Advocacy Project: Letter to Public Official

April 28, 2009

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar

302 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

RE: Bill S.CON.RES.6

Dear Senator Klobuchar,

I am writing you concerning Bill S.CON.RES.6 with emphasis on objective 1-15. I recommend that you vote in favor of this bill, which will help to resolve the needs to be made for national health care to ensure that all health care needs of women and all individuals in the U.S. are met and to reduce the proportion of adults with long-term care needs who do not have access to the continuum of long-term care services.

Supporting this bill would help not only help every U.S. citizen in need of general health care, but also older adults receive the long-term health care that many are in need of.  There are at least 46.6 million U.S. citizens without health insurance and by supporting this bill that number could drastically decrease.  Also, the baby boomer generation is now getting to the age where many will need long-term care and as of now many health insurance companies don't offer a long-term care plan, and those that do can be very expensive.  This bill would relieve the stress of older adults to know they will be able to afford the health care they will need, and could help relieve the stress of their families as well.

Supporting this bill would personally affect me, because my grandparents are getting closer to the age where they will need long-term care and as of now they just have general health care coverage, because long-term care is too expensive to pay into.  That means my family will have to help out with their health care costs when the time is needed and this will be a big expense.  I know that my grandparents don't want to rely on their children for this type of help when it should be covered by an insurance company.

I appreciate your past support on voting yes to adding 2 to 4 million children to SCHIP eligibility. Any support towards increasing the number of people with health care is a step forward.  I urge you to vote yes for bill S.CON.RES.6, which will increase the affordable health care possibilities.

I understand that trying to make this bill a nationwide effect may take a lot of time and be costly, so an alternative would to implement a state-wide health care program that covers these issues.

Thank you for your time

Sincerely,

Kaileigh C.

555 Lake Ave.

Duluth, MN 55555

Share and Voice: Green Bags

Hey!! I just wanted to write my post about how Dr.V gave us our bags from SuperOne.  It was really nice for the store manager to donate those bags for us! I haven't been grocery shopping yet. but I can't wait!! Thank you again Dr.V and I hope that Thank-You gets to the store manager haha!!:) 

Share and Voice: Places Going Green

Ok, so I haven't done a share and voice since before spring break.  I kno..YIKES!!! I have been riding the struggle bus since then and just haven't found the time.  Finally, I am taking a day to do one though! I also noticed that since I waited so long Kathy already posted about our spring break trip and all of the things we found in Mexico and someone else did a post about how Wal-Mart is going green too, which I was gonna put in mine. I still have some other places that are going green and I thought they were pretty interesting.

First of all, I just became and LSBE student, so most of my classes are in the new Business building. I knew that they were doing thing's to go green, such as all the windows they have. They use natural sunlight instead of having lights on all day.  I know they have done many other things as well.  I didn't know that they had a plaque in the building though, so I took some pictures!

The second thing I wanted to make note of is the Aveda product line.  I am doing a hair show for Shear Katz and they use Aveda products.  On every stylists mirror they have little signs that are about going green..I didn't have a camera, so I couldn't take pictures.  They also have signs that tells about how Aveda uses natural materials in their products.  Nice to see big lines of hair products going green!

Here are my pictures of how Sun Country Airlines goes green!

Also I heard on the radio this morning that Wal-Mart is going green and you can help by buying products in packs of two rather than buying 2 seprate packs, because it saves on a ton of cardboard and other packaging material!

Advocacy Project: Issue Overview

Introduction:

-The issue for my objective is that there is limited long-term care for older adults.  Also the long-term care that is available is very expensive and can be inefficient.

-The bill that I found isn't directly related to this specific topic, but would still help.  The bill, S.CON.RES.6, expresses that a resolution needs to be made for national health care to ensure that all health care needs of women and all individuals in the U.S. are met.  In turn this would ensure that long-term health care needs would also be met.

Who is affected by the issue?:

-The people most affected

 by this issue are older adults who are in need of long-term care as they are getting older and needing more help and medical services.

-In theory the older adult

s are the ones losing, because many aren't able to afford long-term care services without having to face a major trade-off such as selling their house.  Also there are limited services avai

lable to them, such as home health care.  

-The people who are "winning" are companies such as Medicare.  Medicare is a health care company for adults ages 65 and older.  It is a federal insurance system.  Medicare doesn't necessarily cover the cost of long-term care for every plan, so older adults end up having to pay more to Medicare to receive long-term care.  Medicare in turn is making a lot of money off of vulnerable older adults who don't know about this.  Medicare isn't very forward that they don't inculde long-term care.

What are the consequences of the issue?:

-The government would most likely need to form a program so there can be equal and affordable health care for every person in the U.S., which might be costly at first.

-People who can't afford health care would benefit from this.  It could also benefit those who currently do have health care, because it may be more affordable and everyone would be able to receive the same health care opportunities.

What are the barriers?:

-It is a country-wide issue and implementing a plan will take some time and a lot of effort from many people.  It is a big project and will take a lot of motivation.

-If the government would implement a plan and put the right people in charge of it I think it would come together.

What are the resources?:

-Information from how other countries who have country-wide health care implemented their decisions. Also access to a representative who is willing to take this on and make it a priority.

What is the history of this issue?:

-Long-term care insurance has been around since the 1970's where it kicked off in the 1980's.  It allows the policyholders to make sure they will be covered and not have to rely on their relatives to help pay for them.

-Nursing homes have been around for many years, but home health care and adult day care weren't popular.  As life expectancy increased, people were living longer and new drugs were coming out to aid in longevity, those that were in need of long-term care were limited in their options.  Additional options were created and assisted living facilities became more popular, but the waiting lists became long because of the lack of facilities to meet demands.  As more were created facilities introduced graduated care, where a person could live in a facility and receive different amounts of care depending on what they needed. As more care was needed they could add on more care, but of course for the cost of a pretty penny and they would just be moved down the hall to "graduate" to another area or step of care needed. Traditional health care didn't cover these expenses so many older adults were forced to sell their homes in order to receive the care needed. By the 1990's long-term care was being introduced in policies from insurance companies and was considered a hot commodity.  The insurance companies were raking in the profits.

-Some problems started to arise just a few years ago for long-term care policyholders, who were making premium payments for years. Insurance companies weren't calculating in the rise of health care costs the past 20 years and the increase in life expectancy. As insurers realized this some still made good on their claims, while many did not.  As stories began to erupt in the news headlines of the elderly not being able to receive the care they needed, insurers were and still are being accused of ignoring the policyholders and assuming they would die before needing any of the money.  Many companies are now being sued.  Since this issue has made national headlines Congress and the General Accounting Office are investigating insurers and their policies.

Long term care is still an option, but the number of insurers willing to sell these policies are deteriorating. All insurance companies are rated by agencies to show which are the best.

-I got all of this information from this website.

Allies & Opponents:

-I think that everyone who does or will need long-term health care would support this issue.

-The people who wouldn't support this issue would be Insurance Companies, because if it was a nation-wide health care program, we wouldn't need all the different health insurance companies.  Also those who are wealthy might not see this as the big issue that it really is, because they can easily afford health care.

My recommendation:

-I want policy-makers to vote yes on this issue and provide affordable and equal health care to everyone in the U.S.

Help:

-I think that I need help in my barriers, allies & opponents and resource areas, so if anyone has anything please let me know! I was drawing a blank.

Reflections: Weeks 11 and 12

Hi guys!! The last couple weeks have kept us busy with our advocacy project and last documentary.  The school year is really starting to wind down!

Week 11

This week in class we watched the documentary "Unnatural Causes".  This was one of my favorite documentaries.  I am going to school for health care management and this was relating a lot to my major.  It was crazy to see the years difference for life expectancy in just one city!  During this week we also talked about how to use the THOMAS feature for our advocacy project.

Week 12

This week in class we were assigned another section of our advocacy project.  We had to choose a topic from Healthy People 2010.  I chose increasing long-term care for older adults.  It was hard to find a bill that directly related to only this topic, but I did find one that worked well.  I am interested to see what other things I will find out about this topic the more research I am able to do.  Also we got our reusable bags from Super One!! I can't wait to go grocery shopping and actually be able to use it! It will feel good!  It was really fun to see what topics everyone else chose.  There is a good variety and a lot of creative topics.

Advocacy Project: Healthy People/THOMAS

For my topic I chose to do Access to Quality Health Services.  I think this is really an important issue and it is something that causes a lot of issues. I decided to focus mainly on objective 1-15.

Goal for objective 1-15: 

To reduce the proportion of adults with long-term care needs who do not have access to the continuum of long-term care services.

Progress:

The target setting method: Better than the best.

Topics Baseline in 2001 Target for 2010

Home Health Care 9.6% 7.7%

Adult Day Care 2.9% 2.3%

Assisted Living 3.3% 1.8%

Nursing Home Care 1.1% .8%

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act ensures universal access to emergency care without regard to health care insurance coverage, but there are still, barriers that exist to accessing emergency care.  So all of the older generation, whether they have health insurance or not are still able to receive care, but not necessarily the long-term care that is needed. As of right now they haven't been able to pin-point any progress, but are still working on it.

Disparities:

In the charts available for disparities objective 1-15 wasn't an available option.

Opportunities and Challenges:

There are now 45 million people who are without health care in the U.S. and The Institute of Medicine has estimated that 18,000 deaths per year are directly related to the lack of health insurance.  Many efforts are being focused on geographical regions where people have limited access to health care facilities. This will help in identifying the priority health needs for the people in these areas. A few of the many challenges that we are being faced with currently for long-term care services are home health, adult day care, assisted living, and nursing home care, because many older people don't purchase long-term care insurance thinking that Medicare will cover this.  Also older adults prefer to receive long-term care services at home or in the community, rather than give up their independence by moving to a nursing home. This results in a greater demand for home health care and provides more challenges in meeting the target.

 Emerging Issues:

Some of the issues in long-term care include topics of workforce, insurance, and consumer-directed services.  The quality of care also remains a big issue. Since we are in the age of baby-boomers getting older there is going to be an increase in the demand for long-term care services. This will cause issues on how to attract, train, and retain a long-term care workforce of health and social service providers.

Bill:

S.CON.RES.6 
Title: A concurrent resolution expressing the sense of Congress that national health care reform should ensure that the health care needs of women and of all individuals in the United States are met. 
Sponsor: Sen Stabenow, Debbie [MI] (introduced 2/11/2009)

      Cosponsors (5) 
Related Bills: H.CON.RES.48 

Latest Major Action: 2/11/2009 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

My Political Representative:

U.S. Senator: Amy Klobuchar

Action:

I would like to see more long-term health care information to be available.  Older adults need to have information to know that Medicare, which many rely on, will not be enough to cover all of their long-term care needs.  Also I think that there should be better and more home health care programs introduced into communities.  It should be required that every community have at least one home-health care service available.

Documentary Review: Unnatural Causes

This week we watched the documentary "Unnatural Causes." At the start of the documentary the listed off some interesting facts.

-The U.S. spends $2 trillion dollars a year on medical care.  That is about half that is spent world wide each year.

-Even though we spend a lot of money on health care we are still at #30 for life expectancy, which means we live shorter/sicker lives than other countries.

-There are 47 million Americans that go without health care.

-Social Influences affect health.

With just these few facts I feel that I learned a lot.  I couldn't believe that we were ranked 30 for health care, and we spend the most money on it.  That makes me wonder who is getting all the health care that we are spending so much on.  In the movie it focused on St.Louis.  They have done many studies in the different districts of St.Louis to show how money correlates with your health.  The higher your salary, the nicer neighborhood you live in, and the more power you have, essentially equals better health.  

Health and wealth hasn't just been compared in St.Louis.  In France, the minimum wage is twice as much as ours, they get more vacation time, and invest in better education systems.  So, the countries that distribute their wealth better have better health.

Throughout the movie the message that kept popping up in my mind is that Power=Money=Better Health.  All the studies that were done, no matter where they were done, always showed that those at the top of the ladder had better health that those at the bottom.  It made me think of how in America, "the land of opportunities", we have such wide range of incomes and it is really hard to move your way up if you don't have those resources available to you.  The documentary followed a few different families, one being the wealthier family, as he was a CEO.  They lived in a nice neighborhood with big yards and trees, and where the people felt safe and had places to go for walks.  He and the others in his district were rated with the best health and life expectancy of 79. It continued to follow a woman who is a Lab supervisor, middle-class, and lives in a fairly good neighborhood.  She lives in a nicer house, has a yard, and feels safe.  The life expectancy for her district is 75. Then it followed a lower middle-class family living in a poorer district, where the houses were closer together, didn't have much of a yard, and didn't feel as safe.  He worked a full time job as well as his wife and they were just making it.  They said the only way they could ever try to move is if one of them got a 2nd job, which would then increase the stress level and cause more health risks.  The people living in this district had a poorer level of health and only have a life expectancy of 73.  Finally it went to an even poorer district.  They followed a woman who lives on $200 dollars a month for groceries to feed her, her husband, and 3 children, and not much more for anything else.  She currently doesn't have a job and her husband is disabled. She doesn't feel safe in her neighborhood and the houses are so close you could touch the one next to it. The life expectancy in her district is 70.

My Thoughts

In my summary I was trying to get my point through that there is a correlation there that can't be ignored.  Money=Power and with Power it seems that you have better health.  I think this documentary really opened my eyes. I had no idea that there was even research going on for this type of thing.  It seems really logical when the information is laid out in front of you, but it isn't something that I think crosses many peoples minds.  It is definitely something that needs to be exposed to make people aware. 

Things to think about:

-Why is the U.S. ranked so low, even thought we spend so much money on our health care.

-What is being done about the issues?

-What are some ways that we can better our health care system, so people can live at a more equal level?

Here is a link to the documentaries website.  It has a lot of good information on there.  It even shows some case studies that are being done right now! 

http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/transcripts.php

Reflection: Weeks 9 and 10

So the school year is really flying by now! I can't believe we are almost done. I feel like my brain has been packed full of information from this class, but I still am ready to learn more!  

Week 9

In week 9 we started learning about advocacy. We also started the first step of our project, which was to find our political representatives.  This should help us out along the way with our advocacy project.  During this week we also discussed our photo essay and there were a lot of really good ideas brought up during discussion.  This week seemed more of a preparing week for what was to come.

Week 10

In week 10 Dr.V was gone, so we didn't have class.  We did have to have our photo essay done though.  I have to say that I struggled at first with what to do for my photo essay.  I really hadn't come up with anything creative.  I decided to do things that my work has done to go green.  I thought it was kind of neat to see local businesses doing their part as well.  My boss also is excited to read my post about it, so that could be interesting haha! 

I hope that the rest of these weeks go good for everyone! :) Keep up all the hard work!

Eye Opener: Photo Essay

Ways Northland Country Club Has Gone "Green"

I decided to do my photo essay on showing all of the ways that Northland, the country club I work at, has helped by going green.  They have been taking many steps to help out the environment and I think that it should be recognized.  It is nice to see the local businesses helping the environment out. The grounds crew at Northland also has a website that talks about the ways they have been improving and going green. Just click here. 

Also at Northland a company has been testing the water run-off from the golf course to see what kind of chemicals it has in it. They have a couple of places throughout the course, including one on the 11th green, where it is tested often and since they have began to use organic fertilizers the results have changed, for the better, quite a bit. I wasn't able to get a picture though, because of all the snow. Also by using the organic fertilizers it allows the grass to naturally grow better and they have been able to reduce the amount of water they use out on the course.

I want to start off by letting everyone know that Northland has officially decided that they aren't going to use bottled water on the golf course.  My boss said that after I presented him with the facts of how bad it was for the environment he wouldn't allow it!

This is the machine that the grounds crew uses to make compost tea.  Compost tea is used as a fertilizer for the grass and plants.  By using this they reduce the use of other fertilizers that are harmful to the environment.  They have also been using other organic products to fertilize the grass.  

We also have organic liquor. I'm not sure what that all entails, but it's kind of cool.  We have organic wine as well.

These are the bins that we scrape the excess food into.  We have a compost pile and that is where all our food that we put into these bins goes.

These are the to-go cups that we use.  They aren't styrofoam and are more eco-friendly.  They break down at a faster rate.

These are the containers that we use for to-go food.  They are recyclable!