New Hampshire News
| Weekly Keene Vigils for Healthcare Reform |
| Posted by Jaime Contois (jcontois) on Oct 04 2009 at 11:12 PM |
Gathering for change
Annelies Spykman of Keene and her son Sebastian Spykman, 4, join other demonstrators at a gathering in support of health care reform on Central Square in Keene Thursday afternoon. The weekly rallies began two months ago.
Weekly rallies push for health care reform
By Casey Farrar
Sentinel Staff
Published: Friday, October 02, 2009
When weekly rallies in support of health care reform in Keene’s Central Square began two months ago, it was still warm and bright at the 5 p.m. kickoff time.
These days the temperatures are a little brisker and sunset comes a little sooner, but the activists gathered Thursday night say they’ll keep showing up as long as it takes to make their voices heard.
“We want to raise the issue that real people are dying because they don’t have access to health care,” said Jaime Contois, state organizer for Working Families Win in Keene, a nonprofit organization that advocates for working families. “We want to make sure that the people making decisions know the stories about what people are going through and that they’re not going away.”
About 60 people gathered for this week’s rally, lining up along the edge of the square waving handmade signs in support of reform, such as “Senate pass the public health option” and “Healthcare is a human right.”
Throughout the hour-and-a-half-long rally the activists were greeted by honks and cheers from several passing motorists.
Organizers of the weekly rallies say theirs may be a more low-key affair than many protests by opponents of reform at town hall-style meetings across the country this summer, but they hope their persistence will pay off.
The rallies have drawn local business owners, health care professionals, lawmakers and students, who have a wide range of reasons for taking part.
Michael Cassese, a 23-year-old sociology student at Keene State College, has been uninsured for five years, after his father suffered a heart attack and lost his insurance.
Lacking insurance has been a financial burden on Cassese, who says he avoids going to the doctor at all costs.
“You try to save some money in case something happens,” he said. “And you don’t want to go because you have this nest egg and one trip to the doctor for something simple can cost hundreds of dollars.”
Cassese wants to see the health care system reformed so that coverage is equal, regardless of people’s economic situation, and so that greater emphasis is placed on preventive measures to keep people healthy.
Alison J. Cuomo-Nason, an emergency room nurse at Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene, showed up to the rally with an armful of blue scrub shirts signed by local health care professionals, who wrote messages on them in support of health care reform.
Contois said the shirts will be given to lawmakers to show medical professionals support health care reform.
Cuomo-Nason said she’d like to see a single-payer health care system run by the government.
But she, like several of the activists at Thursday’s rally, thinks that if that’s not possible, there should be a public health insurance option available along with private health insurance companies.
She’d also like to have eliminated pre-existing condition clauses, which many insurance companies use to deny coverage to patients who have already been diagnosed with a medical condition.
It’s an issue that hits close to home for Cuomo-Nason, who is the mother of two college-age sons and cares for her elderly mother.
Her 21-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia at age 5.
“I worry every day about what will happen when he comes off my insurance,” Cuomo-Nason said. “He’s basically considered uninsurable because of his pre-existing condition.
“No one should have that fear. That’s part of why I come out here.”
And as an emergency room nurse for 25 years, Cuomo-Nason has seen uninsured people come to the department who put off care until they couldn’t wait any longer.
“Through the years, I’ve cared for people that the broken system has left behind,” she said. “There are working mothers who come in when they have nowhere else to turn, people with psychiatric problems who come in in crisis, and so much of that could be avoided.”
Dr. John N. Walter, a physician at Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene’s clinic in Winchester, also sees patients hold off on treatment because of cost.
He recently treated a patient who broke her hand and couldn’t afford to go for treatment immediately after.
The hand healed incorrectly and now she’ll have to spend more money on surgery or live with a hand that doesn’t work right, he said.
And while many opponents to health care reform say it will create added layers of bureaucracy, working with private insurance companies also involves wading through a slew of differing rules and forms, Walter said.
“It’s complicated and time-consuming,” he said, adding that he thinks a single-payer system would not only improve efficiency, but also reduce cost.
Another activist, 65-year-old Christopher Grondahl of Hancock, says he knows the challenges that come with being uninsured.
Nearly 10 years ago, Grondahl lost his job as a software engineer and was unable to afford the cost of insurance through COBRA, a program that allows employees to keep their insurance for a period of time after losing their jobs.
But because his wife suffers from a chronic illness, Grondahl trained at age 60 to become an licensed nursing assistant so he could get a job that would offer health insurance, which he’ll need until his wife qualifies for Medicare in three years.
Grondahl would prefer a single-payer system but calls a public health insurance option “quite critical.”
“We have to do something,” he said.
Casey Farrar can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1435, or cfarrar@keenesentinel.com.