Advocacy Works - Try It
A public service for a better community
Happy Tuesday Healthcare Advocates
Remember our advocacy educates our representatives and lets them know what we want them to do for us.
Please enter requests for research using the comment button at the bottom. Some of you have asked for more doctor payment specifics with respect to HR 3421 and those details are being researched. Prison and Rural healthcare are also being investigated
Upcoming Events - Movie
“American Hospitals - Healing a Broken System” is a film depicting how out of control costs are at hospitals in our broken healthcare system. Here is a link to the trailer and here is a link to a site that depicts where it is being shown around the country.
Rural Healthcare - Event Today
Today, Tuesday, June 13, 2023, 5:00 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET), Professor Angela Gyurko will discuss healthcare reform. She began advocating for reform in 2016 and she’s learned more than she ever wanted to know about Critical Access Hospitals, how the insurance industry functions in rural areas, and the inequities inherent in rural healthcare. Click HERE to register. The event is sponsored by One Payer States who focuses on Universal Healthcare at the state level first.
Illuminate the Problem - Allina Health
Does Advocacy work. You bet it does. This is a story about Allina Health. They are a wealthy midwestern healthcare provider, headquartered in Minnesota. They operate about 100 hospitals in Wisconsin and Minnesota and they have yearly revenues of about $4 billion.
Let’s review, a lot of people in the US can’t afford healthcare. It is between 70 million and 80 million and growing daily as people are thrown off Medicaid, now that the pandemic is over.
On June 6th the New York Times reported that Allina was no longer treating patients with medical debt to them. This was based on physician interviews and copies of internal Allina Health documents. Emergency room care would be provided but if patients were deep in debt to Allina they are not welcome to other services. Here is a link to the story.
On June 9th Allina announced that it would stop withholding care from patients with outstanding medical debt as it “re-examines” its policy of cutting off services for those who have accrued at least $4,500 in outstanding bills. The health system will now temporarily halt this practice but will not restore care for indebted patients who have already lost access. Link to the NY Times report. Good news for some and not for those who have already been cut off.
How many times to we have to hear about people who are abused by the healthcare system? Enough. Universal Healthcare remedies this, cradle to grave, everyone in, better quality care and affordable.
ACTION
Use RESISTBOT (text SIGN PJQXMZ to 50409) or call or email your Congressional Representative and Senators and the President(their contact info is in the References Section) and tell them something like:
“My name is [name] and I live in [zipcode] and I am your constituent. I am very concerned about the state of our healthcare system. I just read that Allina Health in Minnesota was planning to stop treating people with medical debt. They were publicly embarrassed by the policy and have put it on hold while they review it. Lets remember about 80 million of us are uninsured or underinsured. 100 million Americans have medical debt they cannot pay and about 62% of all bankruptcies are related to that medical debt. I want you to cosponsor either HR 3421 or S 1655 Improved Medicare for All and end this healthcare nightmare. You can do this and I am counting on you.”
References
Find My Elected Officials
Contact the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Contact State and Federal Representatives
https://www.commoncause.org/find-your-representative/addr/
Important Healthcare Resources
League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit
Our Newsletter resources including reproductive healthcare
Healthcare Advocacy Reading List
Organizations to Contact
NARAL - Pro Choice America
Planned Parenthood
Physicians for a National Health Plan
Claims Denials and Appeals & What to Do
Appeal a Healthcare Decision
Appeal/Negotiate a Hospital Bill
Save Democracy
Chop Wood, Carry Water by Jessica Cravens
RESISTBOT
Link to the RESISTBOT site to learn more
Link to Chop Wood, Carry Water Resistbot write up