Tag: writing

Health care concerns

I have a concern about healthcare in rural areas. All I can do is speak from my own experience.
As many of you know, I came from Northern California, north of Sacramento in the Central Valley. The dominating health network was Sutter Health.

A family member had a very rare virus that destroyed much of her brain tissue. The emergency services she received at UC Davis was wonderful and lifesaving. But she needed continuous care AFTER she was released.

Because of her disability, the only possible insurance available was MediCal, the California equivalent of MNSURE.

In all of Northern California, there was only ONE neurologist who worked for a system that accepted MediCal. He was two hours away.

There were no physical therapists, no occupational therapists, and only one clinic for MediCal patients, and they only did primary care.

This was one of the many reasons we moved to Minnesota.

And now that same health network just purchased the Allina system in Faribault.

Yes, I heard that they are “pouring 2 billion dollars” into Minnesota health. But who will benefit? I’m pretty sure it won’t be those who need it the most. We lived it in California.

Recently, I needed blood work done for a wellness program offered through my employer. They contracted with a company that only offers blood draws in the cities. An hour away. They would not allow me to go one mile and get blood work done, because they weren’t contracted with them.

This is a harbinger of things to come.

Corporates contracting with each other is good – for manufacturing, building, retail goods and services, etc. But NOT for healthcare. The corporate contracts are NEVER beneficial for the patients or the professionals who work so hard for so little.

Please listen to me. We are just one board decision away from excluding all MNSURE patients from ongoing care at Allina. And they’ve done it before.

What protections for patients are in place with this merger?

They will certainly continue to take emergency patients, because the current laws force them to. But there is already talk in the GOP about forced institutionalization of disabled persons. They really aren’t going to ensure that occupational health, physical therapy, mental health and counseling are available for those who need it the most.

The party the brought us screwworm, measles, diarrhea lettuce, and COVID certainly is NOT going to protect patients’ rights to care.

Neither will the huge corporations that are moving in.
It is part of the strategy. Bankrupt the systems, then swoop in and buy them out at pennies on the dollar.
Family farms, health clinics, what will be next?

It isn’t too late to stop this.

Why am I doing this?

Douglas Adams famously said, “anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

Of course, you could substitute “senator” and the sentiment is the same

So why am I doing this? Certainly not after any great ambition to be in the public eye. 

But because every single day we see new atrocities. Any one of the atrocities that we have seen daily since January of 2025 would have been sufficient to end any career, but those who are elected to be checks and balances have abdicated their responsibility to the people.

And now it is time for the people to stand up and say enough.

We have spent too much of our time in fear:

Racism, greed, hatred, contempt, are all driven by fear.

First they caused us to fear black people and brown people, and immigrants, then gay and trans and women… if they can keep the fear going, they can continue to amass power to themselves.

They fill our news feeds and our social media with fabricated fears designed to increase their power and wealth:

“Who will keep Haitians from eating your pets? Who will keep trans people from entering your daughter’s bathroom? Who will protect you from brown people taking over the country? Who will stop people from speaking Spanish or Somali…”

I remember when they made us fear socialism, communism, humanism…

And this is the biggest fear of all: the fear that something must change. Drinking and driving, seat belts, helmets, the new deal, the civil rights act, the voters rights act: every single advance made by humans have been met with anger, rage and accusations of insanity.

Ignatz Semmelweitz was concerned about the high infection and death rates in his hospital. He noticed that when doctors finished the autopsies in one part of the hospital they immediately delivered infants in the other part of the hospital. He set up handwashing procedures for the doctors. Immediately the death rate plummeted, and at the same time, Dr. Semmelweitz was ridiculed, cast out, accused of insanity and died forgotten.

Why is there always such resistance for trying anything new? 

I think it is because if it can be shown that the way our fathers did things was wrong, then perhaps they weren’t as wise as we thought they were. Or worse, maybe WE aren’t as wise as we think we are.

Maybe instead of trying to bring America back to an imagined past, we should be focusing on leading America to a thriving future.

And suddenly the old ways are coming into question. Women can vote, women can buy homes, black citizens can vote, Gay men can marry – 

Everything is changing and we have to wonder if maybe there were some things that weren’t so great. Maybe slavery and genocide aren’t really a great way to build a nation. Maybe the way that women were treated wasn’t the best way to treat the nation.

And all of the sudden people started being afraid that they might have to do some soul searching. And then “Make America Great Again” came and justified every racist, misogynistic, hate-filled rant we ever had. 

But this is now falling apart. There isn’t any way to go back. The maga crowd took a sledgehammer and tried to beat all of us back to 1850. But we can’t go backwards. We’ve tasted hope.

We’ve looked at how things could be and said, “We can do better”

Progress always involves saying “Maybe the way we have been doing things isn’t the right way of doing things.”

But then you have to admit that maybe you weren’t as wise as you thought you were, and maybe it is time to do it differently.

Maybe your ancestors were wrong. Maybe your church was wrong. Maybe the puritans were wrong.

Maybe we didn’t all turn out just fine.

We can hope for better days for Minnesotans. We can hope for medical care for all, it can be done. The plans are written. It is within reach.

We can hope for beautiful days to come, fishing on the lakes and walking along the waterfalls and hiking the trails. We don’t need AI. We need to breathe, and fish, and hike.

We can hope for days when ALL of us can learn about each other without fear. 

Why do we insist on seeing the world in black and white, when there are so many beautiful colors and breathtaking ways of being so wonderfully different.

We can fund the MPCA and pass laws to keep outsider billionaires from raping and pillaging our land to add more and more and more to their obscene portfolios.

Let’s finally admit that there is no one – NO ONE – who is a self made man. Everyone needs all of us. 

That isn’t Marxism. That’s just every religion on earth. This is wisdom that requires humility – that I need my immigrant neighbors as much as they need me, because we are all part of the same community.

When we think that we are self-sufficient and don’t need anyone else, life has a way of reminding us of our social contracts:

That I need healthcare, because I don’t know when my heart will stop.

That I need SNAP programs, because wealth is fleeting and comes and goes.

That everything I have can also be lost – so I will live generously without blaming and shaming another in need.

We must protect our most vulnerable. The woman who must flee her home because of abuse. The child who isn’t safe at home

The indigenous women who still disappear without a trace.

A society that doesn’t protect its weakest members must change or die.

We need shelters and protections. We need reform in our family courts. These are my passions.

And to do that, we need to strive for justice – that the same laws are applied the same way to everyone, whether foreign born or native, undocumented or documented, rich or poor

And we need to keep our covenant. Our treaties, our word, our contracts.

And we need the humility to listen. And if we need to change, let’s face that head on.