Green Spaces & Health // Disinformation // Medical Debt Revisited
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Green Spaces - Better Health
The University of Louisville’s groundbreaking Green Heart Louisville Project has found that people living in neighborhoods where the number of trees and shrubs was more than doubled showed lower levels of a blood marker of inflammation than those living outside the planted areas. General inflammation is an important risk indicator for heart disease and other chronic diseases.
To understand the state of community’s health at the start of the study, researchers took blood, urine, hair and nail samples and documented health data from 745 people living in a four-square-mile area of south Louisville. The researchers also took detailed measurements of tree coverage and levels of air pollution in the area.
Following this baseline data collection, the Envirome Institute worked with The Nature Conservancy and a host of local partners and contractors to plant more than 8,000 large trees and shrubs in designated neighborhoods within the project area. Those living in the greened area were considered the treated population and the results obtained from this population were compared with residents of adjacent neighborhoods, where the project team did not plant any trees.
After the plantings, the research team reassessed residents’ health. They found that those living in the greened area had 13-20% lower levels of a biomarker of general inflammation, a measure called high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) than those living in the areas that did not receive any new trees or shrubs. Higher levels of hsCRP are strongly associated with a risk of cardiovascular disease and are an even stronger indicator of heart attack than cholesterol levels. Higher CRP levels also indicate a higher risk of diabetes and certain cancers.
These findings were presented by Daniel Riggs, University of Louisville assistant professor of environmental medicine, at the 36th Annual Conference of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology in Santiago, Chile on Aug. 26.
Show Me Your Papers
Republican Disinformation Campaign in Healthcare
Recent actions in Florida and Texas newly require hospitals to request immigration status from patients, with the aim of assessing the cost of providing care to undocumented immigrants. Keep in mind that non-citizen also means legal immigrant.
Hospitals must also inform patients that, as required by federal law, their response will not affect their care. In Florida, the hospitals must also indicate that the response will not result in a report to immigration authorities. This requirement is not specified in the Texas Executive Order. Under federal law, hospitals are required to provide emergency screening and stabilization services to all patients seeking emergency care.
In both states non citizens make up about 10% of the population both undocumented and documented. It amounts to 2 million people in Florida and 2.8 million people in Texas.
Undocumented immigrants are less likely than citizens to report using health care, including emergency care. Further, immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, have lower per capita health care expenditures than U.S.-born citizens, and data suggest they subsidize health care for U.S.-born citizens by paying more into the system through health insurance premiums and taxes than they utilize.
Florida released a public dashboard and a separate report submitted to the state legislature based on hospital reporting under the new requirement for June through December 2023. These reports show that less than 1% of inpatient admissions and emergency department visits were among patients who identified themselves as not lawfully present.
The state extrapolates an estimate that the cost of care provided to undocumented immigrants over this period was $556 million. However, as noted by the state in the legislative report and others, it is unclear how much of that care was uncompensated. Costs of care for undocumented immigrants may be covered via self-pay, private coverage, or, in some cases, Emergency Medicaid (if it is emergency care provided to an individual who would otherwise be eligible except for immigration status).
So what we have are state requirements designed to collect data to be used as ammunition to fuel sentiment against undocumented immigrants and the data they are reporting is faulty since they don’t indicate whether the value of the care was paid by insurance, self paid or what and so it APPEARS that the public is picking up the tab.
I don’t know about you but here the governments in these states are using taxpayer dollars, wasting hospital employees time to collect data and then using it as anti-immigrant DISINFORMATION. (KFF)
All I can suggest is to vote accordingly this November, and as we say in the vernacular, throw the bums out.
Medical Debt
Over 100 million Americans are currently struggling with medical debt. Go Fund Me actively takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year for medical bills. Hospitals are sometimes the worst offenders with respect to medical debt. Garnishing wages, foreclosing homes, selling debt to aggressive collectors who harass patients who should be spending time healing instead. Two thirds of all bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical debt.
The real answer, of course, is universal healthcare, like HR 3421 the vastly improved Medicare for All Act, which would cover all of us without copay or deductible and manage care regionally, through global budgets to make sure we all have access to care. The no copay and no deductible part means no debt.
Now there has been some progress this year. We found that the Biden-Harris administration is having credit agencies remove medical debt from credit score reporting. It is fact based since it turns out that having medical debt is not a predictor of credit worthiness with respect to other debts. (CBS)
There are non-profits that buy up and discharge medical debt for about a penny on the dollar. Undue Medical Debt is one of those. And we saw last week that a number of cities and states are eliminating medical debt for tens of thousands of their residents with such organizations. ( Article 1, Article 2)
Now a bill has shown up in Congress to rein in collections and buy down medical debt. It is H. R, 9129 the Patient Debt Relief Act.
The core of the Patient Debt Relief Act is a grant program directed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that enables non-profits to purchase medical debt from hospitals, significantly reducing the financial burden on patients. Medical debt is purchased at a one to 100 rate, according to Undue Medical Debt. Authorized at $100 million, this bill will be able to provide $10 billion in relief to patients. This is a cost-effective way to provide relief to struggling patients. This bill also requires hospitals to offer repayment and assistance programs prior to referring medical debt to collection agencies.
Here are the cosponsors so far Rep. Horsford, Steven [D-NV-4], Rep. Ruiz, Raul [D-CA-25], Rep. Thanedar, Shri [D-MI-13]*, Rep. Schrier, Kim [D-WA-8], Rep. Barragán, Nanette Diaz [D-CA-44], Rep. Stansbury, Melanie A. [D-NM-1], Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick, Sheila [D-FL-20], Del. Norton, Eleanor Holmes [D-DC-At Large]
Perfect - no. But sometimes politics is like taking the bus. Grab the one that gets you closer to home.
ACTION
Let’s ask our member of Congress to sign on and offer relief to people who really need it by cosponsoring and loudly supporting this bill. If yours is in the list above send them a thank you. You can reach them here, https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials.
Or use RESISTBOT via [Apple Messages / WHATSAPP / MESSENGER] or by texting SIGN PGAJRC to 50409 on your cell phone to send this message.
“I am your constituent and I want you to know that 100 million of us have medical debt we cannot handle. You can do something to help. I want you to cosponsor and support H. R. 9129 the Patient Debt Relief Act. It will make hospitals offer assistance with bills to those who need it before going to collection and it will allocate a grant to clear out $10 billion in medical debt for a penny on the dollar.
The best solution is Universal Health Care, like HR 3421, where patients won’t incur the debt in the first place, but until we have that I want you so support the Patient Debt Relief Act. Thank you.”
Find My Elected Officials
Contact State and Federal Representatives - phone and email
Healthcare Advocacy (Us) Website
Our Newsletter resources including reproductive healthcare - Healthcare Advocacy Reading List
Important Healthcare Resources
League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit
Organizations to Contact
National Nurses United Medicare4All
Physicians for a National Health Program
One Payer States
Healthcare Now
Reproductive Health
NARAL - Pro Choice America
Charley. chatbot abortion resource - make sure to use a secure incognito browser if you live in a state that has banned abortion
Planned Parenthood
Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline has references about where to procure abortion medications. They also assist women in the process of self managed abortion or miscarriage by phone or text and will respond in an hour. Details and hours of operation at their website.
United State of Women Reproductive health page (bottom of the page) has important resources such as medical support, access to Telehealth, prescriptions by mail, and legal support references.
Practice careful communications - The Digital Defense Fund has a number of tips to keep texts, calls, and internet use private. Here is their site.
If you need financial help with an abortion try abortionfunds.org
Claims Denials and Appeals & What to Do
Appeal a Healthcare Decision
Appeal/Negotiate a Hospital Bill
Disinformation Management
Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency
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
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