I expected to find the proverbial huddled masses at the free health care clinic that's been going on for the last two days at Bartle Hall. I was sure there'd be down-on-their luck homeless people. The wretchedly sick, decomposing-on-their-feet folks with wild hair and wild eyes who materialized out of the gutters to get their boils or teeth checked.
I was very wrong.
Craig Dietz, D.O., M.P.H., clinical director of Kansas City Free Health Clinic has been traveling around the heartland on the free health care tour. Kansas City is the fourth and final stop (for now). He said 80 percent of the patients here were employed -- at least part time.
Most patients don't have health insurance, he said, and that's for a variety of reasons. "Even the people that work for corporations that offer insurance are opting not to take it right now because the economy is so bad they need the extra $200 or $300 per month to pay mortgages, credit card bills, food and utilities."
I was there around 2 p.m. and didn't necessarily find Dietz's assessment to be true: Most of the folks I interviewed had been laid off recently, and if they had benefits to begin with, they didn't anymore. Most of them knew what their health problem were, they just hadn't been able to get treated.
Twenty-seven-year-old Shneha Friar sat in the chair area and looked again at her purple bracelet bearing number 432 as she waited for her number to be called. She lost her cosmetology job a year ago. "I haven't had health insurance since I had my second child," she said. That was in 2006. "It's hard to get Medicare."
She had a specific concern about her health but didn't want to share it. She brought along two friends for moral support. She hoped to see a dentist, too.
Her friend, 24-year-old LaTonya Campbell, also wanted a dental exam. "Last time I went I was a teenager," she said, reaching into her mouth and tapping a tooth. "I'm sure I have a cavity."
Mal Hubbard, 63, hadn't seen a doctor since he retired from a 30-year job as a new-car salesman last August. He said he'd gotten the full work-up before he retired -- which for him meant a new set of hips and knees -- but had put off routine health screenings, mostly because he seemed to be in good condition.
"A friend of mine told me they were having it," he said, "so I came out for a blood pressure check-up and a cholesterol check-up."
When their numbers were called, patients moved to a semi-screened area to have their vitals taken, then they went to see a doctor or a specialist. Labs had be set up to perform blood work and on-the-spot STD checks. Mental health specialists sat down with loud, bearded, disheveled men. Dental drills whirred on and on.
"It was real fast," said 33-year-old Donriel Williams as he waited for his friend to complete her check-up. Williams lost his benefits when he lost his job at a propane and gas outfit four months ago. Today he was smiling.
I asked him what he came for. "My shoulder, stomach and hand that I hurt in old accidents," he said. "They've hurt me for years. I finally had the chance to get them checked out."
He had a chiropractor adjust his shoulder, which had been out of whack and painful for over a decade. I asked him if it hurt all that time. "I dealt with it," he said flatly.
Dr. Dietz said untreated health problems only get worse. Preventive care -- which, he noted, all the current Congressional health care proposals don't adequately address -- is key. Many of the problems the doctors (including 100 local physicians) were addressing could have been taken care of in routine office visits, he said. Without treatment, nagging problems can snowball in grave health risks.
"It just builds over time," Dietz said. "First your blood pressure goes up, then you start having other problems such as vision problems or kidney problems."
At a previous stop on the free health care tour, he'd seen that same scenario time and again.
"We did see several patients with minor skin cancers gone horribly awry. One was a minor lip cancer from smoking that most people can have taken care of in their private doctor's office," he said. "But this person had never seen a doctor and it had invaded most of his face. It was really life threatening now."
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Anonymous, you can call it socialism, communism, Marxism, or whatever you want to call the GOVERNMENT CONTROL that destroys everything, including economies and freedoms.
It's the "socialism of the XXI century" of Castro, Chavez and the rest of the Marxist thugs who are destroying Latin America. It's the Marxism/communism of Saul Alinski and his followers -- Ayers, Creamer, Obama...
Regarding the insurance companies, Creamer writes in his 2007 book:
* �Our messaging program over the next two years should focus heavily on reducing the credibility of the health insurance industry and focusing on the failure of private health insurance.�
Creamer also writes:
* �We must create a national consensus that health care is a right, not a commodity; and that government must guarantee that right.�
* �We must create a national consensus that the health care system is in crisis.�
* �We need to convince political leaders that they owe their elections, at least in part, to the groundswell of support of [sic] universal health care, and that they face political peril if they fail to deliver on universal health care in 2009.�
* �To win we must not just generate understanding, but emotion�fear, revulsion, anger, disgust.�
Creamer�s broader aim, as laid out in his book, is the �democratization of wealth� in America and �progressive control of governments around the world.� ... in other words, a Marxist takeover of the United States and the world!
http://the-classic-liberal.com...
Anonymous, you can call it socialism, communism, Marxism or "socialismo del siglo XXI," like they call it in Latin America. But it's GOVERNMENT CONTROL, slavery, which destroys economies, multiplies poverty, and destroys human beings materially and spiritually, as we can see in Cuba or Venezuela.
Dictator Obama and his comrades are just manipulating and bribing insurance companies and everyone else to achieve their goal of imposing Marxism on us and enslaving us.
CONVICTED FELON Robert Creamer has been working on the Obamacare SCAM for years, as we can see from his 2007 book, �Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,� which outlines the guidelines for the scam.
Regarding insurance companies, Creamer writes (in 2007):
* �Our messaging program over the next two years should focus heavily on reducing the credibility of the health insurance industry and focusing on the failure of private health insurance.�
Isn't that what Obama and his comrades have been doing? Creamer also writes:
* �We must create a national consensus that health care is a right, not a commodity; and that government must guarantee that right.�
* �We must create a national consensus that the health care system is in crisis.�
* �We need to convince political leaders that they owe their elections, at least in part, to the groundswell of support of [sic] universal health care, and that they face political peril if they fail to deliver on universal health care in 2009.�
* �To win we must not just generate understanding, but emotion�fear, revulsion, anger, disgust.�
Creamer�s broader aim, as laid out in his book, is the �democratization of wealth� in America and �progressive control of governments around the world.� ... in other words, a Marxist takeover of the United States and the world!
http://the-classic-liberal.com...
Hey Antonio, no one said anything about the current legislation. Take your rant over to the Star's commenting section where it belongs with all the other cray-cray conspiracy theorists.
Now that's out of the way...
It is incredibly heartbreaking that so many people have put off fundamental health care because they cannot afford it. Thank you to the medical professionals that donated their time and supplies to provide much needed care to those in need.
The current healthcare reform is basically a giveaway to insurance companies. It's far from "Marxist." By the way, have you ever read Marx? Or even taken a sociology course? I know it's fun to play guilt-by-association, but some of us take this country seriously. I know Republicans/Conservatives always claim to, but their lack of intellectual rigor undermines the claim.
We were wondering who REALLY wrote the House and Senate bills. We knew they were NOT written by our representatives. Our congressmen and senators have not even read them! They are just being manipulated, coerced and bribed into passing them.
Now we know the guidelines for Obamacare are included in the 2007 book �Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,� written by Robert Creamer, a convicted felon who has been working with Obama in Marxist projects for years. Obamacare is one of those projects!
The guidelines for Obamacare are in this book! Creamer suggests that a bogus health crisis be created! He suggests � point by point -- the lies, manipulation, intimidation, and coercion we have witnessed from Obama and his accomplices to force us to swallow the Obamacare scam!
Convicted Felon and Alinsky-style community organizer, Bob Creamer, (husband of Socialist Progressive Democrat Jan Schakowsky), trained Organizers for Obama in 2007. He�s in Obama�s inner circle and was among the �distinguished� guests at the dinner party in the White House where the Salahis were declared �intruders.�
http://biggovernment.com/2009/... architect-of-obamacare-and-his-pattern-of-corrup tion/
http://biggovernment.com/2009/... t-penned-from-the-pen-manufacture-a-crisis-manuf acture-rage/
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