Cross Posted at American Patients United.org

Donna Smith, American Sicko gives her perspective on the inside story of the Democratic Platform meetings- Everybody In Nobody Out.

In Pittsburgh, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) platform committee unanimously voted to add the language "guaranteed healthcare for every man, woman and child in America" to its Party platform. This breakthrough wasn’t supposed to happen except that a few committed people chose to get involved. I was there — and I mean as one of the people who negotiated the changes in language with Rep. John Conyers and DNC platform committee member Bob Remer of Chicago.

How did one middle-aged grandma from Chicago insert a voice for patients — OK, demanded that our voice be inserted — well the following is a first hand account of 27 hours on the ground in Pittsburgh. I can tell you that there probably was a little nodding to the Clinton camp and some hope to quiet the single payer rumblings, but the more significant outcomes are yet to be realized from our effort - That is if we who are in this for the long haul grab this moment and this victory and make it our own.

By Donna Smith
American SiCKO
National Co-Chair, PDA Healthcare Not Warfare campaign

CLEVELAND -- It was the last place I thought I would feel marginalized as a patient or a citizen.  But perhaps it was first place I should have expected it during a campaign season all about controlling the message.

My Party's platform planning committee didn't want to hear from me or from any voice that diverged even in small ways from the carefully orchestrated message of the elite in our midst. So when the "listening tour" came to its crescendo on Friday in Cleveland, there were no high or low voices, no off-key notes, simply safe and easily digested harmony.

The stanchions and velvet ropes that separated the audience from the Democratic National Committee's platform planning committee members on Friday were  not necessary for crowd control -- but certainly required for mind control and message control.  

"We are the DNC -- you are not.  We are the powers that be -- you are not. We are in the front of the room and controlling every moment of this open and inclusive listening tour -- you are not. We are special enough to be heard -- you are not."

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Founder,American Patients United
National Co-Chair,PDA's Healthcare Not Warfare campaign
Communications Specialist, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee

CHICAGO -- Today is the day to celebrate the 43rd anniversary of the Medicare program in the U.S.  And it is the day to rededicate ourselves to the passage of true healthcare reform in America.

Those of us fighting the reform battle see every day the ravages of a system run amok with greed and protected by the power and influence only huge amounts of cash can buy.  

Sick Americans are dying needlessly. Sick Americans are going broke needlessly. Sick Americans are losing homes needlessly. These suffering sick Americans are often insured with private policies that promise access to care and financial protections but fail to deliver when illness strikes. But sick Americans covered under Medicare do not face the same brutal trauma. Thank God.

Take action today and call your Congressional representative to tell them you want every American covered -- everybody in and nobody out -- healthcare for all. Call toll free: 1-866-338-1015.

But the times have changed, my friends...  

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO,
Communications specialist, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee

Tomorrow I'll have my third colonoscopy.  Twice before, precancerous polyps have been found and removed, so my schedule for testing is every three years.  That three years goes by way too fast.  I know the screenings are life-saving for many, but I still hate them.  And my hatred goes well beyond my dislike of the preps necessary.  

As a uterine cancer survivor and an insured American who was financially devastated after illness, my cancer checks are always fraught with a bit of trepidation and a lot of projecting.  

But private, for-profit insurance leaves me exposed -- and worse still, it leaves millions and millions of unsuspecting insureds wide open to financial ruin.  On the eve of my screening, this is what I think about.

What if I have cancer again?  What if the insurance doesn't pay for something? And then beyond... What if I miss work?  What if we have to move again?  What if the bills pile up?

American Sicko Donna Smith gave the keynote address at the National Health Care for the Homeless annual conference in Phoenix. She is the founder of American Patients United and we now have the video available for those who couldn't be there. It is cross posted at americanpatientsunited.org

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Founder of American Patients United
National Co-Chair, PDA Healthcare Not Warfare campaign
Communications Specialist, CNA/NNOC

CHICAGO – I read it moments ago.  In black and white.  Mainstream media.  CNN website.  It was said publically at a fundraiser in New York City today.  Sen. Barack Obama said it with Sen. Hillary Clinton at his side.  And no one denied it.  In fact, people clapped.

According to the CNN report, Sen. Obama urged today  "standing up for paid leave, and paid sick leave, because no one should be punished for getting sick or dealing with a family crisis."

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist for CNA/NNOC

Well, well... It’s America’s birthday.  I love the 4th of July and the fireworks and the hot dogs and the summer sun.

And it is my hubby’s birthday on July 7, so this is a great time of the year for us.  But imagine my surprise and disgust when I opened an early birthday card he received just yesterday from, guess who?  Humana.  The health insurance giant that currently holds Larry’s Medicare "advantage" plan and is helping dismantle Medicare one private policy at a time.

The company wants Larry to have a happy and healthy birthday.  You bet they do.  And they send those pretty, glossy cards to one helluva lot of Medicare folks.
 

The New York Times reported in April 2008, "Two companies, UnitedHealth Group and Humana, have captured nearly half of the vast new market for prescription drug insurance under Medicare, according to new data issued Friday by the Bush administration."  That’s 2.4 million Humana held Medicare drug plans and another 792,500 in Humana-Medicare "advantage" policies.

I was going to post it in an open thread but the drift of the current open thread is frivolous and this is too serious to put there (and I want it to be seen.) Nyceve's posts have been eye-opening and shocking. This is absolutely horrifying. The fact that this has happened before is just beyond
words.

Remember idiot Bush's infamous statement that people, "...could always go to the emergency room"?

This is a unique time for single payer in Illinois.
...it’s all in the timing.

We have a single payer powerhouse in veteran legislator Rep. Mary Flowers who has made it her mission to provide everyone in Illinois access to health care. It also helps to be the chair the Health Care Access Committe.

This weekend she barnstormed northeastern Illinois to continue the passionate discussion on her single payer bill, HB 311.

This lady wants single payer for Illinois in 6 months not 6 years.  
She cares personally and professionally about this issue and wants to make this a single payer summer.

Educate.
Fight the fear...
And take care of her little state right here.
Saturday, June 28, the second in a series of statewide hearings on HB took place in McHenry.

I couldn’t make it, but my gruff but loveable correspondent Ozzie made the trip and recorded it for me and for you...

I pass the mic.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist, CNA/NNOC

CHICAGO – It’s a week of bad news for my friends and extended family.  I am almost afraid to answer the phone or open the emails.  Three people I care about. Three new cancer diagnoses. Bone, lung, breast.  Surgery, radiation and chemo coming down the pike.
 
And awash in a system gone mad for money, these patients will become cancer survivors – like me – not because they’ve been born with or bestowed with the human right to be treated when ill, but because their various health coverage plans allow it.  At least that’s what I pray today for them, because that's what I must pray for them.

Last week, none of these wonderful souls had any idea they would hear the words, "You have cancer." Each was ensconced in the stuff of everyday life: jobs, marriages, gasoline prices and watching the endless coverage of the presidential race.  Then their worlds did a three-sixty.

In an instant. It truly could be any one of us at any time.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist for CNA/NNOC

I've got news for you out there in the healthcare reform movement -- the movement that recognizes the value of every human life!

The news from this week of protests has been phenomenal. Visit the links below.  See what your fellow citizens are doing.  Comment on blog sites. Spread the day of action into many more days of action.

Lives depend on it.  We are good people with good hearts and minds.  Let's move it forward.  Single payer (publicly funded, privately delivered) healthcare now!

The SICKO Effect Wears On and On and On:

June 19, 2008, National Day of Action Against Private Health Insurance Industry

While many of us attended the huge protest in San Francisco with pre-made signs and a Dixieland Jazz Band marching us in to the strains of "When the Saints Go Marching In" and a cheering crowd of thousands with press circulating and coalitions of activists grabbing the spotlight,  one of our American SiCKOs who is also one of our board members for American Patients United, held a very different kind of protest action.  By herself.  In Detroit.  Where Rep. John Conyers, D-MI, the father of HR676, The National Health Insurance Act, has his offices and where one would think a crowd would gather to cheer on a young woman of such courage, an American SiCKO stood alone.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee

   So, a year has passed since Michael Moore's much anticipated film, SiCKO, was released in the United States.  The film debuted with great fanfare and with teams of nurses in bright red scrubs and health reform activists all over the nation passing out leaflets and trying to push the reach of the film deep into the nation's psyche.  

Oh, how we wanted this film -- and the SiCKO effect -- to immediately throw open the gates of the kingdom and free us all from the greed and the pain and the pressure and uncertainty of our futures under the current U.S. healthcare non-system.

    The reality is that one year later, some of us are still working our hearts out to make good on all that promise felt before the release of the film, and some of us still believe what Michael said: that basically Americans are good people and generous people and that we will eventually change this system into one that is just and compassionate, fiscally responsible and sound.

Donna Smith, American SiCKO gave a rousing speech to over 1000 people at the National Health Care For the Homeless Conference today in Phoenix.

For those of you who have seen Michael Moore’s movie, SiCKO, you know that my husband and I lost our home in South Dakota after suffering through years of healthcare related financial trauma and finding no way to hang on.

We are filmed moving into our daughter’s small storage room or computer room or spare office or whatever you’d like to term it. And you see our youngest son confronting us about our situation. He asks us: "What Do We Do With People Like You?"

From Michael Moore's website (via The Livingston Daily Press and Argus):

A woman featured prominently in Michael Moore's 2007 health-care documentary, "Sicko," is running as a Democrat this fall against Republican Livingston County Commissioner Dave Domas.

Adrian Campbell Montgomery, a 2000 Hartland High School graduate, moved from Oakland County back to Hartland Township this year and is already hoping to make an impact locally.

"One thing is the roads — I think that they need major attention, as well as our health department. Of course, that's obviously in my heart," said Montgomery, 26. "Another thing is the senior centers in the county. I really feel that they need more focus on expanding some of them, the buildings, if possible."

She already has a platform (infrastucture and health care)! Too cool.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, Communications Specialist for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee
CHICAGO—We used to get annoyed when the admission desk at the hospital would hold us up from getting care with the co-pay collection effort, but now the world of medical finance and consumerism is about to take a giant leap forward.  Co-pay collections of the early 21st century will seem mild and meek, and we patients will more formally and openly be viewed as earnings units and revenue streams... unless we act forcefully and quickly to alter the coming reality.
 
    Shocked as we might pretend to be, we have been a party to the transition as we have stood by and watched as so many of our fellow citizens went without access to care at all – 47 million fellow citizens uninsured.  Fifty million more under-insured. And the rest of us annoyed with the process but silently and slightly smug about our own insured status – else we would have been marching in the streets, screaming for change and fighting for one another and the human right that is our healthcare.

As a patient and the wife of a patient struggling to endure the for-profit medical system, I often hear from other patients who share their frustrations.  And though my husband and I lost everything we worked more than three decades for (even our home and our dignity), I can still sometimes thank God we had our children before the American medical system made its full, ugly twist toward protecting profits over people.  
               Now, patients and their families are often making larger life choices based solely on their health insurance picture and planning for the worst possible outcomes.  The land of hope and dreams that America offered to many to give our children better than what we were given ourselves has given way to something very different.

Well, I finally watched "Sicko."  I loved it, but I knew I would because I have loved all of Michael Moore's films.
Anyway, I wrote a diary a few weeks ago about what to do about my uterine fibroid tumor.....
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