Monthly Archive for September, 2007

Cindy Ramer, a nursing assistant and powerful advocate for affordable health insurance, is a member of the Iowa CareGivers Association (ICA), which is spearheading the Iowa Health Care for Health Care Workers campaign. She has testified in many venues about her experience of having been bankrupted by medical costs.The September 26 hearing was hosted by former Governors Tom Vilsack and Terry Branstad.

Cindy Ramer
Public Hearing on Health Care Reform hosted by Governor Branstad and Governor Vilsack
September 26, 2007

Good evening Governor Branstad and Governor Vilsack and thank you for the opportunity to talk with you this evening.

At your first public meeting in Council Bluffs, you were given a packet of information by Kealy Andersen, a Certified Nurse Assistant from Shenandoah. Contained in that packet was a DVD featuring the stories of three direct care workers (wmv).

I am one of those workers. My name is Cindy Ramer, a CNA from Denver, Iowa. I, like Kealy, serve on the Leadership Council of the Iowa CareGivers Association, and I am proud to represent them here this evening.

I have told my story on numerous occasions over the past 2 years. Each time it becomes a little easier for me to tell it. While it gets easier, the story never gets better. It always ends the same way, with a result that is very sad, very difficult, and very unacceptable.

The short version of the story is this:

Several years ago my husband was working for a small construction company and I in direct care, we did not have health coverage at that time. My husband was diagnosed with diabetes which subsequently affected his heart. He went through surgery. The cost forced us to file bankruptcy. On November 6, 2005, he suffered a massive heart attack and passed away. Since then, I have had to deal with the loss of my life partner and the debts left behind by his illness and death.

Due to the medical debts I carry, I cannot see my family physician until I can at least pay off the smaller bills owed for my own health care needs.

I am a Baby Boomer fast approaching retirement age, who needs some answers on solving these problems. The thing I want to stress to you is this…this should never happen in Iowa. Whether it’s me as a direct care worker, or anyone else, NONE of us should be put in a position where we go without adequate and affordable health care, where we are forced to file bankruptcy due to medical debt, and where we are treated as a second class citizen and actually denied the opportunity for necessary medical care.

“Our hope is that the conversation that has been focused on how to pay for long-term-care services will expand into a conversation about the availability of long-term-care services. If it does not, we may be spending a great deal of time trying to find better ways to pay for services that won’t exist,” writes John Hale, policy director of the Iowa CareGivers Association (ICA), in today’s issue of the Des Moines Register.

In his opinion piece, Hale calls on Iowa residents to “work together on how to make jobs in long-term-care good jobs.” The long-term care system may collapse, he warns, if workers are not paid better, offered retirement plans, and provided affordable health insurance.

The ICA is spearheading the HCHCW campaign’s efforts in Iowa.

Tameshia Bridges, Health Care for Health Care Workers’ Michigan Senior Health Policy Analyst, spoke today at a forum (pdf) on how to secure better health care coverage for Michigan’s direct-care workers.

Bridges was joined by Jeff Fortenbacher, executive director of Access Health Inc., who explained how to direct-care workers in Muskegon and North Ottawa counties can secure health care coverage through Access Health.

The forum took place at the Grand Valley State University MAREC Center in Muskegon.

People from all over Pennsylvania will gather in Harrisburg on October 2 for a lobby day and 1 p.m. rally in support of the proposed Cover All Pennsylvanians health care reform plan. The plan would offer low cost health insurance to all residents of the state.

For more information, contact Tracy Lawless of PHI’s Health Care for Health Care Workers campaign at tlawless@paraprofessional.org or 724-933-6164. The rally is sponsored by Pennsylvanians United for Affordable Health Care.

A recent story in the Scranton Times-Tribune describes efforts by Rep. Todd Eachus (D-Butler Township) to address “a wide scope of health care issues,” including coverage for the uninsured. As chairman of the majority House Democrats’ policy committee, Eachus will work with his Democratic colleagues to focus on health care issues raised by Governor Rendell’s Prescription for Pennsylvania plan this fall, including the Cover All Pennsylvanians (CAP) health care reform plan. Parts of the plan were passed into law this spring, including legislation to reduce hospital acquired infections and to change the scope of practice for nurses. The primary issue to be debated this fall is whether and how to provide health insurance to almost 800,000 Pennsylvania adults who don’t have it. The funding sources proposed for the bill include a “fair share” assessment for employers who do not offer health insurance.

“It is simply wrong that so many people who provide care for others do not get care themselves because they do not have any health insurance or because the insurance they do have fails to meet their needs,” direct-care worker Kealy Andersen, a member of the Iowa CareGivers Association, told a group of special commissioners studying health care in Iowa. “The work we do is among the most important in society. We deserve good health coverage.”

A story in today’s SW Iowa News describes testimony from Andersen and others at a Council Bluffs public hearing held by the Legislative Commission on Affordable Health Care Plans for Small Businesses and Families. The commission was created by the Iowa Legislature to make recommendations on how to improve health care access and affordability to all Iowans. Its final report is due to lawmakers next year.

“The quality of care provided to our family members, friends and neighbors in health and long term care settings directly relates to the stability of the workforce,” Andersen told the commissioners. “If we have a revolving door of people entering and leaving the field – in large part due to the lack of adequate and affordable health care benefits – the quality of care provided will never be what we want it to be.”