Posts
Ground Zero in the Land of Opportunity
A Right Royal Whippersnapper: Why Things Will Never Change in Britain
Which Path for the Right?
Michigan Jobs
By Bill Boyarsky
Ground Zero in the Land of OpportunityBy Mike Rose
A Right Royal Whippersnapper: Why Things Will Never Change in BritainBy Jessica Ings and Charlie Williams
Which Path for the Right?By E.J. Dionne, Jr.
Christie Addresses Weight Criticism, PolitiFact’s ‘Lie of the Year’ Revealed, and More Assad Fires Scud Missiles at Rebels, U.S. Reports The Rich, Conservative Push for Right-to-Work (Video) The Pope’s First Tweets Jon Stewart Nearly Quit ‘The Daily Show’ Because of ‘Asshole’ Colleagues Scalia’s Anti-Gay Marriage Rant, Nate Silver on Hillary’s 2016 Prospects, and More
Sarah Silverman Pro-Choice Video Tells ‘Bros’ to Stand Up for the Ladies Watch: Fox News Contributor Gets Punched in Face During Michigan Union Protest The Revolution Continues in Challenge to Morsi Moyers and Sanders on America’s Media Oligopoly
Fighting Manifest DestinyBy Jonathan Yardley Glenn Greenwald Condemns ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Torture Porn
Psy Shames Himself With Unqualified Apology (Video)
By Alexander Reed Kelly Reports of Publishing’s Death Are Exaggerated
By Susan Zakin
The Questions Education Reformers Aren’t AskingDig led by Mike Rose Gore Vidal: His Life and Legacy
Dig led by Truthdig Staff
advertisement-->
The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American PowerBy Jeff Sharlet
$17.13
advertisement
-->
Fit to ServeBy James C. Hormel and Erin Martin
advertisement
-->
Women’s Raglan Hoodie$35
Bill Boyarsky's Columns 
Email 
Print 
ShareTweet
Posted on Dec 13, 2012 
AP/Dave CollinsA striking nursing home worker wears buttons on her coat celebrating the Affordable Care Act and the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
By Bill Boyarsky
Dealing with the complex problems of the poor is one of the most difficult challenges facing Obamacare as the historic health reform law slowly but steadily enters American life.
Throughout the country, health professionals, politicians and health care activists are meeting about how to implement the Affordable Care Act now that it has been upheld by the Supreme Court and President Barack Obama’s re-election.
I attended one of these sessions recently and saw the potential for Obamacare in the nation’s impoverished communities. Among the topics was autism, a disability in which—as is true of much of American medical care—treatment is rationed on the basis of wealth.
Areva D. Martin, an attorney who advocates for children with special needs such as autism, called care for the disorder “a microcosm” of inadequate treatment of the poor, with insufficient diagnoses, limited and scattered facilities, and caregivers—parents, other relatives and friends—so burdened with two or three jobs and low incomes that they can’t fight for help in a bureaucratic system.
Martin spoke at a conference at St. John’s Well Child & Family Center, which has 140,000 visits a year from residents of South Los Angeles, home to many thousands of working-class Latinos and African-Americans. St. John’s provides primary, dental and mental health care; a team approach to complex ailments; and diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS. It is one of more than 8,000 community health clinics across the nation serving more than 20 million poor people, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers.
Advertisement
Jim Mangia, president and CEO of St. John’s, told me that Obamacare is providing funds for new buildings and remodeling at the center’s main South L.A. facility and satellite clinics in the broad area of poverty that stretches for miles south of the office towers, expensive restaurants and high-priced homes of affluent Los Angeles.
Obamacare funding of Medicaid for the poor will put 12,000 St. John’s patients, presently without health insurance, on the government care program. By paying for these patients, Medicaid will provide funds to St. John’s, which now has to finance its care from donations and other scarce sources.
Autism requires a range of services administered by doctors, schools, health clinics, speech and behavior therapists, psychologists and others. To put all these components together requires parental sophistication and an ability to fight the system. For those in South L.A., it also means finding help at facilities that are often a long bus ride away.
Attorney Martin learned how poverty makes this difficult when she attended a parental meeting to find ways of helping her autistic son learn to read. She knew how to fight the system, unlike some of the poor mothers and fathers she met. Help, she found, is hard to obtain “if you are not educated, if you are not used to dealing with bureaucrats, if you don’t have a job that allows you time to go to two zillion meetings, if you are working three jobs.”
In a series published a year ago, Los Angeles Times journalist Alan Zarembo reported that state spending for treatment of autism is tilted toward whites in more affluent areas. For autistic children between the ages of 3 and 6, the critical period for treating the disorder, the Times found that California spent $11,723 per child for whites, $11,063 for Asians, $7,634 for Latinos and $6,593 for African-Americans.
St. John’s CEO Mangia said that his organization, helped by Obamacare funds, is planning a large center for special needs children, including those with autism, on a new medical campus being built in South L.A. to replace the old Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital.
“There will be early identification, intervention, mental health care, counseling, speech, psychological and occupational therapy, all the things these kids need here,” Mangia said, services now reserved for “upper-middle-class kids whose families can afford it.”
Autism is just an example. By putting money into community health clinics, expanding Medicaid, and financing improved primary and comprehensive treatment, Obamacare will improve life throughout the country for the poor suffering from diabetes, heart disease, HIV/AIDS and other complex ailments.
Such care should have been available a long time ago. Medicare for all would have been better. But at St. John’s and community health centers throughout America, dedicated health care professionals are making Obamacare work. So are others engaged in setting up the exchanges that will make a variety of insurance policies, with subsidies for the low income, available to those now uninsured.
Their work is the beginning of a journey that will end only when Obamacare—if it is successful—makes decent health care a right rather than something reserved for those who can afford it.
TAGS: affordable care act autism barack obama bill boyarsky election government health health care medicare money poverty
Related Entries
Which Path for the Right? Anyone Else Find the Threat of Syrian Chemical Weapons Eerily Familiar?
Why Are Anarchists and Dead People ‘Liking’ Corporations on Facebook?
Do Americans Deserve to See These Secret Documents? 
Email to a friend Get truth delivered to
your inbox every week.
New and Improved Comments
If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
Get Truthdig in your inbox
Newsletter
Become a Fan
Follow Us
Subscribe
CloseGive the gift of independent journalism.
Support Truthdig by making a donation of at least $25 in someone's name, and we'll send him or her a signed letter of appreciation from our publisher.
With your support, we've been able to pay writers such as Chris Hedges, Col. Ann Wright, Mr. Fish and Nomi Prins.
We've sent reporters around the world, from Afghanistan to Cairo to Cuba.
Thanks to you, our mission to find and publish a range of insightful opinion and analysis from a progressive point of view continues.
Support Truthdig
HOME|Digs|Reports|Arts & Culture|Uncovered|Ear to the Ground|A/V Booth|CartoonsTags|Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|FAQ: Comments and Moderation | Google+ Google+
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.© 2012 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved. Web site development by Hop Studios
View the Original article
0 comments:
Post a Comment