Posts Tagged ‘health care’

Thursday, February 17, 2022

Medicare for All or Medicare At All?

medicare illustration

By 2030, traditional Medicare (TM) as we know it, particularly those of us who depend on it for our health care, just might cease to exist, marking the end point of fifty years of attempted privatization and the gradual transfer of Medicare’s Trust Funds and their management to private for-profit insurance companies. Lots of money is at stake – over $900 billion in benefits were paid in 2020 to almost 63 million subscribers. Wall Street private equity firms are salivating.

Backstory: How did this happen? Can it be stopped? It began soon after the Medicare program became law in 1965, enacted to ensure that older Americans would have ready access to good health care as they aged and became ill. By 1973, Medicare had proved so popular that Nixon identified rising health care costs as a serious budget problem and took the following steps to contain them:

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Wednesday, December 22, 2021

The Single-Payer NY Health Act: Universal Access to Comprehensive Healthcare

campaign for health logo

Greetings. I live in Long Lake and have been a member of the Campaign for NY Health for the past five years. The Campaign’s sole objective is the enactment of the NY Health Act into law. 

For those of you who may not be familiar with the term, “single-payer” healthcare in the U.S. is so called because the government, whether national or state, becomes the sole payer to treatment providers for the costs of all medical services, including dental, optical,  pharmaceutical, long-term care and mental health, incurred by their subscribers. It’s a role now played by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for persons 65 and older who are recipients of Medicare and for those who are recipients of Social Security Disability Benefits. When and if single-payer is enacted, commercial or private for-profit health insurance companies, the primary healthcare payers for their subscribers for the past fifty years, will be proscribed from selling private insurance policies and no longer play that role; which explains, in large part, the fierce opposition to single payer’s passage into law. Billions of dollars are at stake.

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Monday, April 5, 2021

Commending healthcare orgs for work to address chronic disease

heart graphicBy Ann Morgan

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed an enormous strain on health systems in the North Country, requiring them to respond to a multitude of immediate, pressing needs — and they’ve done an admirable job given extraordinary circumstances.

Perhaps more admirable, though, is the work the North Country Healthy Heart Network’s partners have done to continue long term, proactive programs aimed at reducing the risk of chronic disease. Through the North Country Chronic Disease Prevention Coalition, these organizations are demonstrating a commitment to replicating a successful program piloted by Adirondack Health: Moving Forward Together (MFT) to Prevent Diabetes.

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Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Human Services Resource Day Set for Oct 26

Community Resource Day 2017The second Community Resource Day has been set for Friday, October 26th, from 2 to 6 pm at Aviation Mall, located at 578 Aviation Road in Queensbury.

The event is a showcase of more than 65 health and human services organizations in Warren, Washington, Hamilton and northern Saratoga counties.

Community Resource Day features information about community organizations, the opportunity for networking, as well as freebies, activities, and door prizes. It is jointly presented by Fidelis Care, Interagency Council, Southern Adirondack Independent Living and the Aviation Mall. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Experts: Ti’s New Health Campus Model For All

HHHN CEO Tucker Slingerland, MD with UVM Health CEO John Brumsted, MD.To see the future of health care in New York State, you may have to visit Ticonderoga – a town better known for its past.

“New York’s challenge is to bring financially sustainable, high quality healthcare to rural communities,” says Dan Sheppard, Deputy Commissioner in the state’s Department of Health. “The key lies in not just replacing old services but bringing into a community services it doesn’t already have and in improving over-all access to health care.” » Continue Reading.


Thursday, December 7, 2017

Mercy Care Friendship Volunteer Training Scheduled

Mercy Care for the Adirondacks is recruiting new volunteers and has scheduled a Friendship Volunteer Training Program in Tupper Lake on the mornings of January 11 and January 18, 2018. The training sessions will be held from 9:30 am to 1 pm (Both mornings are required to complete the training).

New Volunteers will join Mercy Care’s more than 100 Friendship Volunteers from Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, and Tupper Lake who are helping their elder neighbors stay connected to their communities and helping to make their lives a little easier and happier. Mercy Care volunteers are currently serving more than 100 elders.   » Continue Reading.


Thursday, April 7, 2016

Ticonderoga: Herbal History Exhibit Opens Friday

herb gardenThe Ticonderoga Historical Society will open its second exhibit of the 2016 season on Friday, April 8 at 7 pm at the Hancock House.

“Herbal History of the Adirondacks” looks at how Native Americans and early settlers utilized native plants as medicinal and culinary preparations and how this has led to a contemporary herbal culture that continues to thrive today.

Noted local herbalist Nancy Scarzello is a co-designer of the exhibit and will speak at the opening. A Ticonderoga resident, Scarzello has more than 35 years of experience studying and teaching about herbs, native plants, natural healing and plant medicines. She is a regular presenter at the New England Women’s Herbal Conference. » Continue Reading.


Monday, December 28, 2015

A North Country Doctor Provides the Breath of Life

IsaacPatchenOf the many great stories about old country doctors, one of my favorites happened in the North Country just a few minutes south of Plattsburgh. The doctor’s name was Isaac Hutinac Patchen. His grandfather, Claude Hutinac, married a woman whose surname was Patchen. Their son, Stephen (Isaac’s father), fought in five Revolutionary War battles and endured the terrible suffering at Valley Forge. Following the war, he assumed his mother’s surname, and family members henceforth were known as Patchens.

Isaac Patchen was born around 1793, and at age 20 he began medical training. At the time, he lived in Vermont’s Lake Champlain Islands and in northern New York, where war was affecting locals on both sides of the lake. On September 11, 1814, during the Battle of Plattsburgh, he joined a militia force and volunteered to pursue fleeing enemy soldiers. More than twenty men were captured, and years later, Isaac received a land grant of 160 acres in return for a job well done. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Top Trending North Country Jobs for 2015

Warren County NY Health Services Home CareThe New York State Department of Labor has announced the North Country Region’s Top Five Trending Jobs for 2015 – selected by labor market analysts based on occupational survey data and the projected needs of their region. The North Country Region includes Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties.

“Statewide, we’re seeing tremendous growth in many areas, especially in the technology and health care fields,” Acting State Labor Commissioner Mario J. Musolino said in a statement to the press. “I highly encourage anyone looking for work or a new position to visit New York State’s Jobs Express website and browse through the new listings that are added daily.” » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, January 6, 2015

MarQuil Cartoon: Baby New Congress Arrives

baby new congress arrives


Monday, October 13, 2014

St. Lawrence Co Native: A Story With Some Teeth

NormanWKingsleyca1900Deformities like cleft palate once befuddled all dentists and surgeons, none of whom could find reliable, workable solutions to those truly vexing problems. Around the world, tens of thousands of victims suffered as social outcasts due to congenital deformities. Many were unable to speak, but nearly 160 years ago, that began to change. Since that time, millions have been helped, thanks to the work of the Father of Modern Orthodontia—who happens to be a North Country native.

Norman William Kingsley was born on October 26, 1829, in Stockholm, a sparsely populated town in northern St. Lawrence County. The family had moved there from Vermont, but when Norman was four years old, they returned to the Green Mountain State, living at different locations in the Rutland area. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Climbing The 46 High Peaks For Suicide Prevention

1655411_937586852924816_1346376351805800120_oSuicide, depression and the effects of both are challenging and frightening subjects to discuss. I know. I was in my early 20s when I stumbled upon a friend during her attempted suicide. What transpired was tragic and emotional, but she eventually received the help she needed. Not everyone is so lucky.

This week, September 8-14, is National Suicide Prevention week and two Clarkson students are trying to do their part to raise awareness and funds by climbing all 46 High Peaks. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Healing Soul Wounds At Wiawaka Holiday House

GroupThe Adirondacks have a long tradition as a place for healing, the most prominent example being the thousands who came to “take the cure” for tuberculosis at the Trudeau Sanatorium in Saranac Lake during the first half of the 20th century.

Not as well known was how the arts were used as a important part of the patients’ treatment and recovery, a process that lead to the establishment of the creative arts therapies. More recently, the benefits of arts was dramatically demonstrated when music used as a critical part of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford’s ability to regain her speech following her having been shot in the head during an attempted assassination January 2011. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Anthony Hall: Stefanik’s Weird Health Care Politics

healthcare-reformIn an interview with the Lake George Mirror, as well in interviews with other newspapers and in an op-ed piece published by the Watertown Daily Times in November, Congressional candidate Elise Stefanik stated that she favors the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

She added that she would replace it with, among other things, measures that allow people to purchase health insurance from out of state insurers, purportedly on the grounds that the costs of health care would thereby drop. But anyone familiar with the Affordable Care Act knows that it does permit people to purchase health insurance across state lines. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Military Voices: Helping Veterans Come Home

Jordanna and Tom SmithTom Smith shouldn’t be alive. In Vietnam, he was a 1st Cavalry Division helicopter scout pilot. Helicopter pilots, especially scout pilots, flew through the heaviest enemy fire of the war. Cavalry Division scout pilots were hit hardest. Their attrition rates were twenty times that of U.S. Air Force pilots, their survival rate, forty to fifty percent, their life expectancy, three weeks. Tom’s job was to fly at speeds under 30 miles an hour at treetop level locating enemy, usually by drawing their fire.

It took Smith a long time to realize he lives with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a condition brought on, he shares with me, not so much by horrific combat experience –being shot down multiple times, trees snapping his coptor’s rotors off as it plunged earthward, looking down at gunmen whose bullets ripped through his fuselage — but rather, by living with the daily grind of fear. » Continue Reading.



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