Reflection: Weeks 13 and 14

HEY!!! I can't believe that we only have 1 more week of class left and then it's finals week!!! This semester just flew right by!!  I will miss all of you next semester!! Anyways..on to the last 2 weeks.

Week 13

We started off week 13 by watching a video called "Story of Stuff."  It explained in detail the cycle of all the goods and services.  Also, it brought up many of the social and environmental issues that we are facing today.  One thing that I really liked is how she compared how economy works today and how it worked in the past when material objects weren't the biggest concern.  The example she used, about one year "thick heels" being in and then the next year "skinny heals" being in, put what is going on in our economy into perspective, because it is so true!!

During this week we also got to go to Bagley Nature Center and do a navigation project.  It was a really nice day out, so it was nice to be able to be outside.  We got to learn how to use a compass, which I preciously didn't know how to use.  It was fun to see how good or bad you were at reaching each tape point.

Week 14

On Tuesday we  had a speaker come in, who is currently working for AmeriCorp .  It was really neat to learn what he is doing to help out in the environment.  I also didn't know very much about AmeriCorp, so it was nice to be able to learn something about it.  I thought he was a very good speaker!

Yesterday we did a SUPER fun activity.  We got into our web groups and Dr.V brought in some "junk" items and we had to come up with ideas of what to do with them.  All the groups were really creative during this and it was fun to see what everyone had come up with.  I have to say that our group was pretty funny when it came to this challenge! Great Job Guys!!:) 

Well lets get through this last week and then we can enjoy summer!!:)

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.