Topic: I'm going to March 23, 09 HEALTH CONFERENCE in Des Moines, Iowa; Obama selected!
bettyg
Unregistered
posted
when i heard this was coming 3-23, UNKNOWN location; i've kept my ears open to hear more, but nothing more was heard.
so i called our kcci/cbs tv station to see if they knew more. yes, they did, and gave me name/no. to call.
it was a lottery; last friday NOON was the deadline! i believe it was 5-10 minutes after noon when i called station.
so i got thru to 1 person after 2 calls there; you're too late noon was cutoff, but send to this one woman who is coordinating this. so i did, it bounced back, so i called 1st contact again for correct ending and got it there friday afternoon.
to my SURPRISE...I HEARD FROM HER TODAY!
they can accommodate my request, and gave me official invitation and how to get my ticket since it will now be same day.
so i HOPE TO ADDRESS CHRONIC LYME DISEASE mon. w/iowa's gov. chet culver representing obama at 1 of 5 cities nationwide chosen for health input!!
keep your fingers crossed for me ok.
see; it pays to be persistent; i sent this kate 2 notes; 2nd was a followup....i really want to come to this and stated i'd also volunteered 2 sat. afternoons inputting the pres. door-to-door canvassing going on. personally, i think that was the clincher, but i'll never know!!
YIPPEE! YIPPEE! oh, but those early hours since it's 10-noon!! i normally get up in afternoon!! uffda
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posted
That's fantastic Betty!! Really proud of you.
Posts: 70 | From U.S.A. | Registered: Dec 2008
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Dekrator48
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 18239
posted
Way to go bettyg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you!!!
Knock 'em dead for all of us!!!
-------------------- The fibromyalgia I've had for 32 years was an undiagnosed Lyme symptom.
"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future". -Jeremiah 29:11 Posts: 6076 | From Pennsylvania, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Leelee
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posted
Wow! Bettyg! How great!
Sending you lots of positive energy.
Let us know everything.
-------------------- The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Martin Luther King,Jr Posts: 1573 | From Maryland | Registered: Feb 2009
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Ocean
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Member # 3496
posted
Yea Betty!!!!
Great job, that is wonderful news!!
I can't wait to hear how it all goes. Make sure you get to bed early tonight so you are as well rested as can be.
posted
to everyone above who were very kind to leave supportive messages, HEARTFELT THANKS!!
i was just finally reading des moines register, and it stated this!
you can WATCH the health care forum LIVE online monday at www.DesMoinesRegister.com and look for the link! surprised me! so if you are interested, it's 10 - NOON DAYLIGHT savings time... *********************************************
so it would be same as eastern since we SPRANG FORWARD a couple of weeks ago.
so i came on early for an hour or so, and BEDTIME!
want to type a few quick notes up in case i do get to talk tomorrow.
thanks again everyone! you betcha' i'll report promptly after getting home. xox
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Ocean
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Member # 3496
posted
Betty,
You'll be there in about an hour (central time), wahoo!! I hope it goes well and I hope you get to speak. Thanks for the live link, I'm going to turn it on at 10.
Leelee
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 19112
posted
It's 10:05 here and I am desperately trying to find the link. Found the site and a poll asking reader's opinions on the topic, but I can't find the link.
Can anyone help me?
Thanks!
-------------------- The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Martin Luther King,Jr Posts: 1573 | From Maryland | Registered: Feb 2009
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Thanks for leading the battle charge!!!... i'm happy to have you go there an speak for me as well as all the others on here. Good luck.
Dave
-------------------- On my journey to wellness - One day at a time. Posts: 989 | From NJ | Registered: Sep 2008
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kreynolds
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 15117
posted
Hey bettyg I know your probably exausted after today!
I didn't get a chance to watch it because my family is ill with a virus, but when you get the strength let us know how it went!
Thanks again for all that you do!
-------------------- Diagnosed CDC + 6/2007
Quest: + IGG Bands 18,23,39,41,58,66 and 93.
Quest: + IGM Bands 23,39
Quest: + Bartonella (B.Henselea & B. Quintana),+ Babesia, and + Mycoplasma and Lyme-Induced Addisons Disease
+ Biofilm blood test 12/2010 Posts: 1185 | From New York | Registered: Apr 2008
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bettyg
Unregistered
posted
encourages people to continue the discussion by visiting www.healthreform.gov. ****************************
so start emailing my lyme friends! 1 of questions today was how we can use prevention to prevent chronic problems. i was dying to talk about that; but only those up front were chosen; it was discrimination of where i saw all the hands go up.
just got home, and drove town in rain all the rain with 5 minutes of WHITE OUT RAIN! just awful!
time to sleep for several hours to unwind! again, thanks for your comments. as soon as i can find in my online directory the 2 pages comments i typed up last night, i'll post them here! but darn if i could find them earlier ... neuro fog at its best!
thank you for all your responses; i hope some of you got to listen to this live!
i was NOT able to be selected to ask my questions & give my many comments. i gave my 2 pages of comments to OBAMA'S DC STAFF PERSON who attended to day with sec. of health nancy ann .....
i saw him prior and glad i gave it to him then; almost 700 people there. should have been 4 hrs. vs. 2 hrs.
i did get a chance to talk to federal house rep leonard boswell's whose area is des moines. i thank him for co-sponsoring our lyme bill before, and encouraged him again to do this.
boswell came me his card and asked me to send a note to katy in his office about this!
missed sen. tom harkin and nancy-ann, sec. of health; they must have beat it out immediately.
i found a link about today's conference and here are the comments there.
Live-Blog: Regional Forum on Health Reform, Des Moines
Rebecca Adelman of the Department of Health and Human Services gives us a play-by-play on the third of five White House Regional Forums on Health Reform, watch it streamed livefrom Des Moines, Iowa at HealthReform.gov.
1:27: Governor Culver thanks the audience for their spirited participation and encourages people to continue the discussion by visiting www.healthreform.gov. ****************************
He also thanks President Obama for his commitment to health reform. He said, on every front, the President and his team have been extremely responsive.
1:23: Nancy-Ann DeParle closes the event promising to brief her colleagues in the White House on the suggestions and concerns brought up in the forum today.
She urged participants to visit www.healthreform.gov to submit more suggestions, and said "I have a lot to be optimistic about as I go back to the White house."
She says she heard frustration from small business, farmers, providers that premiums are out of reach.
She also says she heard the desire of clinicians to be at the table, to break down the barriers that exist to providing care, and she heard intelligent advocates from all different angles today.
Finally, she expressed hope that everyone will continue to provide input as we work to lower costs and cover more Americans.
1:18: Senator Harkin makes his closing remarks and talks about how members of Congress are working to make health reform happen this year.
He said they are setting deadlines, and hope to have a bill on the floor in late June to debate it in July.
He said his goal, and the President is pushing very hard on this, is to get this done in Congress before the August recess, and to have a bill to the President in September or October.
"We are not going to kick the ball down the field," he said. "This is going to happen this year."
1:10: A gentleman with a "Livestrong" t-shirt wraps up the discussion talking about cancer. He asks for a show of hands of how many participants have been touched by cancer in their own families or personally, and nearly 100 percent of those in the room raised their hands.
He said we need to continue to keep this very important issue part of the national discussion about health care.
1:02: Responding to the question proposed by Governor Rounds about rural health, a participant brought up the importance of long-term care providers in rural communities.
This participant said he came from a rural area, and many people there just want to stay in their homes and communities.
He said if we pay greater attention to the importance of long-term care providers, and if we invest in them, people in rural communities will visit hospitals less frequently and fewer citizens will need to live in expensive nursing homes.
12:55: Governor Rounds takes a few minutes to speak about the challenge of attracting doctors and nurses to serve in rural communities.
He said the demand for medical professionals in rural areas is so great that each provider is stretched thin, making it even more difficult to maintain a workforce of doctors and nurses.
He asked the participants for suggestions on how to attract medical professionals to rural areas, and how to support them once they establish a practice.
The Governor said we need a plan to bring good medical services to rural Americans.
12:41: A participant named Tracey brought up the cost of treating chronic diseases.
She suggested that the health system reform include a focus on primary and secondary prevention.
She said it is crucially important to think about how to keep the well healthy, to identify the at-risk individuals, and to help the chronically ill manage their conditions to keep the costs for treating these illnesses down.
12:30: Governor Culver reads a question from Audrey Wiedemeier, a resident of Iowa City who submitted her question online at www.healthreform.gov.
She asked, "What is being done to address the fact that many low income communities don't have access to affordable fresh healthy food?"
Governor Culver and Senator Harkin discuss at length what prevention methods we could employ that would be accessible to Americans of all income brackets.
Senator Harkin argues in particular that we need to rethink what food options kids have in schools to start prevention early in life .
12:20: A chiropractor brings up the issue of electronic medical records. He says the adoption of that technology could save $77 billion annually.
Now that $19.5 billion has been put forth in the Recovery Act for Health Information technology, we must think about how to make that transition.
He urges that an important question in the health reform effort is how can we use technology to drive best practices and efficiency.
12:10: After Darlyne Neff addresses the group, Governor Culver turns the microphone over to the participants in the audience.
A small businessman from Iowa speaks first, and stresses the particular difficulties that small businesses face as they strive to insure their employees when health care costs are skyrocketing.
A woman who was recently laid off from her job said she is not sure how she will get insurance, but hopes her former employer will be able to provider her with health insurance with the help of money from the Recovery Act.
Later, a man named Bruce from Iowa brought up the fact that people between the ages of 50 and 64 are among the fastest growing group of uninsured Americans.
Nancy-Ann DeParle said it is an issue the President is very aware of, and that solutions are being discussed.
11:55: Darlyne Neff, from Iowa City, Iowa addressed the assembled group after Nancy-Ann DeParle. Neff is a 75-year-old retired teacher living in a life-care residential community. She taught kindergarten, grade school, and speech at the junior high and community college level.
She said if she could go back to teaching now she would stress with her students the importance of listening to their bodies and would try to impress upon them the importance of health and wellness.
Darlyne was one of 30,000 Americans who participated in health care reform community discussions over the holidays.
She said she has survived operations for breast cancer and a brain tumor, and when she heard that the President's health care team was seeking input from Americans on how to reform the health care system, she thought, "this is something I really need to do."
11:45: White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle addressed and thanked the participants next - she especially singled out the clinicians she met in the audience, who are on the front lines of this health care reform effort.
She spoke about the first forum on health reform that brought together Democrats, Republicans, insurance executives, providers and everyday Americans at the White House to begin the discussion. These regional forums, she said, are a continuation of that discussion.
11:40: South Dakota Governor Rounds addressed the group next.
He said that in South Dakota, the pressing concern is how to provide the best possible care in small, rural communities.
9 percent of South Dakotans are uninsured. Governor Rounds said, "We can do better...and we must not leave out rural areas."
11:34: Senator Harkin just addressed the group - he stressed that we urgently need to change the health care system.
The Senator said, "the good news is, we have a President who gets it." He urged the incorporation of prevention measures in to the health system, so that we can transform our system from a sick-care system to a health care system.
11:25: Governor Culver welcomes the group and thanks President Obama for his commitment to tackling the "national challenge" that is health care reform.
He says he hopes the discussion today can provide some useful input for the President and his health care team (since the Transition, that team has been exceptional in listening carefully and turning the input they get into serious points and data to inform policy-making).
Two Iowa lawmakers - Congressman Leonard Boswell and Senator Tom Harkin, are next up to speak.
11:15: Governor Culver kicks off the forum with a video message from President Obama. The President thanks the group for participating and says he looks forward to hearing about the concerns and ideas raised at the forum today.
For background, the regional forums were designed to bring everyone with a stake in the health reform debate together, not just in Washington but across the country where people deal with the realities of health care every day, not just the policy analysis and politics of it.
Forums in Dearborn, Michigan and Burlington, Vermont were held over the last two weeks, and two more health reform discussions in Greensboro, North Carolina and Los Angeles, California are coming up.
11:05: The third Regional White House Forum on Health Reform just began in Des Moines, Iowa.
Today's event is coming to you live from the Polk County Convention Center (which was also home to the Iowa Caucuses in 2008)
Thomas Newton, the Director of the Iowa Department of Public Health just began his opening remarks to the forum, welcoming the participants.
It will be moderated by Governor Chet Culver of Iowa and Governor Mike Rounds of South Dakota, with Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office on Health Reform, representing the White House.
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tdtid
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Member # 10276
posted
Betty,
You are definitely a go getter. We all appreciate your spunk so very very much.
THANK YOU BETTY!
Cathy
-------------------- "To Dream The Impossible Dream" Man of La Mancha Posts: 2638 | From New Hampshire | Registered: Oct 2006
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Ocean
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Member # 3496
posted
Awesome work Betty!!!! Great job today, as Cathy said, we really appreciate it!!
i was so wound up i couldn't sleep and our favorite show, DANCING with the stars was on ... sorry, NO POLKAS! lol
so got a quick nap while the rain was heavy and lightning galore.
thank you for all your comments!
only 1 person really got to speak about THEIR health issues; lance armstrong's group at end of program.
uncle mike, whose niece is alex hermstad, storm lake, iowa who is 15, paralyzed and on ventilator; i got to spend 5 minutes with a man named steve, public health dept. about your meeting w/governor's staff 1-2 years ago about alex, and NO ONE from gov. staff got back to you. he will relay that message to gov. staff.
i was really impressed about the organization of this thing today; everyone knew what was going on including me, a last minute person added yesterday afternoon.
i checked my email this am before leaving for des moines; kate/coordinator had sent me a note at 530 AM saying for me to check with the gals registering for them to lead me to my ASSIGNED seat on end of row so i could go to bathroom anytime without having to over many people's feet area.
i was surprised, rows were set up with amble foot room so it wasn't crowded.
thanks again, i may not have gotten to speak on behalf of myself and all lyme/co-infection patients, but at least i got 2 short pages of comments to the DC staff. i looked for him after the event, but he was gone immediately.
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Michelle M
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posted
Awesome, Betty. You're tireless. You go, girl!!
Posts: 3193 | From Northern California | Registered: Apr 2005
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Dekrator48
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Member # 18239
posted
bettyg,
It is so wonderful that you were even able to go and get your typed comments to the staff!
You are a relentless supporter representing all of us. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-------------------- The fibromyalgia I've had for 32 years was an undiagnosed Lyme symptom.
"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future". -Jeremiah 29:11 Posts: 6076 | From Pennsylvania, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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bettyg
Unregistered
posted
michelle and dek,
thanks so much for your nice comments.
i'm lucky to be in iowa where all the politics starts in jan. of election years, and ALL come here who want to run for president.
they spend so much time here getting to know us; that they come back for occasions like the above, and many iowans were hired for important positions in obama's staff, etc.
it's a pleasure to serve you all in representing lyme/co-infection patients.... yes siree!
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bettyg
Unregistered
posted
up ... needed the link for our members to send to obama's health care director and what her name was on another post in support.
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Pinelady
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Member # 18524
posted
Awesome bettyg. On behalf of the over 200,000.00 Bb patients everywhere we salute you.
-------------------- Suspected Lyme 07 Test neg One band migrating in IgG region unable to identify.Igenex Jan.09IFA titer 1:40 IND IgM neg pos 31 +++ 34 IND 39 IND 41 IND 83-93 + DX:Neuroborreliosis Posts: 5850 | From Kentucky | Registered: Dec 2008
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bettyg
Unregistered
posted
pinelady and everyone!
it's NOT TOO LATE TO USE NANCY'S DIRECT LINK ABOVE TO SHARE YOUR HEALTH CONCERNS, ETC.!
keep them coming! pinelady, thank you very much for the nice compliment!
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