different outcome than we had imagined. We hoped for time to enjoy life and enjoy each other when the back-breaking and mind-numbing work of raising up six children ended. Instead, health concerns zapped that dream and re-routed our plans.

And Daddy left me here after all. But I am not alone. I may be uninsured and unprotected and devalued by the current system. But I am a fighter to the end, and I will continue my life's work to inform every American who still doesn't get it -- presidential candidate or not -- that I am not in this boat because I wanted to be or because I choose to be. I need and want a lifeboat -- the boat I paid for, I changed thousands of diapers for, I cooked meals for, I rode commuter buses to work for, I went to church for, I started cold cars for, I earned my college degree for, I bought insurance for, I paid Congressional salaries for, I fought for -- and that my father risked his life for.

I want what working hard for in America for all of my adult life should have afforded me: just a little peace of mind and to rest next to my husband without terror. I want to know that if I get sick I can go to the doctor. I want a mammogram (now overdue by months). I want the asthma medication that makes me breathe easier. And I do not want the high and mighty judgments of those who never wanted for any of those things.

But most of all I want my now struggling, sometimes cranky love of my life to never, ever think it was his failing that we ended up at this place. I want him to sleep so that when I rise up fighting again in the morning, he has the strength to stand by my side until this battle is won.

2007 Was A SiCKO Year

2007-12-30T20:57:00.000-06:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

DENVER – Full of irony. That is how I would best describe 2007. I began this year with fear and anticipation and with a healthy dose of shame thrown in. And I will begin 2008 with more depth of spirit and fewer illusions.

As 2007 dawned, we were still living with our daughter and trying to find ways to stay emotionally afloat. Anyone who saw ‘SiCKO’ knows that there was much more going on in our family than just health care woes. Our financial failure had made us much more vulnerable to the judgments of those around us – including some who found it acceptable to openly assess our lives and offer their superior advice about why we landed ourselves in trouble and how we could lift ourselves out.

Funny how financial weakness seems to make it open season for that sort of thing. Some folks reserved their judgment and waited to see if our appearance in 'SiCKO' would lift us out of our financial problems or at least give us fame and a little fortune. A few even pushed us onward toward whatever the experience would bring our way.

But in early 2007, we could not have seen how our inclusion in Michael Moore’s ‘SiCKO’ and the release of that film would alter that reality for us. Oh we knew the obvious consequences like the vitriolic musings of conservatives who wince and whine and fuss and fume at the mere mention of Michael Moore or the less obvious issues, such as the loss of income and loss of relationships associated with our post-SiCKO-release lives.

By early summer, our lives began to transform. We were now in a small apartment of our own, and the film’s pending release included travel plans to various cities for the openings. New York City, Washington, D.C., Denver, Los Angeles, Atlanta – all in nine days. Ironic how we were not certain where our next rent payment would come from but jetting around the country.

Then in July, I testified for a committee of the House Judiciary in the U.S. House of Representatives. The healing of spirit that had begun on a movie screen in Manhattan blossomed into political resolve and outright commitment.

We began intense political activities including visiting our own Congressional members in Washington, formed a patients' political lobby group (American Patients for Universal Health Care or APUHC), and planned a national health justice vigil.

We took part in the first leg of the SiCKO Cure National Road Show -- traveling to 12 states, 22 Congressional districts and scores of cities from Illinois southward through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. We met thousands of kind and generous Americans who believe the health system is beyond the point where small fixes will suffice.
I flew to speak at Wellesley College in Boston, Seattle Central Community College and in Pueblo, Colorado, where lively discussions of 'SiCKO' brought out students, faculty, providers, patients, pundits and lots of other people who care deeply about making the health care system better for us all.

We end 2007 on the highest of notes tempered with reality. I face joining the ranks of the uninsured of this nation for the first time in my life. My COBRA premiums are too high and the company issuing the policy threatened cancellation when my last payment was a couple days late due to a check sent to me being delayed by harsh winter weather. I probably won't win the reinstatement battle and will have to purchase some sort of high-risk pool coverage or do as so many millions of Americans do know -- go bare and pray.

Larry is covered by Medicare and a supplemental policy which we just found out is doing him little real good and costing us an extra $90 a month. So we'll adjust that and take a chance that we've made the right adjustment. And we're just one American family wondering what will happen with our coverage and our care in 2008 should we get sick.

But we'll also march confidently into 2008 knowing that this year, real political change is possible if we all want it badly enough. Out there on the happy American trails, we hope to see you and add you to our army of new friends and fellow citizens who really do still believe in the power of this democracy and its power to heal even this crisis.

As I told some leary co-workers as we headed for New York back in June for the 'SiCKO' premiere, "So long, I'm off to change the world." Won't you join us? Thanks to 'SiCKO' and to Michael Moore and to a few brave U.S. Congressional members, that's not an empty invitation. We are in this together and thank God we are.

Cheers and Happy New Year to all.

Morphing Christ and Christmas: One Christian’s Point of View

2007-12-23T11:28:00.000-06:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

DENVER -- 'Tis the season for Christians to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We reflect on that manger scene more than 2,000 years ago, and we look with wonder on all that our faith and the grace of God has given us.

I join in the spirit of this season, but I also feel a sense of loneliness and sadness when I think about what modern day Christianity has proclaimed as the legacy of our Prince of Peace.

Since my husband and I appeared in Michael Moore’s ‘SiCKO’ this year, we have become even more aware of the inconsistencies between Christ’s message of love and healing and what is preached today in many, if not most, Protestant Christian churches in the U.S.

Pastors, including our own in a small Wesleyan church here in Colorado, pray for our troops and for those in war zones thousands of miles away (as well we should) but will not pray for this nation to care for its sick or its poor. Oh, yes, at Christmastime we may take up special offerings for the unfortunates among us, but we dare not talk about the greed and the profit-mongering that strips the weak of any regress or respect.

In the most conservative, right-wing churches, pastors openly pray about political issues, and the anti-abortion issue tops the list of those purported to be the will of God and his son, the Christ child. Apparently, God wants to protect the unborn American babies but cares not about an Iraqi or Afghani child or mother or father. And the Christ touted by this breed of modern Christian would just as soon allow the sick to die as ask each of us to care for one another or truly love one another, as the Bible taught me many years ago.

I have heard a message of universal and loving care for the sick preached in a church in North Carolina where the African American congregation knows more about hurt and suffering than most of my suburban neighbors can even imagine. But in my own church, we whisper about my participation in the movement to provide universal health care to all – we speak in hushed tones as though we fear the godly might learn of a leper in their midst.

But then I remember what a dear friend of ours preached in her church many years ago on Christmas Eve in 1993. We went to church services that evening to try to reconcile our hurt about a horrific crime in our neighborhood pizza parlor, where our young son Russell worked. Four of Russell’s co-workers were shot and killed and another seriously wounded by a disgruntled worker. Russell had just punched out and come home when the former employee staged his rampage. We were so grateful Russ was spared but struggled with the reasons why the others were not.

Mother Carolyn Davis, Episcopal priest, preached that night that Christ was not born into a perfect, sin-free world. No, she said, “Into this mess He was born.” And she said He came to bring hope and love and the message of true peace among all men and women. Into this mess, indeed.

So this year, I welcome my Christ, once again, into this mess where we seem to be so stuck on selfishness and vanity and greed and where we are often so certain that we are better than those who suffer. And I welcome Him again with hope for a brighter future where the principles of his love are not threatening but embraced in a nation and world so deeply in need of healing.

And, yes, I pray for the day when my church family returns to the true meaning of God’s message for all, where healing the sick and loving the poor is a sign of our strength and our love not of our neighbors’ weakness.

Merry Christmas to all my ‘SiCKO’ friends and family. And to my fellow Americans who know in their hearts and souls that we are better people than what we have been showing one another in recent years, I wish us all a more compassionate and a more prosperous new year. I believe the two ideas are forever intertwined, and as a Christian I believe we can share both with one another. In fact, I think that’s what my Christ hoped we would do – even for the least among us.

Almost Heaven, West Virginia

2007-12-20T13:53:00.001-06:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

MORGANTOWN, West Virginia -- The SiCKO-Cure Road Show crew spent the day in West Virginia meeting with medical students, physicians, local activists, nurses and community members though a heavy rain fell and threatened to leave flooding in its wake. Just as they have found in every city and state they have visited since leaving Chicago on Nov. 11, the road show team met concerned Americans with thoughtful questions and deep worry. Many mentioned friends or family members with no health care coverage or who had suffered at the hands of the current health care system. And all knew the time for change has been upon this nation for some time.

At West Virginia University Health Sciences Center, the Healthcare-Now road show team led a lively discussion of health care reform issues followed by a showing of an HR676 video produced by the California Nurses Association (CNA) and Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP) and a Q&A session.

SiCKO-Cure Road Show Gathers With Workers in Rocky Mount

2007-12-14T15:49:00.000-06:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

ROCKY MOUNT, North Carolina -- The road show team of the SiCKO-Cure National Road Show rolled into Rocky Mount on Sunday afternoon and met with committed members of the Black Workers for Justice local.

Though none of North Carolina's Congressional members is currently signed on H.R.676, Rep. John Conyers' National Health Insurance Act, those gathered in the local worker hall committed themselves to a future screening of 'SiCKO' and to forming a working group to address political action and to assist local people with health care issues and concerns with current programs.

When the road show crew from Healthcare-Now rolls into a community, it isn't as if one of the current presidential candidates has arrived with a flashy and spirited entourage. The crew brings news of the possibilities for organizing local support for pushing Congressional members for their co-sponsorship, and the road show builds on community and shared vision not celebrity or the political winds of a primary election season.

An interesting commonality in the communities visited from Illinois in mid-November, through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and finally North Carolina has been the solidarity of common people who understand the inherent injustice of the current health care system in the U.S.

As the road shows winds its way toward the final stop on its first regional sweep, the priorities of the American people seem much more inclusive and united than any team member might have imagined. Left behind are groups of leaders and fighters who vow to carry on the push for H.R.676, single-payer, universal health care for all.

Greenleaf Pastor Rocks SiCKO Cure Road Show

2007-12-14T15:09:00.000-06:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

GOLDSBORO, North Carolina -- Rev. William Barber preached the word of God and the message of H.R.676 on Sunday when the SiCKO Cure Road Show team came to town. More than 100 parishioners swayed and prayed and rocked and rolled as their exuberant pastor lifted the message of health care for all up for contemplation and celebration.

'Amen, brother,' and 'Yes, pastor, yes,' called out the members of the Greenleaf Christian Church as Rev. Barber asked if having heath care is a basic human right. Then Barber asked Liv Boykins of Rep. John Conyers' office to step to the pulpit and share the road show team's vision for a new and brighter way for each American to enjoy the benefits of H.R.676, The National Health Insurance Act.

Donna Smith, American SiCKO, and Elyse Seigle, of HealthCare-Now, joined in the Sunday services with Boykins, and the congregation embraced all three women as well as their message of hope and human compassion.

But Barber shared more with his flock. "We must remember," he said as he spoke in support of Conyers' universal health care bill, "we must always know,'Power concedes nothing. It never has and it never will without a struggle,'" the pastor hearkened to the words of Frederick Douglass. He told his church that being ready for a fight to secure this most basic of rights should underscore the validity of the cause.

The congregants cheered and clapped and let a few Hallelujahs ring out. In unabashed support for a more just health care system, the pastor embraced the issues presented and promised he would lead his church members in calling on North Carolina's Congressional members for co-sponsorship of the bill.

Barber also praised God for bringing Boykins his way as he had been praying for new direction in another matter in which he may wish to have some additional Congressional attention. The pastor has been working on the case of James Arthur Johnson, a young black man who spent three years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit.

Seattle Turns Out For ‘SiCKO’ in Spite of Storm

2007-12-06T11:45:00.000-06:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

SEATTLE – Though hurricane force winds and torrential rains blasted the Seattle area throughout most of the day on Monday, students, local activists and interested community members took the weather in stride as they gathered to watch ‘SiCKO’ and to talk health reform with me – since I am one of the subjects of the film, they had sponsored my trip to the area and I am deeply involved in the health care reform movement.

The Seattle Central Community College classroom was the perfect venue for viewing ‘SiCKO’ and those present could hear sirens blaring and storm weather continuing as the afternoon showing began and later on as an even larger group turned out for the evening event. More than 280 people attended the viewings and the Q&A sessions afterwards.

Some of the students who attended made hasty farewells as they set off to deal with flooded basements and the meeting with landlords to begin drying out from the rains.

While a few of those present wondered about the Cuba trip Michael Moore took when filming ‘SiCKO,’ most wanted more information about how to help assure that real change will occur in health care reform on the national front, and many wanted to learn more about HR676, the National Health Insurance Act currently gathering more Congressional co-sponsors to add to the 86 representatives already on board supporting the single-payer plan.

HR676 would set up publicly-financed, privately delivered health care for every American resident. The bill was originally co-sponsored by Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. A national road show promoting HR676 is currently touring the southeastern states and will wrap up in Pittsburgh on Dec. 14. The road show is co-sponsored by Healthcare-Now, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), the California Nurses Association (CNA) and the National Nurse Organizing Committee.

The Seattle single-payer, universal health care group that sponsored ‘SiCKO’ showings and Q&A sessions with me is called “Right to Health Care Now!”, and it began after several community members saw ‘SiCKO’ during its original release and began holding forums to discuss the issue and actions to be taken in support of reform. The group holds its organizing meetings at 7 p.m. each Monday evening in Room 4183 at Seattle Central Community College . Phi Theta Kappa, the college honor society, and OWL, the voice of midlife and older women, also co-sponsored the events on campus, along with several other campus organizations and clubs.

'SiCKO-Cure Road Show' Storms into New Orleans

2007-11-25T14:36:00.000-06:00

SiCKO joins voices calling for Charity Hospital reopening

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

NEW ORLEANS -- The SiCKO Cure Road Show rolled into New Orleans on Saturday, and the road show team immediately joined a meeting of local activists fighting the demolition of thousands of public housing units. Though some relatively powerful groups oppose the loss of some 3,900 public housing units, the demolitions will begin on December 4 unless an unexpected court ruling or an even more unlikely change of heart occurs to halt the tearing down of this vital housing for low income residents of the area.

Many people believe that the rebuilding of New Orleans includes a significant shifting of resources and effort toward private ownership and operation of formerly public facilities and services. Charity Hospital has never reopened, and prior to Katrina, more than 500,000 people received out-patient services and vital health care annually.

If those displaced by Katrina are ever to return to their homes in New Orleans and if the city will ever rebuild the full richness of its character and its people, the gutting of those places and services that allow societal diversity -- race, class and otherwise -- must be halted.

Though the road show has a mission of bringing the message of HR676, single-payer universal health care (The National Health Insurance Act) to the people of the area, the issues of homelessness and lack of public facilities serving the poor and uninsured often go hand-in-hand with a lack of access to health care and other issues surrounding poverty. Donna Smith, who appears in 'SiCKO,' is on the road show team that also includes Liv Boykins, special assistant to Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, Julia Atkins of Florida, Joe Friendly of New York City and Bill Hill of Tucson. The team pulled into New Orleans after visiting cities in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.

More than two years ago, Hurricane Katrina and the levy breaches that followed claimed the lives of thousands in New Orleans as a horrified world watched. Though the FEMA debacle and the 'Heckuva job Brownie' moments made us all ashamed of the U.S. government's response to the disaster, the continued failure of the local, state and federal government responses now cry out for more than shame and outrage -- and most especially for action.

Brad Ott of New Orleans leads The Committee for the Reopening of Charity Hospital, and he explained after the viewing of SiCKO on Saturday evening at the Ashé Cultural Arts Center that one of the efforts to reopen Charity includes will include bringing a class action legal case on behalf of those who now find themselves unable to access health care and who were formerly patients at Charity Hospital. Ott is looking for plaintiffs in the case and urges those who may be interested to contact him for more information.

Additional efforts to stop the demolition of public housing continue as well. For more information on that effort in new Orleans, go to JusticeForNewOrleans.org.

The SiCKO Cure National Road Show team pushes off for Tallahasee next. For more information on the tour and its stops, please visit healthcare-now.org. The road show is being co-sponsored by Healthcare-Now, the California Nurses Association, Physicians for a National Health Program, and other groups along the way.

Staying Hungry for Health Care and for SCHIP

2007-11-04T09:36:00.000-06:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

DENVER – Being hungry for change is not a new condition for any of us who are struggling with the broken U.S. health care system. Many of us have been physically, mentally and emotionally hungry for many years. And no one has changed the conditions causing that hunger for millions of Americans.

But in one program area, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), we seemed to understand all of the issues. Healthy kids are better for the nation. Many parents work but cannot afford insurance coverage. Sick children dying due to lack of health care access that the nation can afford is really bad PR. So Congress passed that reform in the 1990s, and low-income, working-poor families were able to get coverage for their kids.

In recent weeks, Congress has been trying to reauthorize the SCHIP program. The first bill passed and signed expanded coverage to include 10 million kids, but the president and his loyal followers didn’t like that. First they cited worries about pushing families off private insurance, and then later the tobacco tax included to pay for the expansion was cited as just another tax-and-spend initiative. The president vetoed the bill despite widespread public support for the program and its expansion. And Congress did not have the votes to override that veto.

I have to note that on the same day he vetoed the SCHIP bill, George W. Bush asked Congress for $46 billion more for the Iraq war. So much for objecting to spending.

People protested from coast-to-coast. But that protesting has, so far, not made the difference in this battle for the health of our kids.

Now, Congress has submitted yet another SCHIP bill for the president’s signature. They changed a few items, but not enough according to the president. The second version of the bill will likely also be vetoed.

A few of my friends from ‘SiCKO’ and I decided we wanted to take additional action to support the passage of SCHIP, and we decided a hunger strike would be our protest. Adrian Campbell of Michigan, Reggie Cervantes of Oklahoma (9/11 rescue worker) and I began our liquid fasts on November 1, at midnight. We are taking in only water and non-caloric fluids (like broth).

All three of us know the hunger of choosing between health care and food and other life essentials, and each of us still confronts those trade-offs every day even when not fasting. Sometimes people mistakenly think that just because we were lucky enough to be on the screen in ‘SICKO,’ we were actually lifted out of our struggles. Having one’s story told does not in itself fix the problems. We are all hard-working women who are fighters and survivors.

But we’re staying hungry until there is a SCHIP reauthorization. We will break our strike when Congress passes and the president signs a new bill. If they don’t do that before the holidays, we ask them to temporarily fund the program and then go right back at it immediately upon their return. If they agree to do so, we will break this strike. We object to any measure that would simply fund the program at current levels for a whole year without enhancement just to break the government deadlock. The American people – and our kids – deserve better.

What's our stake in this? Between us, Adrian, Reggie and I have nine children and 13 grands. The time has come for mothers to take a stand. And we are doing so.

Our hunger strike will continue until November 21, unless Congress and the president act sooner. The risk we are taking seems like nothing compared to what millions face in our health care system every day, and we pray that our government recognizes that and acts sooner rather than later.

We Have Dead Bodies, So Where’s Our Outrage?

2007-10-28T19:35:00.000-05:00

If we just started counting in March 2003 when the Iraq war began, the U.S. health care crisis battle would already have 82,500 dead. Maybe someday we'll build a wall or a monument.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

DENVER – With more than 50 Americans dead every day due to a lack of adequate health care, the health care reform movement has all the dead bodies it needs to meet the demands of an outraged public. Yet the movement for true health care reform does not yet garner the attention of nearly as many people as the anti-Iraq war effort.

The fact is that more than 82,500 Americans have died as the result of our broken health care system since the Iraq war began in the spring of 2003. We’re racking up the health care casualties as fast as if we had fought 22 Iraq wars during the same time period. Yet, why don’t the dead matter as much in this battle?

I wonder if some day we’ll build a wall and list all the names of the health care crisis dead. It would be quite a large wall. We have far more names already than the Vietnam conflict. And the people are dying right next door and down the block and in our neighborhoods and communities. I wonder if my name will be on that wall.

Is it because the health care war dead are the uninsured and underinsured? Have we already judged those dead as somehow complicit in their own demise? Have we written them off as folks who were too irresponsible, too stupid or just too unlucky to take better care of themselves? Where the hell is our survivors’ guilt?

I went to an anti-war rally in downtown Denver on Saturday. It was one of many across the nation. It was a powerful gathering with lots of committed people speaking out and some even saying if we’d just stop funding the war we would put that money toward health care or education or other domestic issues. There were hundreds of people with signs and showing great and appropriate remorse for America’s war dead and for all the Iraqi citizens killed.

Then I went to a health care forum. There were nine people there. They were committed. They were concerned. But they were still talking strategy and how to overcome political hurdles and how to grow the movement. Apparently none of us has been smart enough to figure out why more than 82,500 dead Americans does not strike a loud enough chord over the past five years.

And talk about financial waste? Ugh. This clearly is not even the most economical way to handle health care. You see, greed does not really care about the nation’s health at all.

One way we will make that number of health care dead more tangible is to actually assign names to it. That’s what Michael Moore did in 'SiCKO.' He put names and faces with the numbers. I didn’t notice too many slackers or deadbeats among my fellow Americans on that screen.

But, it has been hard work over the past few months to keep reminding people who just haven’t touched it or felt it or internalized it yet, that this crisis is one of those cases that unless we all speak up now, unless we speak for our neighbors in their times of health care trauma and pain, then when our time comes, there may be no one left to speak for us.

So, here we stand with Congress and the president and their failure to agree upon and pass the SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program). Because they’ll be rushing to get to Thanksgiving break, it is likely now that Bush will veto the latest Congressional bill, Congress will once again fail to override the veto and Congress will have to write some continuing resolution legislation to fund the current program for a year. No one will have reached any sort of compromise.

And people – this time very young Americans – will continue to die as Congress pats itself on the back for trying and the president praises himself for holding those nasty lefties at bay. And kids will die. I guess we better get busy on that monument, eh?

Working families that cannot afford health insurance or health care will wait for treatment until diseases and illnesses have advanced. But we all know that, and most of us will turn away from the pain of it and make our holiday shopping lists. Maybe we’ll offer to buy Christmas gifts for a poor child. And we’ll sleep better for that.

But I am joining two of my fellow moms from ‘SiCKO,’ and we’re going on a hunger strike for health care. We want to raise the stakes of the discussion a bit more. We want others to know that we once risked our lives to bring our children into this world, and we will risk them again to make sure they are not casualties of the U.S. health care crisis.

I surely want the Iraq war to end. I hate thinking about the death and the destruction. But I want this completely preventable health care crisis to end too. I think about those 82,500 Americans dead. I think about the kids, the moms, the dads, the folks who did nothing worse than getting sick and being too broke to buy back their health.

And I hope as I make my way through my days of hunger striking that I will spend one minute each half-hour thinking about and praying for the American out there somewhere who is dying at that moment without access to adequate health care. It turns out I’m not very hungry anyway when I think about that.

For more information about the hunger strike, visit American Patients for Universal Health Care at apuhc.com.

Is This Really Our Government? Not On Your Child’s Life

2007-10-18T13:47:00.000-05:00

Gregory Hampton, 15, of Denver, won't have proper health coverage. He's one of our 'good' kids -- great grades, works a job and helps care for his siblings while both parents work. And he's my grandson. How do I explain to Gregory that he isn't worth our best efforts? I won't. But I will fight to my death for his future. He deserves my best.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

DENVER -- So, President Bush vetoes the State Children’s Health Insurance Program expansion and Congress fails to override that veto. So this is our government? No, it is not. It may be the insurance companies’ government and the health care profiteers’ government, but it sure as hell isn’t mine.

This government tries to protect life in the womb but devalues that life once a child is born and fails to provide basic health care for working-class children. That’s not my government.

This government doesn’t value my work ethic or my determination to provide for myself. Since I am among those classified as the “working poor,” I can fend for myself for health care coverage. That’s not my government.

This government does an awful lot of finger-pointing about who’s to blame for what but never watches out for my health care needs. It’s a weak Congress. It’s a bumbling administration or worse – it’s a selfish one. That’s not my government.

This government wants working parents not to have enough money to buy homes or new cars or other consumer goods because they must pay huge premiums for sub-standard health care and coverage. That’s not my government.

This government is full of those claiming patriotism and love of family while ignoring families sinking into economic ruin due to health costs and coverage. That’s not my government.

This government is full of those proclaiming love for humankind while failing to protect even the youngest and most vulnerable in our own society. That’s not my government.

This government is full of Bible-thumping Christians who display judgmental and cruel tendencies very opposite what the Christ I learned about would ask of us. That’s not my government.

This government will not change and will not represent its people because it is built on arrogance of self rather than being of and by the people. And that’s not my government.

This vote today has made me more angry and more determined than ever. This is not just about the kids, fellow Americans. It is about what we collectively need to say to these people we elected. And if they cannot and will not hear us – as they demonstrated today – then we must clean house. Top to bottom, Repubs and Dems, out the door, to the curb and back to the people.

I have had enough. I have been ignored enough. My vote and my taxes have been abused enough. My voice matters. I am an American woman with a brain and a heart and a God. And I want my country back.

While Congress Breaks for Holidays, 2,300 More Sick Americans Will Die

2007-10-04T15:00:00.000-05:00

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

DENVER – Disgusting. That’s all I could think as I watched today in early October as Republican Congressman Roy Blunt and Democratic Congressman Steny Hoyer planned to recess the U.S. House of Representatives by Nov. 16, with the goal to stay recessed until well after Christmas. Wow, nice work if you can get it.

But what really is horrifying is that as our members of Congress adjourn this session, they will leave millions of Americans in peril. These Americans are not unknown to them – they are those who are uninsured and under-insured for health care needs. And between November 16, 2007, and January 1, 2008, more than 2,300 more of these Americans will die because they didn’t have adequate health care.

All members of Congress will fill their bellies on Thanksgiving Day secure in the knowledge that if they become ill while out on recess, they will be well cared for. And as the Hanukkah season, Christmas, Kwanzaa and other religious celebrations approach, these same members of Congress will rest safely in that assurance as they pray for peace on earth.

But what will those weeks and months be like for the uninsured and the under-insured who are ill? Those weeks will be filled with anything but peace and security. There will be illnesses and injuries that will go untreated and undiagnosed – and some will become fatal. Coughing, fevers, seizures, depression, tumors, strokes, heart and chest pain, ear aches, rashes, vomiting, crying out for help that never comes – that will be quite a nice holiday season, don’t you think?

Unpaid medical bills and debt collectors calling – mortgages going unpaid and boxes being packed in anticipation of the eviction notices. That’s what fear and want is like, ladies and gentlemen of Congress.

It isn’t as if members of Congress haven’t had time to work on the health care crisis. It didn’t exactly sneak up on us all. They have failed to act for a very long time. They are selfish and incapable of empathizing with the people they are charged to represent.

I am ashamed of this Congress. They are not working hard to address the needs of the American people. And they aren’t even acting as though they are aware we elected them. We gave them the right to adjourn for a nice, happy holiday season. And they took us up on that. They just never heard our other demands. They weren’t listening.

Send your members of Congress a greeting card and remind them of the death toll during their recess. Maybe, just maybe, they'll return ready to seriously consider HR676, Medicare for All. Better yet, maybe they'll call Rep. John Conyers' office before they leave and ask to co-sponsor. That would be a gift to us all.

Michigan Hurting Again: SiCKO Forms Local APUHC Chapter

2007-10-03T06:51:00.000-05:00

Adrian Campbell at a Peace Rally. Adrian is organizing the Michigan Chapter of the American Patients for Universal Health Care

DETROIT -- GM may close yet another plant and retirees may now live in fear about the long-term viability of their benefits -- all thanks to the recent strike settlement agreement which, once again, will see Michigan families put in peril. So one young Michigan resident is determined to help out on her home state turf where she fears the future may be slipping away.

On Thursday October 4th, 2007, join with other concerned Michigan citizens at the AMC Movie Theatre in Sterling Heights, for a showing of 'SiCKO' at 7:20 p.m. The theatre is located at 44681 Mound Rd. Sterling Heights, MI, 48314.

The Michigan Chapter of the American Patients for Universal Health Care (apuhc.com)is underway, and will start out by inviting GM and UAW retirees to this 'SiCKO' showing, along with anyone else who has not seen the film. The Michigan Chapter is being started by American SiCKO Adrian Campbell, whose mother and father are recent GM retirees. Adrian loves her home state and worries about her parents and about the future for her own daughter.

The lack of universal health care and the ensuing health care costs crisis has added to not only the woes of many Michigan families, according to Adrian, but has also forced the U.S. auto industry into terrible agreements and strategies just to stay afloat at all. Michigan, once the proud center of the nation's powerful and thriving auto-making giants, has endured shot after shot of bad news and trauma -- all of which places the state's residents even more prominently in the front of the battle to stop the madness and fix the health care system.

Adrian will be at the showing and hopes we can pack the theatre full. in addition to her worries about her parents and her home state, Adrian is deeply dismayed by George Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill extension. "The kids," said Adrian, "He cannot even cover the kids."

A website is in development for the Michigan chapter, but until it is up and ready, folks can visit www.apuhc.com. Adrian hopes to help those recent retirees of GM and those who have lost their jobs in Michigan and have no insurance or access to health care. This is an organization for health care patients - their families and friends - united in support for guaranteed universal health care for every American.

Oklahoma City to Stand Together for Health Care Justice

2007-09-26T15:15:00.000-05:00

Join together for

HEALTH CARE JUSTICE

TRACY PIERCE Memorial Candlelight Vigil
Remember the fallen – Fight for the living

When: Friday, September 28, 2007, Sunset (6:45)
Where: Oklahoma Capital - On the front steps of Capital (The Google)

Tracy Pierce lost his life on January 18, 2006, at the age of 37 after a courageous 16-month battle with kidney cancer. Tracy had health insurance through his wife’s employer who continually denied the lifesaving treatments ordered by his physician. He was a journeyman carpenter with Local #61 in Kansas City, MO. Tracy was the proud father of a 15 year old boy, a brother, a son, a friend to many and the husband of Julie Pierce. Tracy’s story is featured in Michael Moore’s movie “SICKO.” Join us in remembering Tracy.

In Oklahoma City, a solidarity vigil is planned for 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 28, at the capital’s front steps on Lincoln. Speaking to the Oklahoma City crowd is Reggie Cervantes, a Ground Zero hero who is sick from the exposure to toxins during the rescue efforts.

Oklahoma City attendees from SiCKO include: Reggie, Aidan & Lia Cervantes
Washington DC Vigil attendees from SiCKO include: Adrian Campbell, 9/11 first responder John Graham, Dawnelle Keys, Larry and Donna Smith

The vigil is sponsored by: American Patients for Universal Health Care, Physicians for a National Health Program, HealthCare-NOW!, Progressive Democrats of America, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Comittee.

[CLiCK here to download a PDF flyer]

Louisville, Kentucky to Stand Together for Health Care Justice

2007-09-26T15:09:00.000-05:00

Standing together for health care justice

At sunset on Friday, September 28, health care reform advocates will gather at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, to commemorate those who have lost their lives because they lacked access to adequate and affordable health care. Similar vigils will be held nationwide--in Chicago, in Denver, and in Louisville. Please join us.

Vigil

Friday, September 28, 2007
7– 8 pm
2240 Frankfort Avenue
(Clifton area, between Rastetter and Jane Streets)
Louisville, Kentucky (The Google)

Light a candle in memory of the 18,000 adults who die each year in the US due to a lack of health insurance.

Join us as we to mourn the loss of Clay Morgan and other Kentuckians whose deaths were caused, directly or indirectly, by the inhumanity of our current health care system.

Eileen Morgan shares her husband’s story: Just a few months after the family had declared bankruptcy due to medical debt, Clay was diagnosed with cancer. He faced expensive treatment. With no health insurance and no ability to pay, he knew his family would endure long-term impoverishment. In despair, with no solution in sight, Clay took his own life.

An estimated 564,000 Kentuckians lack health care coverage, including more than 80,000 children. We must fix our broken system.

"Of all forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

This event is sponsored by Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care and the Kentucky chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. Join us in our work in support of HR 676, the single payer health care bill now before the US Congress. Our meetings are held at 5:30 pm, on the third Thursday of each month at the Louisville Public Library, downtown, 301 York St.

www.kyhealthcare.org www.pnhp.org Tel: (502) 899-3861

Nationwide Vigils Sept. 28 for Health Care Justice

2007-09-19T17:25:00.000-05:00

American Patients for Universal Health Care hosts first national action

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Around the country on Sept. 28, advocates for universal single-payer health care will be attending vigils to show support for the families who have lost loved ones because they lacked health insurance.

American SiCKO Donna Smith, also Colorado Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) Congressional District Point Person and PDA Health care for All/Single-Payer Issue Organizing Team member has established American Patients for Universal Health Care (APUHC).

Smith and her husband Larry will join Julie Pierce in Washington D.C. for the Tracy Pierce Memorial Candlelight Vigil on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Friday, Sept. 28 at sunset. Julie is Tracy's widow, and also tells her story in 'SiCKO.' "Tracy died of kidney cancer at age 37 after repeated denials for life-saving treatment by our insurance carrier." Tracy, Sr., also left behind his 15 year old son, Tracy, Jr., and Julie promised "the fight would not end with his death."

Also on hand will be Dawnelle Keys, who appears in 'SiCKO' and who lost her beautiful little girl Mychelle when an 'out of network' hospital denied the toddler life-saving emergency care.

Joining Julie, Dawnelle, Donna and Larry will be another American SiCKO Adrian Campbell of Detroit who, along with her beautiful little girl, Aurora, has been fighting for care and benefits for so long that they have resorted to slipping over the US-Canadian border for care when needed.

John Graham, 9/11 rescue worker and American SiCKO, will also travel to Washington, D.C., from his home in New Jersey to join in this call for national action. If universal, single-payer health care was in place, thousands of 9/11 heroes would be receiving medical care for a wide range of serious illnesses related to their heroic service at ground zero.

APUHC was established to draw attention to this national crisis that leaves over 18,000 Americans dead annually because they lack health insurance, or because the insurer refuses to approve treatment. Before the next presidential election, approximately 25,000 more Americans will die simply because they did not have adequate health care coverage. Countless others will suffer.

"By holding vigils in cities across the country, we hope to highlight the fact that more American have died in this country than have died on the battlefield in Iraq in the last four years," said Smith. "Americans should be just as outraged over these deaths as they are outraged over Iraq." It is hoped that the vigils will move the issue front and center in the minds of voters.

ACTIONS OUTSIDE WASHINGTON:

In Denver, the "Vigil for Health Care Justice" will take place on the west steps of the Capitol building, Sept. 28 at sunset. They will draw attention to Paul Hannum, who will not be present because he lost his life to appendicitis, and little Thomas Wilkes, a toddler, who will live as long as his parents have the financial resources to continue his life-saving treatments.

In Chicago, from 4 to 6 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 28, Thompson Center Plaza at Clark and Randolph, CSPAN (Chicago Single-Payer Action Network) will host another vigil and welcome Steve Skvara, the brave union man who asked the Democratic presidential candidates ho he was supposed to cover himself and his wife based on the current health care crisis. Also speaking to the Chicago crowd will be Illinois Rep. Mary Flowers,main sponsor of the Illinois State Bill HB311 "Medicare for All," which has close to 70 co-sponsors.

In Kansas City, a solidarity vigil is planned for 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 28, at the southeast corner of the Russell Majors Waddell Park, located on 83rd Street between Ward Parkway and State Line Rd. Near Coventry Insurance Company (the company that denied Tracy Pierce a bone marrow transplant). Tracy Pierce, Jr., will be attending as will other members of the Pierce family.

Plans are also being made in Detroit Michigan and Florida. APUHC is targeting these states: Ohio, California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington, Hawaii, Texas and Georgia for vigils, and hopes that other states will join in the effort.

For more information or to get help planning a solidarity vigil, contact Donna at AUPHC.com.