July 21, 2014

The tragedy of states who will not expand medicaid

I work in Virginia and the dopey rat bastid crook previous governor spongebob vaginaprobe and his band of demented rightwing loons in the legislature refused the mcaid expansion. So I don't want to go into too much detail about the patient transferred to me last night but needless to say he has a serious chronic illness, not much formal education, has a low wage part time job with no insurance and falls through the cracks since he does not meet the subsidy for obamacare but makes too much to get on mcaid as it exists now. This guy is trying very hard but here he is getting admitted for an entirely preventable issue if he could qualify for mcaid and get treatment and meds. So rather than a less costly alternative to inpatient care, here he is. So far he has spent a few days in icu before transfer to where I work. All preventable and this guy is so knowledgeable about his illness he could very easily manage it. When he was a minor and covered under mcaid he had the treatment he needed, he was so smart about his illness even the doctor was impressed and said you tell me what orders I need to write to get you back on track. This guy could teach a class. He is under 26 and could stay on his mom's insurance but she is on mcaid herself for disability, so he can't go on her insurance. He could qualify for disability but he wants to work, he told me he is capable of working and watching his mom life on disability convinced him he can only get ahead in life if he works, he doesn't want to be poor, he wants to work, he wants to be a tax payer, he wants to pay his way but his meds are very expensive and the more times he gets sick, the more likely he will not be able to work. totally preventable. not to mention this will shorten his life and he will spend his life much sicker than he should be.

July 15, 2014

Happy Birthday to Maggie Walker

http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Maggie_Lena_Walker_1864-1934#start_entry

Activist for women and african americans. Richmond had a celebration of her birthday this past weekend.

July 1, 2014

I remember when bc was illegal

I was about 12 or 13 years old and had an extraordinary discussion with my extraordinary grandmother. She was the one you could call and say "I'm really in trouble". So we were talking about sex and babies and wound up talking about an abortion she had. It was during the depression and it was illegal. And we talked about preventing pregnancy. All the old methods some effective some myths some dangerous. I was appalled and started reading more about why girls had to risk pregnancy when they had sex and it radicalized me.
So at age 13 in 1962 I stood in front of my 9th grade class and presented an oral book report on Margaret Sanger. It would be an understatement to say it created a shit storm and of course my parents had a difficult time explaining my behavior. They were informed I and they could get in lots of trouble talking about birth control. I did not make any more speeches in school about birth control.
I wound up going to planned parenthood when I became sexually active, thanks to Sanger but did wind up getting pregnant the pill and iud we're not available. I had a baby way too young but not sorry for having her. I still could not get bc pills because even though it was post Griswald it was 1969 prior to Baird and every doctor asked for my husbands permission. I didn't have a husband. By this time I belonged to a women's rights group so luckily when I got pregnant again I was able to find a good abortion doctor and didn't wind up dying over having sex. My women's group was very active in a variety of areas. We ran a free child are co op in a room we took over at the university. We ran a drop in center. A group of us rented a large house and lived there. When we found there were no detox beds for females we took them home and detoxes them. We watched their kids. And we taught each other how to do menstrual extractions. In that decade I was turned down for jobs and paid less because I might have a baby someday. The greatest and most life changing event of my life was the day I got birth control pills for free at planned parenthood. Legal birth control changed everything for women. I could have sex without it limiting my potential by forcing me to have an unwanted pregnancy.
So I am telling this story of my life to preface my opinion of the hobby lobby decision. I take it personally. It is a decision made to control women. I believe there are people that hate the legal protections we fought so hard for. They don't want us to have jobs or go to school or have sex unless a man approves. This is personal. I have been slowly seething over the years but I feel it welling up. Between this ruling and the one forcing women to face a gauntlet of deranged dangerous loons in order to exert her right to control her body, I feel more angry than I have since I was a young girl.