Everyone at our house loved Eliza Dushku as Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and as Tru in Tru Calling, and as Missy “The Poo” Pantone in Bring It On, and we hate it when we miss seeing Echo in Dollhouse. Sunday, she and boyfriend Rick Fox have completed a half-mile swim, four-mile run, and 19-mile bike ride in the 3rd Annual Nautica South Beach Triathlon, Miami, raising money for Saint Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

St. Jude’s Hospital was founded by entertainer Danny Thomas to treat children suffering from cancer and other serious illnesses, regardless of their families’ ability to pay. The facility performs critical research, helping to improve the outcomes for all children with leukemia and childhood cancer.

You can join Eliza Dushku in helping these children by contacting Saint Jude’s Give thanks. Give hope. campaign.

Kristen Bell goes barefoot today, 8 April 2010, to help TOMS help millions of children worldwide who go without shoes. In fact, for One Day Without Shoes, thousands (millions?) will participate, in an effort to increase –in a small way- our awareness of a life without shoes.

When I was a kid –well, now, still, actually- I knew lots of people who constantly ran about without shoes. I was never one of them, unless swimming or bathing. Those kids –and adults- though, have that choice. In our world, though, there are many children without access to shoes, for whom walking about barefoot is dangerous. Simple debris, volcanic soil, and soil-borne pathogens contribute to numerous health issues for these children.

From the TOMS website:

Why shoes?

Many children in developing countries grow up barefoot. Whether at play, doing chores or going to school, these children are at risk:

• A leading cause of disease in developing countries is soil-transmitted diseases, which can penetrate the skin through bare feet. Wearing shoes can help prevent these diseases, and the long-term physical and cognitive harm they cause.
• Wearing shoes also prevents feet from getting cuts and sores. Not only are these injuries painful, they also are dangerous when wounds become infected.
• Many times children can’t attend school barefoot because shoes are a required part of their uniform. If they don’t have shoes, they don’t go to school. If they don’t receive an education, they don’t have the opportunity to realize their potential.

TOMS has been helping for years by creating a business model, wherein, for every shoe sold, a pair goes to a child in a developing nation. TOMS sends their people out with crateloads of one-for-one shoes. So, consider ordering a pair for yourself, your kids, or as a special gift.

For more information, visit Kristen Bell Goes Barefoot, and One Day Without Shoes.

Are you going One Day Without Shoes? Tell the world about it in the comments.

I’ll post artwork and song snippets on the site.

Thank you to Jerry Wyatt, the Lewellen brothers, all the fine folk at Lew’s Grille and Bar, Downtown Bentonville (AR), Harling’s, Castletown Geoghegan, and Saint Charles Coffee House. Without all of you, it’s just me making noise in the corner.

If you didn’t get a chance to come out, or you want to know when the next show will be in your town, check out my site at jonathanramsey.com. I’m working on some great new shows in the Midwest, and elsewhere in North America, for later in 2010.

Hey! If you’ve any photos of fun during the month, don’t feel too shy to share with us. I’ll post them on my site if you send them –or a link to them- to info@jonathanramsey.com.

Slán!

Letter to Obama: Health care access a national scandal

By ANA M. MALINOW, MD
Houston Chronicle
Feb. 28, 2009

Dear Mr. President:

Last week, in the public clinic where I work, I treated a 6-year-old girl who had visited the emergency room for cellulitis, an infection of the skin, over her hand. Usually a relatively minor condition that is easily treated with a 10-day course of antibiotics, cellulitis can sometimes cause severe consequences, including life-threatening sepsis, if not treated promptly.

The reason this patient was notable was because she was uninsured and had been sent home with a prescription that her mother tried to fill but was unable to afford. How much did the antibiotic suspension cost? $500.

When I saw her three days after her ER visit, her hand was swollen twice the normal size, purple, tender and warm to the touch, with a red streak (signifying an extension of the infection from the skin to the bloodstream) up to her elbow. I took one look at her and quickly made the decision to admit her for IV antibiotics, including a consultation with pediatric surgery to ensure that the infection had not spread between the deep layers of her skin.

What struck me most about this visit, other than the child’s deformed hand, was the mother’s shame at not being able to afford her child’s medication. I assured her that I did not blame her, that our health care system was unconscionable, and that we needed a health care system where everyone was included and everyone paid according to his or her ability to pay. She agreed.

I’m not surprised she agreed. From 1943 to today, opinion polls consistently show that a stable majority of Americans favor a government role in the financing of health care. In the lead-up to President Truman’s national health care proposal, 82 percent of Americans agreed that something needed to be done to make health bills easier to afford.

Today, 65 percent of Americans, including 59 percent of U.S. physicians, support a tax-financed national health insurance plan. Why wouldn’t my patient’s mother support national health care?

What she probably doesn’t know is how much she already pays for the health care her child does not get, or gets late. Her uninsured family pays an extra 10 percent out of its paycheck in taxes to pay for our health care system. Her daughter’s hospitalization will be covered by emergency Medicaid, for which she pays through her sales taxes, income taxes, property taxes and other hidden taxes. She will still have many out-of-pocket costs, of course.

I was struck this week by remarks by David Axelrod, your adviser. Referring to the difference between Washington insiders and most polls over the stimulus package, Axelrod said, “This town talks to itself and whips itself into a frenzy with its own theories that are completely at odds with what the rest of America is thinking.” The moral, he said, is “not just that Washington is too insular but that the American people are a lot smarter than people in Washington think.”

I agree. As I talk about a single-payer national health program across Texas (yes, Texas!) and other states, I am repeatedly amazed by the ability of Americans to understand the complex issues of health reform if it is adequately explained to them. People quickly understand that a sustainable solution will come only when we contain costs and eliminate fragmentation.

The more I listen, the more I hear that all Americans want a health care system that is affordable, accountable, accessible, comprehensive, universal and just — not another Band-Aid that will condemn thousands of us to unnecessary pain, suffering, bankruptcy and death. Listen for yourself, and you will hear Americans clamoring for true health care reform.

By Washington standards, single payer is politically unfeasible. But step outside the beltway and you will be surprised by the genuine support that exists for a publicly funded, privately delivered, expanded and improved Medicare for all.

This mother should not be made to feel ashamed. Nor should her child be relegated to suffer like a Third World beggar. Your compromise plan that keeps the private, for-profit insurance industry in the game will perpetuate the shame and the begging. Already, there is a grass-roots movement building against private health insurance and for single payer. It will reach Washington, whether Washington is ready or not.

Sincerely yours,

Ana M. Malinow, MD

Malinow is a Houston pediatrician and co-founder of Health Care for All Texas.

PNHP Letter (original)

What do you think? Turn this girl away from decent healthcare to keep the tattoed, cell phone carrying “abusers” at bay?

Lately, I’ve noticed Dr. Roger Starner Jones‘ careless letter –of 23 August 2009 to the Jackson, Mississippi Clarion Ledger- making the rounds of the anti-healthcare-reform blogosphere. Jones, an ER physician University of Mississippi Medical Center.

During my last shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ring tone.

Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid.

She smokes a costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer.

And our president expects me to pay for this woman’s health care?

Our nation’s health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is a crisis of culture — a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one’s self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.

Life is really not that hard. Most of us reap what we sow.

Starner Jones, MD

Jackson

He doesn’t mention that the woman actually told him how much she spent on these extravagances, and when. He says the gold was recent, but did he do better than just assume that? Gold crowns generally cost the same or less than porcelain crowns. Maybe someone else insisted on paying for that. At any rate, I doubt seriously that the woman in question was spending $800/month on smokes, beer, ringtones, phone service, and tattoos. She could easily spend much more than that on individual health insurance.

For argument’s sake:

“shiny new gold tooth…”

$500-$1200

“multiple elaborate tattoos…”

What do you mean by “elaborate”? A whole back full of tats might be $1200. I imagine Jones would be shocked by much less: $200-$500.

“a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ring tone”

$0-$100 with an almost any common monthly plan. My wife carries a phone that doubles as an MP3 player. An iPhone 3gs? No. A Sony-Ericsson that cost us $14.99.

I hope this woman read your letter, Dr. Jones. I hope she knows that the physician she trusted in the ER, the previous night, thinks she could afford adequate health care on her own, if not for her profane, debauched, and costly habits. I know enough people that fit your superficial description. I know, too, that many of them were taught to pray that you don’t reap what you’ve sown. The problem with our culture is not that a few people pay too much for crowns and ringtones. The problem is that too many in our society believe they can make judgements about others’ values and spending habits based on a brief encounter in an emergency room.

Dr. Jones’ rant about this woman’s dental work and cell phone have become yet another red herring in the American debate on healthcare. It leads the willing off onto the tangent of “These losers who waste their money on shoes, tattoos, and ringtones are the only ones who want the rest of us to pay for THEIR healthcare.” It leads us away from the fact that our system doesn’t work, isn’t viable, is too costly, isn’t the best in the world, and many among us –not even just the poorest- are not assured access to adequate care within it.