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Kathleen's Blog: Second Opinion
Kathleen O’Connor, CodeBlueNow! founder and CEO, gives her “second opinion” on the standard health care policy/reform spins.

• Let 100,000 voices and yours, be heard.
  

  Much of the health care reform debate now will be negative campaigning.  All the other various reform groups will be focused on their ads and negative press, but CodeBlueNow! and a few other groups are bringing new possibility to the table.

  Or country has had enough negativity – it’s time we rally around a fresh vision and take health care out of a partisan political fight. We are working on a health care platform for the people, a template we can then present to Congress. Another group is doing things in a positive way, also.

  Faithful Reform in Health Care is trying to raise 100,000 voices to bring compassion, value and vision to health care.  Click here to support their campaign.

  Faithful Reform, like CodeBlueNow! is a national, nonpartisan, 501(c)3.

• Another Day, Another Health Care Campaign
  

  This coming Tuesday, July 22, the American Health Insurance Association (the folks who brought us Harry and Louise), are starting their Campaign for American Solution, a “listening tour” combined with an advertisement and recruitment campaign.

  The first event is a conversation with the uninsured in Columbus, Ohio. They are not saying how much money they are putting into this, but we are sure it is as much, if not more than the Health Care for America Now campaign which launched Tuesday, July 8th and makes no bones about the fact that they have a campaign chest of $40 million.

  The steering committee consists of groups that gave half a million dollars to the campaign, something that most organizations could never afford no matter how good their work is. This Tuesday, July 15th, the National Coalition on Health Care launched its campaign to put aside partisan politics and act on reform. Their principles are outlined in their letter to Congress, and are very similar to our own.  Consumers Union has a bus tour on health care reform, Cover America Tour.

  Clearly health care reform is a hot issue and lots of new groups are trying to tackle it in their own way. Well, we’re doing things differently. We aren’t collecting stories, we aren’t launching ads, and we do not have $40 million.

  We have a quiet campaign, which has been spending its time doing very important work in the background. What we bring to this myriad of health care groups, is the Declaration for the Health of America and solid market research, two ways we are spreading our message that Americans do largely agree on what reform should look like. CodeBlueNow! knows the public is not as conflicted as all these different groups and politicians make it seem. Our good work is publicity such as our July 2nd op-ed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and our upcoming Town Hall, and ongoing research to prove that reform does not have to be a divided process.

  Don’t let both politics and the grass roots be dominated by big money. Support the campaign that knows the American public is vastly smarter than they are given credit for when it comes to health care. Support CodeBlueNow! today.

  Cheers and more later. Kathleen

• Halo Effect
  

  We don’t usually focus on the negative aspects of health care because nearly everyone else does.  But, this particular episode from a friend caught our attention on some of the idiocy that happens.  This from Mary Koch in Omak, Washington. 

  Lady Liberty Reigns: A Widow Bit

  My mother slipped her halo just in time to avoid the rockets’ red glare.
             
  Three months ago Mom, 91, fell and broke her neck. She ended up in a device called a “halo,” which is literally screwed into the patient’s skull – like Lady Liberty’s crown – to anchor four vertical titanium rods that point into the air several inches above the patient’s head. The halo keeps the neck absolutely stable while the broken bones heal – for three months.         
             
  Mother’s beloved granddaughter calculated the timeline and said cheerfully, “Well, Grandma, if you’re still wearing it on the Fourth of July, we can use it to launch bottle rockets!”
             
  It was that kind of humor, plus her own faith and determination, that would get Mother through the three-month ordeal. She posted a sign by her bed, pronouncing: “Blessed is she who breaks her neck, for she shall wear a halo.”
             
  Late in the afternoon on the Friday before the Fourth, we visited the neurosurgeon. He would remove the vertical rods, send Mother across the street to the hospital for X-rays, and if the bones looked good, the halo itself would go. Problem was, he couldn’t find the proper-size wrench to remove the rods.
             
  The tool he had in his office “fidn’t dit,” as my late husband would have said. The doctor excused himself, ran across the street and returned with an automobile tool kit – the kind you get with expensive, luxury cars. Nothing fit. Finally, his nurse called the medical device company that had supplied the halo. Apparently there is only one halo wrench in all of the greater Tacoma metropolitan region, and the technician was loathe to let go of it late on a Friday afternoon. Someone else might need screwing or unscrewing over the weekend. After intense negotiations,  this unique and highly valuable piece of medical equipment was delivered in a brown paper bag and the rods quickly removed.
            
  The surgeon put a temporary brace on Mother’s neck to stabilize her for the trip across the street in her wheelchair. Despite the doctor’s specific orders to remove the brace for the X-rays, the technicians said they weren’t “allowed” to.  I don’t know if I was “allowed,” but time was a-wasting, so I took it off. Mother remained in good humor as the technicians posed her in one odd position after another. When they had her raise one arm straight up and cross the other over her chest, she intoned, “I pledge allegiance . . .”

  After many communication failures too exasperating to describe, the doctor eventually appeared. By that time, his office was closed, so we couldn’t return to remove the halo. (What!? They don’t trust the surgeon with a key to his own office?!)

  BUT, he had the precious wrench, in its brown paper bag, and there, in the radiology waiting room of Tacoma General Hospital, he removed Mother’s halo.

  No bottle rockets for Mom, but the brilliant fireworks displays on the Fourth paled in comparison with our pride and joy in her determination and resiliency. 
   
  Mary Koch, Freelance Writer & Editor
  www.marykoch.com

• Partisan fixes for health care will not heal the problems
  

  This Op-Ed written by CodeBlueNow! CEO Kathleen O'Connor, appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on July 3rd, 2008.

  The coming months will be laden with laments on the sorry state of our health care system. Meetings will be held with story after horror story. We don't need more horror stories. They won't fix the system. We need action -- but not rote mindless action on "solutions" that have failed consistently.

  Health care reform has been dominated for 80 years by two equal and opposing forces: single payer vs. marketplace. We know the public will support neither of those two polarized alternatives. Data from our CodeBlueNow! Pulse surveys prove that, as does data from Commonwealth Fund and Kaiser Family Foundation, among other national studies. Neither solution is acceptable to the majority of the Americ