Almost 2/3 of personal bankruptcies in the United States are the result of illness and overwhelming medical bills, despite having health insurance, say researchers. This is a 50% increase from 2001, just 8 years ago. And, it’s important to note 2 things. One is that bankruptcy is harder to declare now than it was before 2001 and that this research was done before the current economic situation, so the situation could, in fact, be worse.
Researchers from Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University worked together to produce the first known study of this type to cover the entire …read more

Maybe you have health insurance and you think your job is pretty secure so “why fix what ain’t broken?”
That’s NOT the choice you’re facing this election. It’s the choice you wish you were facing. There’s a massive difference.
Employers want OUT. They don’t want to be in the business of benefits anymore.
They face the same health care inflation problem as you do. It’s going up and costing them too much money and they don’t want to deal with the dreaded insurance companies red tape anymore.
Currently there are regulations REQUIRING large corporations to insure their employees and their …read more

Yesterday a nurse practitioner took 700 CCs of blood from my right arm.
She’s going to do it again next Thursday morning.
And the next and the next. I wish it were in the afternoon so I could work more on Thursdays, I don’t feel so wonderful afterwards.
I have a rare condition called Hemochromatosis.
My body doesn’t get rid of iron properly, so it sits in my liver poisoning me. Very heavily iron-saturated blood can damage the liver, heart and other vital organs like the pancreas.
What did I do to get it?
I was born.
What could I have …read more

I want This is what I asked for for Mother’s Day – hip political t-shirts at Momsrising.org’s new Zazzle store.

Momsrising.org is a bipartisan political action group made up of mothers fighting for Family’s rights. Mother’s rights are family rights. Women’s rights are human rights. Family rights are human rights.

Momsrising.org leads the way for women, stay-at-home-moms and career women equally, to cast aside apathy and become active participants in the making of policy.

Opting-out of the corporate workforce is no excuse for ignoring the feminine condition as it impacts working mothers.

Staying in the workforce is not excuse for ignoring the feminine …read more

It’s such a tight rope women walk in today’s world.

Republicans claim to want to reduce the abortion rate.

Republicans claim to think it’s wrong when women who work fulltime and “abandon their children in daycare.”

Republicans claim to hate “entitlement programs” that cost them tax money.

I have to wonder why, when facing a solution to 3 of their main concerns with universal healthcare, they are not jumping on board with glee.

If women have equal access to healthcare they can prevent conception, the most effective means of drastically lowering the abortion rate.

If women have equal access to healthcare they can more …read more

Some fascinating statistics about abortion were released by the Guttmacher Institute late last year. The Guttmacher Institute, both pro-choicer and pro-lifer agree, is the most reliable source of statistical information regarding abortion.
I found the most interesting facts to be these two:
* The abortion rate is the lowest its been since Roe v. Wade in 1973, with 1.21 million in 2005.
* About 60% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children.
Unlike teenagers who only sought 17% of abortions, these women fully understand the responsibility and the cost of parenthood and family-life.

Three-fourths of women cite concern for …read more

I read this blog about a mother’s struggle to insure her special needs children – the real kind – in our current insurance system. Her child is being dropped because the insurance company isn’t making any money off insuring her.
Basically once they are in the hight risk pool, normal insurance will never cover them again, even if they “outgrow” their issues. They are a health risk, and insurance companies can’t really make money off of those kids.
Did you know that our state provides an SCHIP program through the very company that KayTar currently has insurance through? With identical benefits? Did you …read more

Some authors have to hustle to promote their books.  They struggle to get a book deal, sometimes they self-publish. They contact reporters and beg for reviews. I get contacted by these hard working artists trying to make a difference, write a story, people with something relevant to say.  
But, not Jenna Bush. The President’s daughter has been on my television all day long because she wrote a book.
Which brings me to a post I wrote earlier on Quit Coping, called Fair Smair, about fairness and how it’s futile to think about it.
I mean, I could bring up how my family’s economics are …read more

Did everyone see the Liar McLiar Lie (Karen Ignagni is the president of America’s Health Insurance Plans) on Oprah today?
 We {Insurance Companies} wouldn’t be here if we weren’t doing a great job,  She said.
Insurance companies are doing beyond a bad job – they are criminals profiting on American’s illness.
Elections a coming sister . . I plan to make her statement more true than she knows. What is it Donald Trump says when someone does a very bad job?
Oh, that’s right.
You’re Fired!!
Don’t worry you needn’t be completely unemployed, we will need bureaucrats to make sure everyone’s health care needs are taken care of …read more

In a July issue of Business Week there is a very enlightening analysis of France’s health care system. Journalist Kerry Capell investigated whether we might adapt to their system, which mixes private health coverage and public health coverage and leaves no one uninsured. And they do it for cheaper and with more health benefit than our current system.
Getting sick isn’t a character flaw. In France the philosophy is not the rich pay for the poor, but the healthy help pay for the sick. The sicker and less able to work you are, the less you pay. So cancer patients don’t have to …read more