I wanted to share the email I got today from Organizing for America. For those of you who doubt that the public wants health care reform, you might consider this:
It's late; I know you've gotten a lot of messages from us recently, and everyone here at OFA headquarters is pretty tired. But the last reports of calls and commitments are just coming in from events on the West Coast, and I wanted to share the news with you.
As you know, we set a big goal: 100,000 calls to Congress placed or committed to in a single day by OFA supporters and allied organizations. By 2:30 p.m., you had crushed it. So, we gulped and said let's go for 200,000, not knowing what would happen. But the calls just kept pouring in -- keeping phones ringing off the hook in congressional offices in D.C. and your representatives' district offices around the country.
Then, OFA supporters gathered in over 1,000 living rooms and community centers from Macon, Georgia to Missoula, Montana. You called hundreds of thousands of key voters in your community and got them to agree to call Congress and speak out for reform, too. President Obama joined in at a call party in New York -- and he had some amazing words of support for the folks like you who make this movement possible.
I'm looking at the numbers, and with almost all of the reports now in, the tally wasn't 200,000 calls placed or pledged -- it was 315,023. You did it. (emphasis mine)
... Your voice was overwhelming -- with reports in the media of congressional offices "completely crushed with calls." CBS News described your effort as an "onslaught." And a congressional aide was quoted with a common response, saying their office was deluged by "pretty much non-stop health care calls from OFA.
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Poll: Public Option Favored By 65% Of Americans
ABC News-Washington Post Poll: 57 Percent Support Public Option
WaPo-ABC poll: Clear majority favors a public option
Good luck with that.
"There are so few doctors none of them ever have time to explain the results of the tests they order or even to explain why they are giving the tests to begin with."
That is a symptom of the "broken disease management unsystem" we presently have. Reimbursement rates are so low, and the required overhead is so high, doctors have to see many more patients per day than they can handle. I worked for 30 years in mental health and personally witnessed the devolution. If you knew how much time a doctor's staff and/or the doctor him/herself have to spend on the phone talking to insurance company bureaucrats, then you might have a little more understanding of just how much time a doctor actually attends to your needs. Too bad it's more clerical than medical - but the problem is with the unsystem - not the doctor, per se.
Call or write an original business letter with your address, pointing out that you are a constituent. Much more effective than mass emails and electronic petitions.
You don't have to be all that original - you can pull ideas from "suggested" emails if you really can't formulate an argument - which some can't, at least not on paper.
We'd hope that people won't give up responsibility for their health if they get affordable health care, but I wouldn't count on it.
With "managed" health care, I find that since doctors spend an average of - what is it? - 3 or 4 minutes listening to each patient, I have to be the one keeping track of what medications have side effects, cross reactions, etc. I can't count on the doctor to be paying attention.
Absolutely - disease management has to be reformed. Personally, I'd like to see a single-payer system, in which everyone pays and everyone belongs. I don't think "disease management" is about insurance industry profits - it's about patient care.
That said, it does not change the fact that unless citizens begin attending to their health, the costs of even a single payer system would continue to rise.
"We'd hope that people won't give up responsibility for their health if they get affordable health care, but I wouldn't count on it."
I think it has to do with whether people perceive they have some "skin in the game". I don't mind being taxed for medical coverage at a realistic and fair rate, so long as I know I'm going to get treatment if I need it. I also think that if I'm paying a realistic and fair rate for that coverage, I'm more likely to attend to what I'm doing. Personally, I do attend to my health - I'm in very good shape!!
"I can't count on the doctor to be paying attention."
I worked briefly at an HMO, and because we were being put in a position to spend less and less time with patients, I resigned - went back to a small, outpatient psychiatric office, for less money and benefits. My boss refused to replace me at the HMO, and two other clinicians resigned. The mental health section of that HMO closed. No loss.
Clinicians are put in these ethical quandries incessantly in the present unsystem. I know many doctors and psychologists - believe me, no one is more frustrated than they are, except for possibly nurses.
I agree that the doctors hate it with a passion. Everyone hates it, unless they work for (or have stock in) an insurance company.
I understand now, though, that insurance companies are the ones, who are on the defensive. The "public option" is making a come-back.
Health care reform without the public option is only guaranteed BIG money to the insurance companies. What a joke, and it is what the Republicans want for America's working class.
Of course, the receiver does not read these messages. Doesn't the person just get a % For/ % against type tally? The mode of contact is not too important. The contact is.