Health Care

Wilda R. Gift of Hagerstown, Md., passed away Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, at her home. Born Feb. 10, in Hagerstown, she was the daughter of Samuel G. Reel Sr. and Edith Johnson Reel. She graduated from North Hagerstown High School and the Washington County Hospital School of Nursing. She was employed by Fleischer's on the Square in Hagerstown during high school, the University of Maryland Hospital and Washington County Hospital as a nurse in the operating room. She was an advocate and supporter of arts and music in the Hagerstown community as a member of the Maryland Symphony Orchestra Guild, the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts and the Washington County Historical Society.

 The Chambersburg Hospital pastoral care department's annual training for laypersons on clinical pastoral care in a health care setting will begin at 3 p.m. Tuesday, March 19, at the Chambersburg Hospital. Registration deadline is Friday, Feb. 1.  The training is a diploma-level course consisting of nine, consecutive, weekly training sessions.  Each session will last approximately two hours and 30 minutes. The training includes a one-day off campus retreat on Saturday, May 11. The training is free, but participants are required to purchase the course books.  In exchange for the training, participants are asked to commit to a visitation period of three hours per week for six months.

Drastic health care changes are happening federally, spurring three major regional health care providers in Washington, Frederick and Allegany counties to take a proactive approach to mitigate potential repercussions at the local level, a Meritus Health executive said Thursday. “Our world is going to change dramatically on the way we are held accountable for care, and none of the infrastructure to manage that exists today,” said Joseph P. Ross, president and CEO of Meritus Health, which operates Meritus Medical Center east of Hagerstown.

It is a local chapter of Business Network International, or BNI, whose mission is to help members increase their business through a structured, positive and professional word-of-mouth referral program that enables them to develop long-term, meaningful relationships with local business professionals. The revenue generated by the chapter members as a direct result of referrals is tracked each week. When a member is successful in doing business with a referral he or she received from another member, an anonymous “thank-you” card is turned in stating the name of the person who gave the referral and the dollar amount of the business generated.

The Herald-Mail published a column last week titled “Safety net under siege” written by David Elliot, the communications director of USAction, a left-leaning advocacy group and propaganda machine. The column focused on the “promise” we owe American citizens about Medicare. The column was about 50 percent stories of personal interest, which are nice for working up sympathy but do little to help people actually think about the realities of Medicare's imminent collapse. Twice, Elliot mentions the “promise” we made to Americans to take care of their medical needs in old age. He ended the column by writing, “We made them a promise.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (often called Obamacare) is lauded as a broad reform of American health care. In fact, PPACA focuses on only one goal: expanding health insurance coverage. It does this, in part, by subsidizing insurance premiums for lower-income households, and by fining people who don't have coverage and employers that don't provide it to workers. PPACA largely overlooks other, arguably worse, problems such as the high cost of care and insurance, the financial problems of Medicare and Medicaid, the frequency of iatrogenic (doctor-caused)

BLS for Health Care Providers will be from 4 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24, at Hagerstown Community College, Career Programs Building, Room 210, 11400 Robinwood Dr, east of Hagerstown. The program, provided by the American Heart Association, is designed to prepare a variety of health care professionals to recognize several life-threatening emergencies and to provide CPR, use an automated external defibrillator (AED) and relieve choking in a safe, timely and effective manner. This course includes adult, child and infant skills in nonhospital and hospital settings.

The downsides of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), generally known as Obamacare, are coming to the forefront. You have to dig a little to learn about these developments since the national media continues to provide cover for this administration. At the height of the drama in getting the PPACA passed in 2009, Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass this bill to find out what is in it.” Now, those senators who voted for the plan are finding out what's in it. These senators, which include Chuck Schumer of New York and Dick Durbin of Illinois, are asking for relief from the bill they heartily supported not so long ago.  An article posted recently on The Daily Caller about the impending changes coming to health care noted that “Eighteen Democratic U.S. senators and senators-elect sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Dec. 4 calling for a 'delay in the implementation' of the medical device tax in Obamacare,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

In March of 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the nation's latest attempt to “reform” health care. Yet, despite all the new spending and taxes, and all the new rules and expanded government oversight, PPACA doesn't address most of the problems that afflict American health care. Many of these problems are well-known:  Health care and health insurance costs are high and rising rapidly.  Care providers and insurers seem inhospitable, inflexible and inscrutable.

More than 1,200 Washington County residents who receive free or subsidized outpatient health care will have to choose a new managed-care organization or be automatically switched to one to receive benefits after Dec. 31, 2012. Maryland's Primary Adult Care Program, or PAC, enables residents with low incomes who are not on Medicare and not eligible for full Medicaid benefits to get free or subsidized outpatient health care. In Washington County, about 2,150 residents are enrolled in the care program, which began in July 2006.