Posts Tagged ‘Health care’
Have You Ever Been in Helpless Patient Mode?
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This post by Michelle Robson, the founder of the awesome women’s health website EmpowHer.com, is the second in a series of National Women’s Health Week guest posts. Michelle founded EmpowHer after experiencing her own horror story with the health care system. The site she created is dedicated to helping women improve their health and well-being. They provide up-to-date medical information, access to leading medical experts and advocates, and a devoted community of women who ask questions, share stories, and connect with one another in a safe and supportive environment.
In this article, Michelle describes a situation that each of us has probably found ourselves in at one time or another: what she calls “helpless patient mode.” Sound familiar? Read on…share your story if you’re so moved…and be sure to check out EmpowHer.com.
I really believe that women tend to go to a certain state of mind when they’re patients and relying on a doctor’s care. It’s called “helpless patient mode.” Ironically, when we have a sick child, spouse or other loved one, we can be a doctor’s biggest nightmare. We’re brilliant and strong when advocating for a loved one. A mother will do an inordinate amount of research and will carefully question the pediatrician when her child is ill. But when she is ill, it’s another story altogether. Women tend to do what their doctors tell them to do. We don’t listen to ourselves, to our guts. We simply want that doctor to fix us, give us that magic pill, and quick, so we can go about doing all the millions of things we do to take care of other people.
I admit that I’m totally guilty of this. Big-time. In fact, my hysterectomy may not have even happened if I hadn’t succombed to the all-too-easy “helpless patient mode.” I may have chosen another option if I’d been aware of the other options and hadn’t relied so completely on what I was told was my only option.
Read MoreIs a Good Enough Stimulus Good Enough?
Seems like the 787 billion dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 stimulus package Congress has passed and sent to the President’s desk is just good enough. Though notable for its size, it doesn’t advance bold initiatives that could define Obama’s presidency, nor does it grapple with big, confounding issues like universal health care. It’s incremental rather than transformational. But it’s good enough to mind-shift us into a more optimistic view of the short term economy and to offer real help to many hurt by the downturn.
(If you want a quick look at how we’re going to spend 787 billion, see this chart. That sounds like “real money“, but it’s amazing how quickly it goes when you break it down–well, incrementally. For a more detailed summary, the Center for Law and Social Policy provides descriptions and tables with estimated state-by-state impacts of key provisions. Read that full report here.)
Though many economists say the package isn’t big enough, and feminists wonder whether it does enough to build the human infrastructure, Republicans are predictably squealing it’s too big and too diffuse. This despite all the effort Obama went to to engage and appease his Republican colleagues. I thought by now he would have learned the hooker principle (get paid first) and not have expended so much political capital trying to win over those who want only to create campaign issues with which to wrest back Congressional seats in 2010 and take the White House away from him in 2012. (Remember Newt and the Contract on America in 1994?)
Read MoreAsk Obama to End the Global Gag Rule
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FK2pzLAdgQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] A brief history: The U.S. government has been playing ping pong with women’s lives globally for almost three decades, ever since Ronald Reagan first declared the “Mexico City Policy” by executive order (without a Congressional vote). Bill Clinton reversed the policy, by then known as the Global Gag Rule, the day he was inaugurated…
Read MoreBeyond Roe: Toward Human Rights for Women
With a new Obama administration about to begin, timing couldn’t be more perfect for a fresh look at reproductive rights, health, and justice policies. I reviewed the book Our Bodies, Our Crimes, by Fordham sociology Professor Jeanne Flavin, for Democracy: a Journal of Ideas. DJ asked me to write the review as an essay about…
Read MoreWho Should Be In Obama’s Cabinet?
I want to share in this fascinating discussion I participated in yesterday on GRITtv hosted by Laura Flanders. We covered Barack Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff and talked about who we’d like to see fill the rest of Obama’s cabinet. Alexis McGill Executive Director of Citizen Change, Dan Gerstein former Senior…
Read MoreJohn McCain’s Wrong Answers to Working Women’s Questions—Now Give Him Your Answer at the Ballot Box
Don’t get excited. John McCain didn’t respond directly to the questions about his positions on economic and reproductive justice we (Carole Joffe and I) first put to him on Labor Day and have been asking him ever since. But he’s shocked even us since then with his over the top contempt for women. During his…
Read MorePalin Speech: Sneers Like Cheney–but if You Go Moose Hunting with Her, Hope She’s a Better Shot
John McCain’s vice presidential running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, delivered an engaging speech last night at the Republican National Convention. Her roaring crowd voraciously devoured every morsel of the copious red meat she served up with a fierceness that illustrates how she earned the nickname “Sarah Barracuda” in high school sports competition. Jill Miller…
Read MoreOn Labor Day, Working Women Need Straight Answers from John McCain
UC Davis professor Carole Joff and I just published this commentary on Huffington Post. We felt that the connection between economic and reproductive justice has not been fully made as yet, especially in the media, and we decided to do our part. Please spread it around far and wide, and post comments there (and here…
Read More“Omaba Caint” Post Sure Could Get Blog Buzz Going
Seems like my last post, “Obama Caint Choose Kaine”, riled some folks up.
Erin Kotecki Vest, who blogs at BlogHer and Queen of Spain, got on my case with several arguments worthy of response. I have great respect for Erin, and am pleased for this excuse to congratulate her in public on becoming BlogHer’s Producer of Special Projects (high five here!).
However, I learned from hard knocks on the political frontlines that her argument on behalf of Gov. Kaine is self-defeating. Sadly, it also demonstrates how we can make it so incredibly hard to hold politicians’ feet to the fire about reproductive rights, health, and justice, and how women are often entirely too well behaved to make history turn out the way we want it.
True, the issues of birth control, sex education, reproductive rights, and abortion have been so polarized by the media’s false balance (someone else used that phrase on HuffPo last week, but I made it up when I wrote The War on Choice) that both the facts and the framing get skewed in public discourse. That’s frustrating to be sure. But, the deal is, whoever defines the terms of the debate is probably going to win it. And you can’t ever win at all if you don’t stay in the game.
If you haven’t already, please read “Obama Caint Chose Kaine” for my key points about Obama’s veep pick, which I won’t reiterate here. Here’s an excerpt of Erin’s reaction:
We could go through and talk about Kaine’s repeated his position supporting Roe and what he’s done as Governor…however, let’s just put all that aside too.
Let’s deal with the realities of this country. The reality of government. The reality of America in 2008.
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