A Prairie Health Companion: Alternative Insurance?

The online Health Care Exchange approaches. What will change? Will you exchange your health insurance?

 Open enrollment for coverage plans is typically in November, and 14 food co-ops in the Twin Cities, 150 Credit Union Co-ops in Minnesota, and over 300 members of Small Business Minnesota are being targeted by a new campaign to switch to a Consumer-Operated and –Oriented Plan for employee health care.

The Pro’s:

• No one can be denied health care coverage for being too fat, too skinny, or sick, per recent federal law
• The Co-Op option being organized in Minneapolis, called A Prairie Health Companion, will be hiring. It’s welcoming new Board members and citizens’ input, as well as new customers and employees

The Con’s:

• Small businesses that never offered employees insurance before will soon meet with the complications of this requirement, amid other changes
• $6 million that would’ve funded start-up loans for health care Co-Ops across the country was cut from the Affordable Care Act when Congress cowered before the fiscal cliff in December
• The new Minneapolis-based Co-Op will be a cheap option, but not so cheap that those receiving state-funded health coverage could switch over to it

 I spoke with someone who’s been educating Minnesotans about co-operative health care pools for years, Joel Albers, Ph.D. of health economics.

He said that Medica, Preferred One, Health Partners and the Blue Cross are using deceptive marketing to make people feel like they have power as individuals, using specific people as an emblem for their product.

One example is the real, down-to-earth smiling face on Medica billboards and bus signage, next to the title “Medica. Changing the Face of Health Care.”

You won’t see CEO David Tilford’s face on these advertisements, because they seem to appeal to Everyman. “That’s not what insurance is about,” Albers told the Daily Planet.

“Choice is a word for ‘We’re going to make this as complicated as possible.’ They don’t want to simplify it.”

 The virtual health care exchange that will open in October 2013 should make enrollment and comparison-shopping simple—for those who are comfortable using the Internet to make that decision. It depends, in part, on the insurance agencies’ communication strategies too. Will Minnesotans see them all at the state fair again, sponsoring tents and booths where everyone lines up for a free flu shot?

What will the established agencies do to fight for your business,  now that at least one start-up co-op or agency  will be competing in the same small virtual arena? Spokespeople for Medica and the Blue Cross of Minnesota declined to comment on their strategies. Preferred One and Health Partners could not be reached for comment.

“90% of the market-share is the Big Four,” explained Albers. He and other concerned citizens in the Universal Health Care Action Network have fought this sort of monopoly over the years, with protests, parades, radical education and advocacy of single-payer health care. Now UH-CAN’s focus is Co-op Care. “We’re building something, that’s our way of fighting. We can depend only on ourselves.”

 It hadn’t worked out to depend on legislative changes at the state level, when, in April 2011, UH-CAN, the Minnesota Nurses’ Association, and the Older Women’s League stood up for state Senator John Marty’s Bill SF 1054. It would’ve compounded the state-funded health programs and replaced $3 Billion in HMO contracts, cutting out the middle-man administrating health care for the poor. A single-payer health care solution had had more momentum between 2008 and 2011 than it had for decades, and a proponent of single-payer health care, Ed Ehlinger, was even instated as the Commissioner of the Department of Health. But Marty’s bill still did not gain traction,  and those receiving state-funded health care stuck with the HMO’s.

 I remember getting big heavy books in the mail detailing different insurance agencies, when I was on Minnesota Care in 2009. The agencies awaited my choice. I went with UCare, glancing through their provider network booklet and HealthPartners’—and not thinking about which would rip off the state more.

Insurance agencies still compete for those customers covered by state funding, though there’s less dental, vision and preventative care covered than before the September 2010 cuts from Minnesota’s money for the poor and sick. The state was trying to balance its budget in 2010 and the General Assistance Medical Care program was cut more than 75%, barely avoiding elimination altogether. GAMC and Minnesota Care used to be good deals for the patient—and the insurance company receiving the state money.

Waste was an issue, and so came the slashes to my pay as a personal care assistant and a reduction of the hours when I could help my clients as a PCA. Instead of consolidating Minnesota Care, Medical Assistance, and the Minnesota Family Planning Program to save money, the state targeted hospitals, nurses and caregivers. Disaster Capitalism as usual steamrolled ahead, and UH-CAN saw single-payer proposals for state programs recede and the ‘public option’ for our country fall away. Let’s not forget these hard lessons.

 Albers points out that 88% of all health care premium revenues in Minnesota flow into the bank accounts of the Big Four insurers. It’s been like this for the last 20 years, as major insurer mergers took place.

 Who benefited? In 2011 Patrick Geraghty, CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Minnesota, was the best-compensated head of any Health Management Organization in Minnesta, taking home $2,647,000, and Medica’s David Tilford took home almost as much. Should the new Co-Op Care mini-agency compensate its board members in the future, how much will they take home?

 The board members I spoke to are not in it for profit. Even business people like Jed Meyer at Affinity Plus Credit Union have stepped up to endorse Co-Op Care, which will likely earn less than the allowed 3% profit from premiums. Albers described credit unions’ approach as similar to his own: “They’re trying to get people out of big banks, we’re trying to get people out of big insurance.” Jed Meyer could not be reached for comment.

See and hear the nuts and bolts for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pgqbi6d0e8

THUNDERSNOW and endless Flurries in April limit Mobility

Snowed In?

-- How do you maneuver through the slippery streets of Minnesota winters?  

If pedestrians had clout, the sidewalks would be clear and dry and the cars, not the people, would have to deal with avalanches of plowed snow from the boulevards. It's hard enough for an able-bodied person to slosh through the thoroughfares of the Twin Cities, with routes reduced by snow piles and narrowed by ice. But what about the rest of us? 

It's time for Minnesota drivers to recognize that road-worthy wheelchairs are not in the way of traffic-- they ARE traffic. If a sidewalk isn't shoveled well, it's safer to drive your wheelchair on the side of the plowed street, with the direction of traffic. Regardless of the frustrated drivers who are confused by seeing wheelchairs on the road, taking the street is often the wiser choice because you don't even know if  a cleared sidewalk will have a clear curb-cut at the end. 

Curb-cuts are the vital little slopes from sidewalk to street that are so easily blockaded whenever the plow pushes snow to the curb. In the summer you have to deal with gawking pedestrians who stand right on the slope you need to drive down, as well as inconsistent curb-cuts-- some sidewalks & bike paths leave you high and dry. In the winter, you can't always tell which sidewalks are accessible because the plow's piles are in the way!The city pays shovelers to do the grunt-work of clearing curb-cuts-- be sure to thank them whenever you see them!

It's unfortunate, however, that the city prioritizes the downtown walkways, considering them the most highly trafficked, without getting to all the curb-cuts we need.

  Without a vehicle, you really could be snowed in this winter, especially if you live in a suburban or rural community.

But going out & visiting friends this holiday season & into the new year is still important & quite possible --our communities don't hibernate & neither do we.

So, as you head out into the wind,

bring a flashlight,

remember to charge up your cell phone & powerchair,

& boldly go where few powerchairs have gone before this season.Someone's gotta make those first tracks in the fresh snow!

  Do you have any other tips for winter mobility?

On My Bookshelf...

How did we get here? Why are we here? Is life fair-- or could it be? How long have humans been asking these questions? If we find answers, how can we relate such ineffable answers to each other?

I turn to books for hope-- hope for the secret curiosities in me that I cannot articulate any longer for their complexity. But some authors, older and younger than I, have found their own ways to explain and test the mysteries of the inner life, the ancient, and the interpersonal ether.

I was thirteen when I found Frank Laubach's Letters by a Modern Mystic in a library basement in Fort Worth, Texas-- and soon, Soul Searching by 16-year-old author Sarah Stillman.

 With acceptance of different mystical paths, I found writing to be part of my path. My goal was to get published by the time I was sixteen.

 Once I had met this goal, the poetry anthology and high school yearbooks that printed my words sat on the bookshelf gathering dust. I continue sharing poetry and local news articles in small publications, for the importance of awareness and the joy of recognition and mutual appreciation. But public expression of my thoughts hasn’t answered any questions—it’s just brought forth new ones.

  Can anything said be original? Are popular printed words adding to the world’s collective knowing—or taking away from the creative possibilities that writers could have, in their future struggles to be original? Why is groupthink considered bad and the collective unconscious considered benign?

 The logical urgency of my conscience compelled me to dive into news, and that's what I read, except in the spare minutes between stresses and sleep when I still reach for the spiritual memoirs and manuals.

 If reading my palm has provided any real insight at all, I know that the spiritual dimension will save my life one day. The hope that glimmers just beyond the next page turn is for more than that-- more than a long, healthy life. There is hope for all the lives past, present and future, united in some elusive way... that only stories can get at. The stories that make you feel, question, remember…

 I believe in planting small, private libraries in unexpected places, ruled by curiosity and the honor system. So my collection of pensive memoirs and helpful how-tos on everything from intuition to ecstasy has dispersed-- it's among the donated books in the Augsburg College Women's Resource Center, the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center, the Germanic-American Institute's little library, a friend's SoulHome lending library, and Little Free Libraries around the city.

  Maybe someone else, thirteen, uncertain and far from home, will stumble upon a new perspective that they've needed.

---

I recommend 

I Love Female Orgasm by Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller

My Life So Far by Jane Fonda

Memoirs of a Spiritual Outsider by Suzanne Clores

The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy by Cyndi Dale

Energy Medicine by Donna Eden

Machu Picchu and You: 

 A review of Return of the Children of Light, by Judith Bluestone Polich

  The fascinating thing about spiritual interpretations of history-- and prehistory-- is the imperative that we don't just absorb it, we act.

After journeying with Polich through these "Incan and Mayan Prophecies for a New World," readers will want to dive into a DNA activation starter kit, like Richard Gerber's Vibrational Medicine or many of Polich's other sources in her research.

  That's because she explains what DNA activation is and what it would look like, in the ancient past as well as in the present-- along with a feast of other curious New Age concepts that will tantalize the layperson. With a foundation of easy-to-understand anthropological research and the rising action of oft-whispered claims from old esoteric texts, each page probes the mysteries of the Incan and Mayan legacies, purportedly hidden away just for our generation to find and decode. Most of the claims are well-cited so you can decode them in other contemporary nonfiction works.

 Polich's slim book is a place to start, though. It helps you actively step into the rituals and practices for modern evolution, stirred up by Jung and the Dalai Lama and circulated by popular authors like Gregg Braden and Michael Talbot.

 Loaded words are explicated, but not before they are given their own spirit and meaning in the first chapter's poetry and historical fiction that ease you into the deeper work of physics, astronomy and theology, seen through the prism of ancient peoples' cosmology.

 Readers who are new to New Age philosophies will still need a general glossary of metaphysics terms at hand. Polich does more synthesis than analysis in this work, which is guided by her amazing personal experiences. See the preface for a disclaimer of some slight bias, found in between the lines.

Take Return of the Children of Light with a grain of salt, or two. Anyone who argues that Quetzalcoatl, Moses and Hermes belong in the same narrow category, or maintains a neutral treatment of Mayan and Incan practices of human sacrifice, raises questions. Polich unfortunately does not answer the implicit questions, rather she dismisses some of them as unimportant because, facts aside, they are a part of our collective unconscious anyway. [...]

Interactive Mosaic Art: piecing together Community

What: Mosaic Mapping Collaboration!

Envision the Twin Cities landscape as a work of art-- YOUR art.

 Come say your piece, and cement your piece into place on this collaborative mosaic work. 

Dig through your pockets. 

Stoop down for that shiny shard of glass. 

Bring something small, something old, something borrowed, and a story told  about your travels here. ADD YOUR PIECE!

When and Where:

All day Saturday February 16 at the Union Depot in Lowertown, St. Paul

214 4th St. E St. Paul, MN 55101  

During the WORLD RECORD-setting largest collaborative Light Bright Display, "Bright Ideas Light Up the Night" you can add to the Light Bright, and add to the Mosaic Map!

February 13  2013, at 6:45 PM

at the Central Corridor Resource Center, 1080 University Avenue W., Saint Paul

Everyone on the District Councils Collaborative can add a piece, before the Governing Council Meeting!

 When and Where you can see it: 

 February 25- March 11 See the mosaic in the lobby of Women Venture economic development group,

 2324 University Avenue West, Saint Paul, MN 55114

March 16  - 31 

See it in the public gallery space of Christ Lutheran Church,

105 University Avenue West  Saint Paul, MN 55155

April 8 -15  2013-- Look for it in the Freeman Building, in the atrium of the Minnesota Department of Health!

Who: You! The Touring Exhibit is on its way to your Central Corridor-area office,

whoever has space for its temporary display!