Comments on: Notes From The Real World: Budget Crises? http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/ Firedoglake weblog Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:08:47 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: acquarius74 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1731658 acquarius74 Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:13:31 +0000 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1731658 <p>AZ Matt, I will send your wife a check for $40.00 per month to provide bananas and whatever else she chooses for her kindergarten children. You can respond to me at wingspread257atearthlink dot net.</p> <p>I was a Depression kid and have known hunger.</p> AZ Matt, I will send your wife a check for $40.00 per month to provide bananas and whatever else she chooses for her kindergarten children. You can respond to me at wingspread257atearthlink dot net.

I was a Depression kid and have known hunger.

]]> By: sparafucilli http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730516 sparafucilli Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:46:35 +0000 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730516 <p>I’d really like to see an analysis of the current Wall Street crisis and bailout in respect to impact on the personal investments of US Senators and Representatives.</p> I’d really like to see an analysis of the current Wall Street crisis and bailout in respect to impact on the personal investments of US Senators and Representatives.

]]> By: Knut http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730126 Knut Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:45:44 +0000 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730126 <p>Excellent point. Make it again and again. Jim Tobin taught us that one, and I never forgot it.</p> Excellent point. Make it again and again. Jim Tobin taught us that one, and I never forgot it.

]]> By: kairosincal http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730058 kairosincal Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:14:03 +0000 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730058 <p>Thanks Christy,I really appreciate your sharing some realities.<br /> Here in California an historic law suit decision about inadequate prison health care stuns us with the projected costs of billions for building thousands of new hospital beds for the horrendously overcrowded system because of an aging, chronic illness and mental health problem population. </p> <p>In the meantime, state medicaid and county indigent care services are being cut in programs that are obscenely deficient in basic health care services and whose doctors are unconscionably ignorant about treating some critical and rapidly growing health crises, particularly in regard to peripheral neuropathy. </p> <p>As a volunteer health care educator and advocate for and with folks who have peripheral neuropathy, I’ve talked with a couple of hundred folks over the last 18 months who responded to public awareness posters placed on public buses in two counties in northern California. Virtually all were poor. They were either on MediCal, the even more limited county indigent care programs; but some had no health care at all beyond emergency care. In any case, they and their doctors knew virtually nothing about how to diagnose or treat neuropathy (which is also true for most doctors who are treating well insured middle class folks). The consequent here and now time suffering of all these PN sufferers breaks my heart and I know that the eventual costs in disability will be even greater because there was no or totally inadequate care from the past and into the future. </p> <p>Today’s news brings word that the Lewin Group now estimates that the present and projected costs of Diabetes was $218 billion last year. We know that some 50-60% of all aging diabetics will eventually have diabetic neuropathy. Because most will have no access to effective health care for their neuropathy, the probability of massive amputations from that lack of proper care will be enormous and inevitable. </p> <p>While I pray for universal health care, I must also pray and work for fundamental education to train doctors in the diagnosis and care of folks with neuropathy. I asked a highly placed clinician/teacher at<br /> UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento (who had had a weekly column on health issues in the Sacramento Bee) to come speak to our Davis neuropathy support group about how medical students there are being trained to diagnose and treat neuropathy. He said he had no idea, and furthermore said that he knew of no one on the faculty or clinical staff who really knew neuropathy or even cared. I wept at his assessment. What I knew was that there was one clinician/researcher neurologist on the faculty, who functions as a kind of forensic neurologist and is really quite brilliant on neuropathy issues. But I also know that access to him is like pulling hen’s teeth. </p> <p>And most most neurologists are trained in many other kinds of neurological disorders (like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis, etc) but NOT neuropathy. And yet it is estimated that we have some 20 million folks in the US with some 100 various forms/types of neuropathy from some 200 known causes. And while diabetes is the cause of some one-third of us, most doctors only know about that connection, but don’t really know how to treat it or that some of their most commonly prescribed treatments for various chronic conditions are causing more and more neuropathy, not the least of which are chemo/radiation therapies, and statins. </p> <p>For example, this last week has seen the trumpeting call for treating practically any and everyone with statins, which we know causes myopathy, a muscle weakness that is common with some forms of neuropathy. But then there are so many billions of dollars tied up in the marketing of these medications to an ever widening proportion of the public, regardless of the side effects or the alternative treatment modalities that could eliminate the need for such medications.</p> <p>IN my heart I know that our medical system is so grossly, criminally negligent on so many levels, in so many ways, that I weep with despair over the enormity of the problems and how to make a dent. It is not enough to begin to educate PNers (those with various peripheral neuropathies) one by one or in small groups, when there are hundreds, thousands of us in our small communities that we won’t reach.</p> <p>Thanks to the advocacy work of the Neuropathy Action Foundation, the California legislature this year created a task force to begin to establish some principles and goals for educating the public, doctors and patients about neuropathy and the desperate need for early diagnosis and treatment. </p> <p>Knowing the values of some of the principle constituencies to be involved<br /> in a three-four month process, I have only marginal hope that they will produce a truly comprehensive package of recommendations. And then who knows when there will ever be funding to implement those recommendations, given California’s ongoing fiscal crises, never mind the prospects for the now certain national recession.</p> <p>So, thanks, again, Christy, for reminding us of some of the bottom line realities of our world and letting me share my concern with the FDL community. Blessings to all,</p> Thanks Christy,I really appreciate your sharing some realities.
Here in California an historic law suit decision about inadequate prison health care stuns us with the projected costs of billions for building thousands of new hospital beds for the horrendously overcrowded system because of an aging, chronic illness and mental health problem population.

In the meantime, state medicaid and county indigent care services are being cut in programs that are obscenely deficient in basic health care services and whose doctors are unconscionably ignorant about treating some critical and rapidly growing health crises, particularly in regard to peripheral neuropathy.

As a volunteer health care educator and advocate for and with folks who have peripheral neuropathy, I’ve talked with a couple of hundred folks over the last 18 months who responded to public awareness posters placed on public buses in two counties in northern California. Virtually all were poor. They were either on MediCal, the even more limited county indigent care programs; but some had no health care at all beyond emergency care. In any case, they and their doctors knew virtually nothing about how to diagnose or treat neuropathy (which is also true for most doctors who are treating well insured middle class folks). The consequent here and now time suffering of all these PN sufferers breaks my heart and I know that the eventual costs in disability will be even greater because there was no or totally inadequate care from the past and into the future.

Today’s news brings word that the Lewin Group now estimates that the present and projected costs of Diabetes was $218 billion last year. We know that some 50-60% of all aging diabetics will eventually have diabetic neuropathy. Because most will have no access to effective health care for their neuropathy, the probability of massive amputations from that lack of proper care will be enormous and inevitable.

While I pray for universal health care, I must also pray and work for fundamental education to train doctors in the diagnosis and care of folks with neuropathy. I asked a highly placed clinician/teacher at
UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento (who had had a weekly column on health issues in the Sacramento Bee) to come speak to our Davis neuropathy support group about how medical students there are being trained to diagnose and treat neuropathy. He said he had no idea, and furthermore said that he knew of no one on the faculty or clinical staff who really knew neuropathy or even cared. I wept at his assessment. What I knew was that there was one clinician/researcher neurologist on the faculty, who functions as a kind of forensic neurologist and is really quite brilliant on neuropathy issues. But I also know that access to him is like pulling hen’s teeth.

And most most neurologists are trained in many other kinds of neurological disorders (like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis, etc) but NOT neuropathy. And yet it is estimated that we have some 20 million folks in the US with some 100 various forms/types of neuropathy from some 200 known causes. And while diabetes is the cause of some one-third of us, most doctors only know about that connection, but don’t really know how to treat it or that some of their most commonly prescribed treatments for various chronic conditions are causing more and more neuropathy, not the least of which are chemo/radiation therapies, and statins.

For example, this last week has seen the trumpeting call for treating practically any and everyone with statins, which we know causes myopathy, a muscle weakness that is common with some forms of neuropathy. But then there are so many billions of dollars tied up in the marketing of these medications to an ever widening proportion of the public, regardless of the side effects or the alternative treatment modalities that could eliminate the need for such medications.

IN my heart I know that our medical system is so grossly, criminally negligent on so many levels, in so many ways, that I weep with despair over the enormity of the problems and how to make a dent. It is not enough to begin to educate PNers (those with various peripheral neuropathies) one by one or in small groups, when there are hundreds, thousands of us in our small communities that we won’t reach.

Thanks to the advocacy work of the Neuropathy Action Foundation, the California legislature this year created a task force to begin to establish some principles and goals for educating the public, doctors and patients about neuropathy and the desperate need for early diagnosis and treatment.

Knowing the values of some of the principle constituencies to be involved
in a three-four month process, I have only marginal hope that they will produce a truly comprehensive package of recommendations. And then who knows when there will ever be funding to implement those recommendations, given California’s ongoing fiscal crises, never mind the prospects for the now certain national recession.

So, thanks, again, Christy, for reminding us of some of the bottom line realities of our world and letting me share my concern with the FDL community. Blessings to all,

]]> By: DeadLast http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730038 DeadLast Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:05:14 +0000 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730038 <p>I hear you.</p> I hear you.

]]> By: Audrey http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730020 Audrey Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:51:37 +0000 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730020 <p>Bravo! Well said! I used to tell my son (may he RIP), it’s a race thing.</p> Bravo! Well said! I used to tell my son (may he RIP), it’s a race thing.

]]> By: Phoenix Woman http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730014 Phoenix Woman Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:48:04 +0000 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1730014 <p>Cat, there hasn’t been a real middle class in America for about two decades now. There’s been a class of people using their credit cards to try and live as well as their parents did. That started crashing down three years ago.</p> Cat, there hasn’t been a real middle class in America for about two decades now. There’s been a class of people using their credit cards to try and live as well as their parents did. That started crashing down three years ago.

]]> By: mntleo2 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1729973 mntleo2 Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:33:51 +0000 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1729973 <p>Over and over for the poor, the middle class are now seeing what the poor has seen for decades. As an activist for years, I am alarmed because I do not want my middle class compatriots see what I have seen, but I am also kind of in wonder because this is not news for the ones who have been struggling all along. When Welfare Reform was enacted in 1996, which WAS the entitlement that came out of Social Security that is no longer an entitlement, we activists warned that if the economy turned down, the meager safety net Welfare Reform left for anyone falling down that rat hole, would leave nothing for them. But the middle class at that time stood up and applauded Welfare Reform, because welfare was in truth a racial issue, even though more whites were turning to it than people of color. God forbid that low income women with few resources, should have the audacity to use it to get a leg up and get an education like over 80% of them did. Welfare Reform was written by Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation elitist who was outraged when he met some “uppity” women in DC who were doing just that ~ getting an education and bettering themselves after having fled Virginia towns where they would have faced dire and utter lifelong poverty. I am not saying that Welfare is the “answer” but I AM saying that myopic and elitist thinking caused this mess, where welfare for the rich was just fine but anything helping a struggling family was not ~ and in 1996, welfare was 4% of the budget while the military in peace time took almost half and welfare for the rich was thousands of times more than welfare for the poor ever had. The poor then and at this time pay on the average of 17-19% of their income in taxes, the wealthy less than 5% ~ and that 5% of one rich family could feed hundreds of families all by itself. There are people right here who knew this was coming. Unfortunately, when we activists tried to warn our communities, our legislators and our neighbors, we were laughed off and told it would never happen (really I heard that straight from a Democrat’s mouth in 2000). We tried to tell our middle class folks THEY were next, but they would not believe us. Why don’t we listen now to what they have to say because there ARE some good ideas out there that just might work from folks who have been working for decades trying to fix what was broken even more in 1996? And I am not just talking about my community, I know people all over this nation trying to tell their communities the same thing. </p> <p>Just asking …</p> <p>Cat In Seattle P.O.W.E.R. member (People for Welfare and Economic Rights, Olympia, WA).</p> Over and over for the poor, the middle class are now seeing what the poor has seen for decades. As an activist for years, I am alarmed because I do not want my middle class compatriots see what I have seen, but I am also kind of in wonder because this is not news for the ones who have been struggling all along. When Welfare Reform was enacted in 1996, which WAS the entitlement that came out of Social Security that is no longer an entitlement, we activists warned that if the economy turned down, the meager safety net Welfare Reform left for anyone falling down that rat hole, would leave nothing for them. But the middle class at that time stood up and applauded Welfare Reform, because welfare was in truth a racial issue, even though more whites were turning to it than people of color. God forbid that low income women with few resources, should have the audacity to use it to get a leg up and get an education like over 80% of them did. Welfare Reform was written by Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation elitist who was outraged when he met some “uppity” women in DC who were doing just that ~ getting an education and bettering themselves after having fled Virginia towns where they would have faced dire and utter lifelong poverty. I am not saying that Welfare is the “answer” but I AM saying that myopic and elitist thinking caused this mess, where welfare for the rich was just fine but anything helping a struggling family was not ~ and in 1996, welfare was 4% of the budget while the military in peace time took almost half and welfare for the rich was thousands of times more than welfare for the poor ever had. The poor then and at this time pay on the average of 17-19% of their income in taxes, the wealthy less than 5% ~ and that 5% of one rich family could feed hundreds of families all by itself. There are people right here who knew this was coming. Unfortunately, when we activists tried to warn our communities, our legislators and our neighbors, we were laughed off and told it would never happen (really I heard that straight from a Democrat’s mouth in 2000). We tried to tell our middle class folks THEY were next, but they would not believe us. Why don’t we listen now to what they have to say because there ARE some good ideas out there that just might work from folks who have been working for decades trying to fix what was broken even more in 1996? And I am not just talking about my community, I know people all over this nation trying to tell their communities the same thing.

Just asking …

Cat In Seattle P.O.W.E.R. member (People for Welfare and Economic Rights, Olympia, WA).

]]> By: Audrey http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1729948 Audrey Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:23:35 +0000 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1729948 <p>Thank you! (((klynn)))</p> Thank you! (((klynn)))

]]> By: Audrey http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1729945 Audrey Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:22:53 +0000 http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/notes-from-the-real-world-budget-crises/#comment-1729945 <p>Through the contact page?</p> Through the contact page?

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