Talk To Me
A free public service for a better community
Happy Friday Healthcare Advocates
I would like to encourage comments and suggestions from you if you have time. If there is a special topic you’d like to see please let me know. Please use the comment button below. Some of the topics in work are funding for key medical research, rural healthcare, and healthcare in prison.
Medicaid Disenrollment
According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services 94,151,768 people are enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP the childhood insurance program. With the onset of the pandemic, Medicaid was expanded and the yearly re-enrollment process was put on hold to make sure as many people as possible had insurance in the face of COVID.
Since the pandemic ended, everyone has to re-enroll and, of course, the pandemic expansions are gone. In 4 months 4 million people, including children, have lost healthcare. Paperwork errors are responsible for a lot of the dis-enrollments
CMS has been making available subsidized ACA plans for those who are no longer eligible, but millions still need help.
CMS has publicly released warning letters that were sent to all states over the high number of people losing Medicaid coverage for reasons other than eligibility. At least 36 states are believed to be falling short in one of the key areas of concern: paperwork problems, long call center wait times, or slow application processing. Watch this space.
How Should I talk to You?
Most often when people know the right thing to do there is a good chance they will do it. Healthcare is like that. Making sure the correct information is available from trusted sources is critical.
We reported how damaging the wrong information proved to be during the pandemic - hundreds of thousands of lives needlessly lost in the US - so many from lack of trust and willful disregard of experts. Here is another example, look at all the parents who won’t vaccinate children, because a doctor, Andrew Wakefield, in England falsified study results - for money. He lost his license and is no longer a doctor but he did great damage.
Better communication gives you a better shot at getting your message to people who need it most. The National Institutes of Health, the premier health research organization in the US decided to tackle health care disinformation and restore trust in medical experts. Here is a link to the Kaiser Family Foundation story and thanks to Rogan’s List for heads up.
Francis Collins led NIH and his solution to disinformation was to study health communications broadly. “We basically have seen the accurate medical information overtaken, all too often, by the inaccurate conspiracies and false information on social media. It’s a whole other world out there,” he said, shortly before leaving office. He wanted to understand how people make healthcare choices and then provide accurate information in ways that would be more meaningful and acceptable. Good plan.
He authorized a study was called Advancing Health Communication Science and Practice. The 5 year plan was to study how health communication works, not merely at an individual doctor-to-patient level, but also how mass communication affects Americans’ health. Researchers could examine how, for example, testimonials affect patients’ use of vaccines or other therapies.
Larry Tabak, the current NIH acting head has put this plan on hold and it seems to be related to a high pressure campaign from the Republican controlled House of Representatives. Remember that they want a 29% cut across the board for health programs.
ACTION
Let’s tell Dr. Tabak that we depend on information from the NIH and hope this initiative will have the agency’s full backing and support. You can reach him by phone here 301-496-7322 or here is his email lawrence.tabak@nih.gov. Make sure to mention your city and state in the email.
Here is a sample script
to: lawrence.tabak@nih.gov
Subject: Advancing Health Communication Science and Practice
Dr. Tabak,
I am writing to ask you to reauthorize the Advancing Health Communication Science and Practice study to help medical experts discover the best ways to reach people with important medical advice. So many people died needlessly during the pandemic because they refused to trust experts. It is clear we need to communicate irate better. Please take this action now.
[name], [city/state]
Well Done - You’re making it another good day for healthcare reform!!
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
National Nurses United Medicare4All
Physicians for a National Health Plan
Reproductive Health
NARAL - Pro Choice America
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
Insurance Commissioner in your state- This website can get you their phone number.
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
"The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow." —Jim Hightower
Based on your briefing, it sounds like Larry Tabak has betrayed science and the American people by putting this health communications study on ice — essentially going with the flow for political reasons.
If so, it would fit my definition of "corrupt". It would reveal Tabak to be a political hack in a job that requires vision, courage and moral integrity.
I would love to be proven wrong. But how else to explain Tabak's egregious action in placing this crucial study "on hold"?
Thank you for listening. The authoritarian approach, "trust the experts", did not work on adults. We wasted our time and we wasted our best opportunity to educate and to guide people in how to think for themselves. There are so many fruitful ways to educate people. Let's do it.