Since I have Strep Throat...

It's a good time to post some helpful information about the new healthcare plan!

Momsrising.org emailed me these highlights to begin to clarify what's been approved.

* * *

What are some healthcare highlights for children and families?

This Year - The following is a short list of key, important changes that will happen this year due to the passage of healthcare reform: [1]*

• Insurance companies will no longer be able to refuse to pay for treatment of children's pre-existing conditions.
• Health care plans will allow young people to remain on their parents' insurance policy up until their 26th birthday.
• Insurance companies will be banned from dropping people from coverage when they get sick, and they will be banned from implementing lifetime caps on coverage.
• People who are uninsured because of pre-existing conditions will have access to affordable insurance through a temporary subsidized high-risk pool.
• Small businesses that choose to offer coverage will begin to receive tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums to help make employee coverage more affordable.

2014 - The following is a short list of key, important changes that will happen in 2014 due to the passage of healthcare reform: [2]*

• Insurance companies will be banned from denying health insurance coverage to people of all ages because of pre-existing conditions.
• Families and children with moderate incomes (up to about $88,000 for a family of four) will be able to get help paying for health insurance coverage.
• State insurance exchanges will enforce minimum benefit standards for health insurance coverage.

*Want more detailed information? Go here: http://action.momsrising.org/go/how/48?akid=1835.56106.Ujp9Lr&t=6

HOPE AND CARE

I know it's controversial, but I've believed in the possibility of health care for all for a while now. Here is an essay I wrote that aired in San Francisco in 2008. I'm so glad such daring progress was made this weekend - and that we're taking the leap.

A ROUNDABOUT WAY OF SAYING WHY A HOMESCHOOLING LIFE OFF THE GRID IS LOOKING PRETTY DARNED GOOD RIGHT NOW

I started my day by dropping off hand sanitizer in the kids' classrooms. But, hang on, I'll get to that in about 542 words.

By nature, I'm not a worrier.

I come from a long line of non-worriers. We don't fret, flap or kvetch. Ask my friends. They'll tell you they've never seen my mom worry about me in all the years they've known me. She may have been strict at times, but she never worried about me once I was actually doing something potentially worrisome -- over-nighting at camp for a week as a first grader, driving tour buses in Alaska across the Yukon, traveling solo in Europe, flat broke with two kids and waiting for Mick to get into dental school -- you get the picture.

Likewise, I don't worry much about my kids. But, like my mom, I do know how to play it safe: my kids can bike, heely, skateboard, and ski - but they have to wear their helmets. They can climb any tree they want - but they have to keep good heads on their shoulders. They have to be able to figure out how to go high but come back down on their own, and how to recognizes branches that'll hold, and those that'll fold. (Dane just got a good lesson in that one (mentioned in Ode) - but, see? I didn't worry. And I'm only barely worried that I should.)

But this Swine Flu business has my snout in a wad. With international travel being so prevalent, group activities so big (the potentially cancelled Bloomsday race in Spokane comes to mind), and first grade classrooms such petri dishes, I'm feeling like we're all a little vulnerable.

Last night I told my kids there's a bad flu going around to different countries, states, and cities (never mentioned the words pandemic, or life-threatening, for that matter). Told them to make sure they didn't exchange sneezes or coughs with other kids and that they washed their hands when they thought to.

I didn't realize I was so touchy about it, but when Dane faked a pout this morning and said, "You mean I can't play with my friends?" I got a little werewolfish on him. You'd think the moon had gone full when I barked, "Of course you can play with your friends!" Grrrr...

It took me a second to check myself - isn't it amazing how fierce love can be when you realize you're scared?

"Ugh, I'm sorry," I conceded, retracting my claws. "Of course I want you to play with your friends. I just want you to be safe, maybe just consider germs a little more than usual."

See, I can say these things to my kids. They don't obsess about germs or danger. They just kind of file stuff like this away and pull it out when they think to. That's why Dane took a second kicked ball to the jaw as goalie last practice and took himself out for a few minutes. Doctor said Dane's trouble opening his mouth without pain to his ears, and the sore muscles in his neck, meant his jaw was slightly sprained, but he'd be able to eat hard foods again in a couple days.

"You gonna keep playing soccer?" the doctor asked.

"Of course," Dane said, eyeing her like she was a little bit off.

"Goalie?" she pressed.

"Well, yeah...!" That's as close as he gets to a "duh."

That night, Mick advised him not to take any more shots to the face (ha ha) and showed him how to hold his hands a little higher and closer when anticipating a shot.

"Okay," Dane said. "Got it."

So... I took two containers of hand sanitizer to school for the kids' classes today. Whoa. I was not prepared for the teachers' responses.

One, my favorite teacher there, said it was against school policy to use hand sanitizers in the classroom because studies were inconclusive about the way chemicals affect the body. I said I had a problem with this, considering a flu pandemic was imminent. Hello? Level 5 out of a 6 level warning system and we can't have a little hand sanitizer in the classroom??? Teacher agreed. Her solution: put it in Aubrey's cubby and she can use it on her own hands all day. Okay, that sort of works for me -- although it doesn't address the germs all the other kids are mucking around in...

The other teacher didn't really know why it would be needed -- she hasn't really been following the news, but when I told her a few details (four new cities in Washington suspect it, various places in California, I could go on...) she said she was happy to let the class use the big bottle of sanitizer, and put it in an accessible place. Bless her heart, she didn't fuss about school policy, and she said she'd heard maybe it hadn't been diagnosed in Oregon because we might not have the resources or maybe people weren't coming in to be checked. Then she joked about wearing little pig snout noses to school tomorrow. "Wouldn't that be funny?" she asked. I smiled, a little caught off-guard, thinking, "Um, not really...?"

So, this is a long, roundabout way to come to my point: I feel a little vulnerable, in this unsuspecting pocket of America. I feel like we're being given some warnings, but everybody just feels really safe - even though a kindergarten girl returned from Mexico on Sunday and her family hadn't even heard of the ordeal when they were down there. They heard about it Tuesday after they'd just been hanging out in Ashland for a few days.

I hate to say it, but I'm worried. I'd love to simply handle all this by holing up in a cabin in the woods, with a spare room full of canned food, and homeschooling my kids for the next couple of months. Maybe even the next couple of years, since a recent news report suggested the threat might go away in the heat of the summer, and come back with a vengeance next fall.

Don't even get me started on my lectures to Mick about using hand sanitizer in his dealings with the public in his clinic. And you'd better believe I'm pushing the face mask...


Some additional info to consider if you've read this far:
Hand sanitizer hoax
Hand sanitizers need 60% alcohol to be effective

SWINE FLU AND OTHER BUGS THAT NEED A CURE

That poor little boy in Texas. Two years old, from Mexico. I feel awful for his grieving parents, for his grieving and frightened community. What a tragedy.

With Swine Flu possibly sweeping the globe, his fate - and the fates of everyone else potentially infected - is in the forefronts of our minds. The spread of Swine Flu not only brings up the vulnerability we have as human beings who can catch disease from each other, it also brings up a glitch in our current health care system.

A couple springs ago I wrote an essay that aired on the radio, about a life-threatening experience we had with Aubrey in the hospital. With her health and welfare hanging in the balance, and no money in the bank to afford medical bills, we were able to get free emergency and hospital care, thanks to our government.

That experience taught me that I believe all children - and really, all people - deserve access to health care, without the fear that they'll be sent into financial ruin.

That experience helped me personally understand these significant glitches in our current system:

*Studies show that when people wait to see if they can get by without paying a doctor, waiting and hoping the health condition will blow over, they actually end up spending more of their money - or the public's - by using the Emergency Room when the condition worsens. All people need to be able to see a doctor without fearing financial ruin.

*50% of all employed Americans don't have sick days. That means a lot of people are going to work while they're sick, and spreading infections. All people need "sick days" so this sad and ridiculous practice can end.

I just found out that insurance companies are backing a conservative push to avoid nationalized health care. I think this is a huge mistake. I'm not picking on conservatives here, I'm actually furious that insurance companies are pulling the strings -- I'm asking that conservatives look at how our current health care system still leaves poor people poor and without access to a basic human right to seek and obtain health care for the ailing; it also leaves the middle class in a bind, paying out of pocket or going into debt beyond their means.

I know for a fact that most dental student families while we were at UoP utilized California's health care benefits for their children and for pregnant mothers -- where would they have been without this?

Our government is seeking solutions to a crazy problem in America, and to let insurance companies set the tone seems ridiculous to me. We need to take care of each other. We need to care. We need to make sure everyone gets a fair shake - at least in the area of health care, a basic human need.

And, if that's not self-focused enough, people should at least look at it in terms of self-interest: do we really want co-workers coming to work with a fever, or food-handlers serving meals with a cold, or cashiers handing out change if they're at work because they can't take a sick day?

The current national health care dilemma hasn't been adequately resolved. Why don't we give this administration a chance to put the brightest minds, the most experienced people on it? Why kowtow to insurance companies? Why not try a solution that gives everyone access to the health care they deserve - regardless of economic or other status?

SACRAMENTO FOR A DAY
SPRING BREAK

Warning: This could be a formatting nightmare, but I lack the patience to work that out.

And so, Sacramento. This was our first trip there, the day I testified. You can see the excitement.

I made sure Dane and Aubrey worked their energy out first. Here they are doing jumping jacks in the capitol's hallowed halls.

They were terrific during the hearing. (We were in there an hour before I spoke.) We came armed with pages of homemade stapled books, where each page had something bizarre on it, like "Chipmunks Ice Skating," "A Goat Wearing sweatpants and sweatbands," "A Turtle Climbing a Tree," and "A Dog Drinking a Latte and Driving a Car" and then the kids had to read and draw the image. The pictures turned out really cool and I've saved the books.

Of course, we stopped in front of the Governor's office, which the public had officially changed to read: Governor Schwarzenegger - even though no other governor's individual name had ever been displayed.

After the hearing, we had a per diem from Children Now for $10 each. Mick looked up a "reputable" coffee joint before we left, so we hung out (literally, see photos) for a while eating good sandwiches and drinking tasty drinks.

With our bellies full, we walked to Old Sacramento (Old Sac). Between walking from our parked van to the capitol, from the capitol to the coffee joint, and then into Old Sac and finally back to the van, we probably put in a good 5 miles. Sometimes that was a bit of a stretch but it all felt like part of the adventure. The kids made up this (repetitive) song "Oooold Sac-ra-men-to," which they were even singing as they fell asleep on the drive home.

Old Sac began with a stop at a donut shop - which meant we stopped there again the second trip to Old Sac (in late April for the media event) because it's now "what we do."

After that, we checked out the Pony Express tribute (see photo statue) and the kids were surprised that the mail ever traveled without a motorized vehicle, and that there weren't roads. Come to think of it, I have a hard time grasping that concept, too.

The kids liked the replica of an old one-room schoolhouse.

We spent a fair amount of time playing school - looking through the primers, writing on slates, pumping at the water pump.

We saved the big train museum for our next visit.

SO HAPPY I DON'T GET TV...

Spent yesterday at the capitol. Gave my testimony to the press re: Medi-Cal coverage for children. That all went fine, and I gave my formal speech to the media, but right beforehand, NBC wanted an interview.

Ever had an interview as your first conversation of the morning with a bright light shining in your eyes and a 7-year-old boy behind you, grabbing your shoulders and jumping up so he can be on camera, too?

Yeah, I'm sure I was pretty darned impressive.

I was hopeful it just ran as a text article, which is what I found here, (and I'm quoted only briefly, mid-article) but Aubrey's assistant teacher told Aubrey she saw us on the news last night.

I haven't had the chance to ask her what it was like. Not sure I want to, actually.

Overall, though, it was good, once again, to be part of efforts to make a difference in health care coverage for all children.

And I got to wear this really cool MomsRising t-shirt I've had my eye on for a year. (<--That's not me.)

An Activist In The Making?

The Writing Mamas published another blog of mine. Aubrey's recent hospital stay stretched me to think a little more politically, which shows up in "Emergency," the April 11 blog at

http://www.writingmamassalon.blogspot.com

I wrote another call to action blog for the Writing Mamas on April 4, but you'll see I was just getting warmed up at that point.