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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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Do Republicans Or Democrats Give More To Charity

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/do-republicans-or-democrats-give-more-to-charity/

Do Republicans Or Democrats Give More To Charity

The Relationship Between Generosity And Political Affiliation And Gender

Who LIES More- Republicans or Democrats?

Most people tip their hair stylists, while only 27% tip their hotel housekeeper.

+1.63%

Tipping can be a social and cultural maelstrom. And social media doesnt always help.

A National Basketball Association player who has a $30 million contract drew internet ire last week after leaving a $13.97 tip on a $487.13 bill. Andre Roberson of the Oklahoma City Thunder made headlines for the paltry tip, and the strong reaction shows just how emotional the question of tipping can be.

But it wasnt quite as clear-cut as it seemed. Roberson released a statement on Twitter TWTR, +1.63% saying he was misrepresented, saying he bought one bottle of liquor for $487 at a bar, around five times the retail price and rounded it out to $500. Roberson said he also had a $100 tab on shots for which he left a $200 tip. I thought hed be grateful for the $200 tip, he wrote of the barman who served him.

Meanwhile, some restaurants have banned tipping while Uber is finally encouraging riders to open their wallets to drivers who go the extra mile.

See more:Meet the most generous tipper in America

Some of the findings seemed to play out in real life when three supporters of President Donald Trump left a $450 tip for a Washington, D.C. waitress in January, though they were from Texas, not the relatively more generous northeast.

Dont miss:How much to tip everyone

Also read: Is this the worst tipper in America?

Statistics On Us Generosity

In this section youll find charts and graphs laying out the most important numbers in American philanthropy. They document how much we give, how that has changed over time, what areas we give to, and what mechanisms we use to donate. There are figures here on where charities get their money, how many people offer volunteer labor, the demographic factors that influence generosity , and how various states and cities differ. The top foundations and donor-advised funds are ranked by their giving. We present surprising information on overseas aid, and statistics on how the U.S. compares to other countries when it comes to donating to charity.

Beto Orourke Other Democrats See The Downside Of Releasing Tax Returns

CHARLOTTESVILLE About 24 hours after presidential hopeful Beto ORourke released his tax returns from the past decade, a University of Virginia student asked him why he didnt donate more money to charities.

ORourke, a former congressman from El Paso, and his wife reported in their 2017 tax return that they donated $1,166 which was one-third of 1 percent of their $370,412 of income that year. ORourke told reporters on Wednesday that, over the years, he and his wife have donated thousands of dollars more that they did not itemize because it wasnt important for us to take the deduction. The campaign has yet to provide updated numbers.

Ive served in public office since 2005. I do my best to contribute to the success of my community, of my state and, now, of my country, ORourke said in responding to the student on Tuesday night. Im doing everything that I can right now, spending this time with you not with our kiddos, not back home in El Paso because I want to sacrifice everything to make sure that we meet this moment of truth with everything that weve got.

ORourke is not the only Democratic candidate who has had personal finances questioned at a time when many voters are frustrated by the ever-growing economic divide in the country. One by one, Democratic candidates have released their tax returns something that President Trump has refused to do in an attempt at transparency.

Also Check: How Many Presidents Have The Republicans Tried To Impeach

Charitable Giving By State: Are Republicans More Generous Than Democrats Or Just More Religious

It turns out that the old Bushism about compassionate conservatism may not be a myth after all. In a new analysis of Internal Revenue Service tax records, the Chronicle of Philanthropy on Monday ranked U.S. cities and states by how much money their residents give to charity. The bottom line? People in red states are more generous with their green.

The study, which compared IRS data from 2012 with data from 2006, showed that the 17 most generous states — as measured by the percentage of their income they donated to charity — voted for Mitt Romney in the last presidential election. The seven states at the bottom of the list, meanwhile, voted for Barack Obama.

Exactly why is a bit of a mystery. Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the data only showed how much money people gave away, not which types of organizations they gave to. But generally speaking, she said its fair to assume that political ideology aligns to some extent with ideas about charitable giving.

Not to be too simplistic about it, but if you believe that government should take care of basic social services, then youre going to go that way, Palmer told International Business Times. If you think charities should take care of things, and not government, then youre probably going to give more generously to charity.

Got a news tip? . Follow me on Twitter .

Volunteering In The Us

This data comes from detailed time logs that statisticians ask householders to keep. In less strict definitions like phone surveys, more like 45 percent of the U.S. population say they volunteered some time to a charitable cause within the last year.

Current estimates of the dollar value of volunteered time range from $179 billion per year to more than twice that, depending on how you count.Volunteering is closely associated with donating cash as well. One Harris study showed that Americans who volunteered gave 11 times as much money to charity in a year as those who did not volunteer.

An interesting pattern emerges if one studies giving by income level. As incomes rise, more and more of the people in that bracket make gifts to charity. The sizes of their gifts tend to rise as well. However: if you look at average donations as a fraction of funds available, they tend to level off at around 2-3 percent of income.

Religious faith is a central influence on giving. Religious people are much more likely than the non-religious to donate to charitable causesincluding secular causesand they give much more.

Among Democrats, Independents, and Republicans alike, almost exactly half of the group averaged $100-$999 in annual charitable donations at the time of this 2005 poll. There was virtually no difference among the parties in the size of that moderate-giving group, so those results were not included in the graph to the left.

Also Check: What Did Republicans Gain From The Compromise Of 1877

How Political Ideology Influences Charitable Giving

Many issues seem to divide Democrats and Republicans, and new research has found one more: philanthropy.

Red counties, which are overwhelmingly Republican, tend to report higher charitable contributions than Democratic-dominated blue counties, according to a new study on giving, although giving in blue counties is often bolstered by a combination of charitable donations and higher taxes.

But as red or blue counties become more politically competitive, charitable giving tends to fall.

Theres something about the like-mindedness where perhaps the comfort level rises, said one of the authors of the study, Robert K. Christensen, associate professor at the George W. Romney Institute of Public Service and Ethics at Brigham Young University. They feel safe redistributing their wealth voluntarily. It also matters for compulsory giving.

The study was conducted by four research professors who set out to explore how political differences affect charitable giving. It was published on Oct. 20 in the academic journal Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. The other authors were Laurie E. Paarlberg of Indiana UniversityPurdue University Indianapolis, Rebecca Nesbit of the University of Georgia and Richard M. Clerkin of North Carolina State University.

Dr. Christensen said the team had analyzed more than 3,000 counties, but it did not reveal the county-by-county breakdowns. Its hard to pull those counties out because of the control variables, he said.

Charitable Giving Does Not Match Government Aid

Those in favor of lower taxes have argued that individuals are more capable than the government of allocating money to important causes, including people in need of assistance. But the study found that was not true. Donations do not match government assistance, and without tax money, social services are not funded as robustly.

The evidence shows that private philanthropy cant compensate for the loss of government provision, Dr. Nesbit said. Its not equal. What government can put into these things is so much more than what we see through private philanthropy.

On the other hand, private philanthropy can do many things better than government aid, as in being responsive to a need and willing to fail without political fallout.

The studys authors make the case for a combination approach.

Theyre complementary means of redistribution of wealth rather than substitutions for each other, Dr. Christensen said. We cant put all of our eggs in one basket.

You May Like: Who Are The Republicans On The Ballot

Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals

Second, a much larger body of research has long demonstrated that, all things being equal, conservatives tend to be happier overall than their liberal neighbors are. This is truer for social conservatives than for fiscal conservatives, and the more conservative a conservative is, the happier he or she seems to be. Thats not nothing.

A massive study published earlier this year, involving five different data samples from 16 Western countries spanning more than four decades, adds more meat to this topic. These scholars from the University of Southern California found, as they put it, In sum, conservatives reported greater meaning in life and greater life satisfaction than liberals.

Of course, both qualities are much deeper and richer than happiness itself. This was the robust and consistent finding in the 16 distinct countries examined. It was generally truer for social conservatives than their fiscal brethren, and the greater-meaning-in-life slope spiked upward among individuals who were very conservative.

These scholars explain in their academic parlance that this was true for conservatives at all reporting periods . This is a significant finding. Conservatives experience greater meaning in life across their lives generally, but also daily and at most given moments throughout the day. The researchers conclude these findings are robust and that there is some unique aspect of political conservativism that provides people with meaning and purpose in life.

Conservatives Are Satisfied With Their Family Lives

Do NFL Teams Give More to Republicans or Democrats?

New research released by the Institute for Family Studies demonstrates that conservatives tend to be much more completely satisfied with their family lives compared to their liberal friends and neighbors. Forty-one percent of both liberals and moderates report being completely satisfied with their family lives, while 52 percent of conservatives do.

Conservatives are also vastly more likely than liberals to believe marriage is essential in creating and maintaining strong families. They are also much more likely to actually be married, 62 versus 39 percent, thus benefiting from all the ways marriage improves overall well-being and contentment, personal happiness, economic security, long-term employment, longevity, better physical and mental health, and more.

These scholars explain that regardless of other basic life characteristics such as family income, marital status, age, educational attainment, race/ethnicity, and church attendance, being a conservative increases the odds of being completely satisfied with family life by 23 percent, a considerable positive impact given the centrality of these other life factors. Married men and women who believe marriage is needed to create strong families have 67 percent greater odds of being completely content with their own family life than married couples who do not believe this.

You May Like: Who Are The 10 Republicans Who Voted For Impeachment

Poorer Conservatives More Generous Than Wealthy Liberals New Study

Respected non-government sector newspaper The Philanthropy Chronicle collated the itemized charity deductions on the tax returns of hundreds of millions of Americans between 2006 and 2012, the latest year available. While only about a third of all givers write off their charity expenses, the sums included about 80 percent of all donations in the country.

The Extreme Views Of The Donor Class

The main finding of the research is that the policy views of elite donors are more extreme than the views of partisan voters at large. They also vary widely by party.

If you look at Republican donors, explains Malhotra, they have much more extreme views than ordinary Republicans on economic issues, such as taxation, the redistribution of wealth, and spending on social programs. For example, a good number of Republican voters want universal health care, but very few Republican donors want that. On the other hand, Republican donors and voters have very similar views on social issues, such as abortion and gay marriage. They are not out of line in that arena.

Malhotra and Broockman found a similar pattern among Democratic donors and partisans, but in a mirror image. Democratic donors are, if anything, a little more liberal on economic issues than Democratic partisans, says Malhotra. But their social views are much more liberal than partisans, especially when you look at issues like the death penalty.

Don’t Miss: Who Won More Democrats Or Republicans

Who Gives More To Charity Democrats Or Republicans

About Patt Morrison

Patt Morrison

The ongoing calls for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to issue additional years of his tax returns havent ceased.

Romney has faced criticism for his reasoning that doing so would violate his religious freedom because it would reveal exactly how much money he has tithed to his Mormon church. Democrats continue to press the issue, but should they be so vocal about taking a look at charitable contributions?

According to philanthropy.com, a website that tracks charitable giving state-by-state, Utah tops the list of giving, with residents donating 10.2 percent of their discretionary income to charities. Utah is a solidly red state and went for John McCain 62 percent to 24 percent in 2008 and it has a large Mormon contingent.

Blue state New Hampshire is bringing up the rear with residents of the The Granite State donating only 2.5 percent of their discretionary income to philanthropic organizations. But if you tweak the numbers to remove donations to religious charities the giving evens out some.

Republican Donate More To Charity Than Democrats

8 comments:

Anonymoussaid…

Just this weekend, in an ongoing election year discussion with my sister, I stated my experience is and has been when Democrats see others money or wealth, they want it and/or want to tell them what to do with it… I was also informed that others are not like me. Yours being the very first site I checked regarding this subject, I would like to thank you for the confirmation that this happens elsewhere, just not in my “little” world. Bellyburke

Anonymoussaid…

Thanks, I try to leave informative bits of information that are skipped over in the drive by soundbites and stereotype attacks that are out there. Sorry I have’t posted more lately.To go beyond that, I think that Republicans- particularly religious republicans give a lot more than Democrats because we beleive we have a moral duty to give to charity. Democrats seem to want to government to control the “giving” even though that actually corrupts the ‘charity’ aspects of the gift when you ‘have to do it’ or the IRS will come knocking.

Read Also: Who Controls The Senate Republicans Or Democrats

Giving Under Different Governments

A change in government didnt seem to change peoples donations of money to charities, but there did seem to be an increase in time given to volunteering when the Coalition and Conservative governments were in power.

The exception to this came from the Greens. When Labour were in power from 1997-2010, Green Party supporters gave 182% more of their income to charity than Labour supporters did although this fell to 85% under the Coalition, and fell again when the Conservatives went into government on their own in 2015.

In terms of volunteering, under a Labour government, Green supporters gave no more of their time than did Labour supporters. After 2015, Greens increased their volunteering time by 56%.

Do Your Political Views Make You Charitable

24 Jul, 2019

Professor Sarah Brown,Professor Karl Taylor

A new working paper asks whether people on the left or right give more to charity

Student volunteers at the University of Essex

In 2017, people in the UK gave over £10 billion to charity, and ONS figures suggest that unpaid labour in the form of volunteering is worth over £20 billion.

But what motivates us to give our money or time? Theres existing research which shows that we give in order to feel good, or to look good to others, but we wanted to look at another motivation: our political leanings.

Also Check: Should Republicans Vote In Democratic Primary

Data Sources: Irs Forms 990

The Form 990 is a document that nonprofit organizations file with the IRS annually. We leverage finance and accountability data from it to form Encompass ratings. .

Impact & Results

This score estimates the actual impact a nonprofit has on the lives of those it serves, and determines whether it is making good use of donor resources to achieve that impact.

Impact & Results Score

Leftist Media And Academia Tell The Public The Opposite

12/29/10 – Stossel, Republicans donate much more than Democrats

Some liberals might argue that religious, conservative republicans are happier simply because they are mentally ill; they are disassociated with reality and just dont know any better. They claim this is even demonstrated in scientific research. In fact, one articles first line in reporting this research was quite blunt: Anyone whos wanted to dismiss Republican politics as straightforwardly mean now has some data to back them up. Lands sakes.

Some research did appear to show this, and it got a great deal of press. Retraction Watch, however, tells us it had some serious mistakes in its calculations, and an erratum was published by the American Journal of Political Science. In fact, Retraction Watch reports, The descriptive and preliminary analyses portion of the manuscript was exactly reversed. The data shows a strong correlation between liberalism and psychoticism, not conservatism. This correction was not widely reported for some curious reason.

Finally, if you had to guess who are more generous with their money and volunteering their time to help those in need, would you guess Democrats or Republicans? Of course, its Democrats. Republicans only care for themselves and their own pocketbook. In fact, dont they want to actually punish the poor for not working hard enough? Well, you would be right if stereotypes were the arbiter of truth. But what does objective research tell us?

Recommended Reading: What News Channel Do Republicans Watch

Percentage Of Us Donations Going Tovarious Causes

Nonprofits have grown faster than government and faster than the business sector over the last generation, even during boom periods.

The figures charted here actually underestimate the fraction of American manpower that goes into charitable workbecause they show only paid employment, while volunteers carry out a large share of the labor poured into these groups. Various calculations of the cash value of donated labor suggest that at least an additional 50 percent of output by charities takes place invisibly because it is produced by volunteers. Youll find more statistics on American volunteering in Graphs 8 and 9.

Charitable activity is becoming a bigger and bigger part of Americas total economy. For perspective, consider that annual U.S. defense spending totals 4.5 percent of GDP. The nonprofit sector surpassed the vaunted military-industrial complex in economic scope way back in 1993.

Real Rise In Us Giving

After adjusting for inflation, charitable giving by Americans was close to seven times as big in 2016 as it was 62 years earlier.

Of course, one reason total giving went up is because the U.S. population almost doubled. But if we recalculate inflation-adjusted charitable giving on a per capita basis, we see that has also soared: by 3½ times. Charitable causes are very lucky to have a remarkably expansive American economy behind them, and a standard of living that refuses to stagnate.

What if we calculate charitable giving as a proportion of all national production ? The math reveals that over the last 60 years, donations as a proportion of our total annual output increasedbut only very slightly. For most of the last lifetime, giving has hovered right around 2 percent of our total national treasure.

Two percent of GDP is a huge sum, particularly in comparison to other countries . But it’s interesting that even as we have become a much wealthier people in the post-WWII era, the fraction we give away hasn’t risen. There seems to be something stubborn about that 2 percent rate.

Keep in mind too that religious charities tend to have less access to supplemental funds than other nonprofits. Hospitals and colleges charge users fees to supplement their donated income; other nonprofits sell goods; many museums charge admission; some charities receive government grants. Churches and religious charities, however, operate mostly on their donated funds depicted in this graph.

Recommended Reading: What Cities Are Run By Republicans

What Elite Donors Want

Big-money donors, both Democrat and Republican, not only have more political influence than the average voter, they also have more extreme beliefs.

The outsize political influence of elite donors, whose views tend to be more extreme than that of mainstream voters, partly explains why political polarization is on the rise. | Illustration by Alvaro Dominguez

In November 2012, newly elected Democratic members of the United States Congress got about a week to savor their victories. Then, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee advised them to start hitting the phones for 3-4 hours per day. Who were they supposed to be calling? Mainly, elite donors the fewer than 1% of Americans who give candidates more than $200 in any given election cycle.

It isnt news that politicians court elite donors or that elite donors have greater political access and influence than the typical voter. But, as Stanford Graduate School of Business political economist Neil Malhotra points out in an article recently published in Public Opinion Quarterly, we know remarkably little about what they actually want from government.

This is a particularly relevant issue during the current, seemingly endless, election cycle, in which the battle for control of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government is unusually contentious and fraught with implications for the future of the nation.

Do Democrats Hate Charity

Another round of COVID-19 relief from Congress is on life support but not dead, as centrist Democrats have begun to pressure Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi toward compromise. That would mean finding some middle ground between the $3 trillion House HEROES Act, with its bailout for profligate blue-state governments, and the Republican $500 billion skinny bill. If serious negotiations do ensue, there is one provision on which Senate Republicans should not budge: a strong new form of tax relief for individual charitable giving. Its a provision both important in its own right and revealing of a larger philosophical difference between the parties when it comes to charity.

The latest skinny Senate bill would specifically have expanded the so-called above-the-line tax deduction included in the original CARES Act, which authorized a $300 deduction even for those who do not itemize their tax returns. The Senate bill proposed to double that amount for 2020 taxpayers, to $600 for individuals and $1,200 for those filing a joint return. The House bill included no such provision, or even an extension of a less-generous version included in the first COVID-19 relief bill.

The above-the-line deduction proposed by Republicans provides an incentive for all taxpayers, not just the wealthy, to give to charity.

This piece originally appeared at the Washington Examiner

______________________

Recommended Reading: How Many Republicans Are In The Us House

0 notes

statetalks · 3 years ago

Text

Do Republicans Or Democrats Give More To Charity

The Relationship Between Generosity And Political Affiliation And Gender

Who LIES More- Republicans or Democrats?

Most people tip their hair stylists, while only 27% tip their hotel housekeeper.

+1.63%

Tipping can be a social and cultural maelstrom. And social media doesnt always help.

Meanwhile, some restaurants have banned tipping while Uber is finally encouraging riders to open their wallets to drivers who go the extra mile.

See more:Meet the most generous tipper in America

Dont miss:How much to tip everyone

Also read: Is this the worst tipper in America?

Statistics On Us Generosity

Beto Orourke Other Democrats See The Downside Of Releasing Tax Returns

Also Check: How Many Presidents Have The Republicans Tried To Impeach

Charitable Giving By State: Are Republicans More Generous Than Democrats Or Just More Religious

Got a news tip? . Follow me on Twitter .

Volunteering In The Us

Religious faith is a central influence on giving. Religious people are much more likely than the non-religious to donate to charitable causesincluding secular causesand they give much more.

Also Check: What Did Republicans Gain From The Compromise Of 1877

How Political Ideology Influences Charitable Giving

Many issues seem to divide Democrats and Republicans, and new research has found one more: philanthropy.

But as red or blue counties become more politically competitive, charitable giving tends to fall.

Charitable Giving Does Not Match Government Aid

On the other hand, private philanthropy can do many things better than government aid, as in being responsive to a need and willing to fail without political fallout.

The studys authors make the case for a combination approach.

Theyre complementary means of redistribution of wealth rather than substitutions for each other, Dr. Christensen said. We cant put all of our eggs in one basket.

You May Like: Who Are The Republicans On The Ballot

Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals

Conservatives Are Satisfied With Their Family Lives

Do NFL Teams Give More to Republicans or Democrats?

You May Like: Who Are The 10 Republicans Who Voted For Impeachment

Poorer Conservatives More Generous Than Wealthy Liberals New Study

The Extreme Views Of The Donor Class

The main finding of the research is that the policy views of elite donors are more extreme than the views of partisan voters at large. They also vary widely by party.

Don’t Miss: Who Won More Democrats Or Republicans

Who Gives More To Charity Democrats Or Republicans

About Patt Morrison

Patt Morrison

The ongoing calls for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to issue additional years of his tax returns havent ceased.

Republican Donate More To Charity Than Democrats

8 comments:

Anonymoussaid…

Read Also: Who Controls The Senate Republicans Or Democrats

Giving Under Different Governments

In terms of volunteering, under a Labour government, Green supporters gave no more of their time than did Labour supporters. After 2015, Greens increased their volunteering time by 56%.

Do Your Political Views Make You Charitable

24 Jul, 2019

Professor Sarah Brown,Professor Karl Taylor

A new working paper asks whether people on the left or right give more to charity

Student volunteers at the University of Essex

In 2017, people in the UK gave over £10 billion to charity, and ONS figures suggest that unpaid labour in the form of volunteering is worth over £20 billion.

Also Check: Should Republicans Vote In Democratic Primary

Data Sources: Irs Forms 990

The Form 990 is a document that nonprofit organizations file with the IRS annually. We leverage finance and accountability data from it to form Encompass ratings. .

Impact & Results

This score estimates the actual impact a nonprofit has on the lives of those it serves, and determines whether it is making good use of donor resources to achieve that impact.

Impact & Results Score

Leftist Media And Academia Tell The Public The Opposite

12/29/10 – Stossel, Republicans donate much more than Democrats

Recommended Reading: What News Channel Do Republicans Watch

Percentage Of Us Donations Going Tovarious Causes

Nonprofits have grown faster than government and faster than the business sector over the last generation, even during boom periods.

Real Rise In Us Giving

After adjusting for inflation, charitable giving by Americans was close to seven times as big in 2016 as it was 62 years earlier.

Recommended Reading: What Cities Are Run By Republicans

What Elite Donors Want

Big-money donors, both Democrat and Republican, not only have more political influence than the average voter, they also have more extreme beliefs.

Do Democrats Hate Charity

The above-the-line deduction proposed by Republicans provides an incentive for all taxpayers, not just the wealthy, to give to charity.

This piece originally appeared at the Washington Examiner

______________________

Recommended Reading: How Many Republicans Are In The Us House

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/do-republicans-or-democrats-give-more-to-charity/

0 notes

dawnfelagund · 8 years ago

Note

Hi! I thought it was interesting that you mentioned becoming self-sufficient was very important to you. If you feel like sharing, I'd love to hear more about it!

Absolutely! I love talking about this topic but, since I’m aTolkien blogger, I assume my followers aren’t interested. But I’ll gladlyjabber on about sustainability and self-sufficiency for hours. (However, I’lltry not to actually write a post thattakes hours to read! ^_^)

Mr. Felagund and I are both millennials. We were both bornin 1981, which makes us oldmillennials, but the definition in recent years seems to have settled into arange that includes us. As such, we were beginning our lives as independentyoung adults right when George W. Bush was destroying the U.S. economy. Iremember when it was officially announced that the U.S. was in recession andbeing surprised that no one had realized that yet. We’d been suffering foryears: the usual borderline poverty that most young people endure when theyfirst move out on their own, compounded by the fact that unemployment was high,which employers took as license to underpay, overwork, and otherwise abusetheir employees.

We were both among those employees. For more than a year, Iwas led on by my employer to believe that my contractual position would be madepermanent if I helped him with the restructuring of the agency within I worked.He wasn’t very academically smart; I was, so when something needed to bewritten or created, I did it, although it was not in my job description and Iwas not being paid for it, in an attempt to secure a tiny bit more economicsecurity for my family. Probably needless to say, when the time came forpositions to be made permanent, my boss’s was and mine was not. My hours werealso cut 20% and my workload simultaneously increased due to the restructuringof our agency. At the same time, my husband was commuting two hours one-way toa good-paying job; he had to leave at 3AM to avoid Washington, DC, traffic, sohe had the choice of giving up his life to go to bed at the same time as aseven-year-old or to live on four or fewer hours of sleep. He chose the latterand became sick and depressed as a result. Like me, he was also a governmentemployee and, under Bush administration appointees, was more regularly beingexpected to support positions that intellectually and ethically he found to bewrong. We were both constantly fighting against our employers both in overt andin passive-aggressive ways. (I may have used work time to write an awful lot offan fiction and run the SWG, for example. >.>)

In the midst of this, it occurred to us that we had verylittle control over our lives. We were both being asked to do things regularlythat we found wrong or that made us physically or mentally unwell. We were bothbeing required to do work for which we were not being compensated. We werebeing forced into actions like crushingly long commutes that robbed us of ourlives outside of work. We could fight these indignities only at the risk oflosing our jobs during a recession, starting a domino effect of possibly losingour car and home, which would further jeopardize our ability to get a new job,and so the vicious cycle goes.

We decided this was not a life we wanted to live.

We’d followed the trajectory of correct adulthood: went tocollege and graduated tops of our respective classes, found professional jobs,moved into our own apartment, married each other, eventually bought a house. Werealized that the need to pay our bills forced us into a position where wecould be used however an employer wanted with little recourse because of fearof losing our home. So it seemed the first thing to do was to get rid of thebills.

The biggest was, of course, our mortgage. We lived inMaryland, currently the wealthiest state in the U.S. We lived in the hinterlands,not in the pricey Baltimore-DC corridor (which is why we had the longcommutes), but cost of living was still high. We decided our number-one goalneeded to be getting rid of our mortgage. You gain a lot of power when you havea home that cannot be taken away from you. Of course, no one tells you that youdon’t have to have a mortgage! The normal, correct adult life is depicted asthirty years working and thirty years paying back a bank for the roof over yourhead. Success is measured in the things you possess over those thirty years:nice cars, a house bigger than you need, regular upgrades to your wardrobe,fancy vacations, all the nicest and the latest things. It’s the “Youdeserve it!” culture that leads people to spend the better part of theirrent or mortgage on a watch or a handbag or tickets to a sporting event.Because if you put your earnings primarily toward securing a home for yourself,why would you work? And if you chose to keep working even if you didn’t need to,what power would an employer have to force you to do their bidding? I’mconvinced that these things are all connected.

So, to make a long story short, Mr. Felagund and I dedicatedourselves towards increasing our self-sufficiency so that we could walk awayfrom a job at any time without worrying about the consequences. We’ve sincemoved to Vermont, to a rural region where the cost of housing means that allthat we poured into our more costly home in Maryland means that we will nothave a mortgage. (Currently, we rent our house in Maryland to friends whoneeded a place to live on short notice right when we were moving last year, butwe will be putting it on the market in the next couple of weeks, and once itsells, our mortgage is gone.)

We’ve also dedicated ourselves to learning and practicing self-sufficiencyin other areas of our life to the extent that we can. Since we both workfull-time, we can never do all that we want to, but we’ve accumulated a lot ofskills over the last ten years so that we could live much moreself-sufficiently if we had to.

First, we learned how to produce our own food. We flew bythe seat of our pants in our first garden, but we made mistakes and learnedfrom them. When I left the job I mentioned above to freelance write for a yearwhile finishing my teaching certification, I wrote about sustainability and, inthe process, studied plant and soilscience. We began a concerted effort to improve our soil in Maryland. (We livedin the foothills of the Appalachians, so our soil was clay and rocky.) We bothtook classes at our local agricultural extension office and went to conferencesabout sustainable agriculture. We had less than an acre in Maryland, but webegan to use what little space we had for growing food. We put in fruit trees, asparagus,strawberries, perennial herbs, and brambles. By the time we moved, we were ableto grow much of our own food.

Mr. Felagund converted an old, disintegrating shed on ourproperty into a chicken coop, and we always kept around ten hens for eggs. (Wedidn’t raise meat birds in Maryland because we lived in a residentialneighborhood, and slaughtering chickens in our backyard would perhaps drawunwanted negative attention from our neighbors; we always did try to be goodneighbors with respect to our various little projects.) We also took amonth-long course in beekeeping and kept one or two colonies of honeybees.

Both of us learned to cook from scratch. We were both raisedwhere “cooking” was dumping in ramen and a flavor packet into boilingwater, or emptying a can of condensed soup and pouring in an equal amount ofmilk. We sometimes laugh over how, when we first got married, we wouldcelebrate special occasions by buying a frozen pizza and jazzing it up with allkinds of special toppings. But I think it’s important to recognize theimportance of small steps and not to feel the need to go overnight frommicrowave dinners to baking your own bread from scratch and pressure canningyour excess meat and beans. It took us years to go from the special pizza stageto being able to feed ourselves from stuff we grew or raised and a few staples.Mr. Felagund is the better cook, so he has learned how to make things like breadand preserve any extras we grow.

Now that we live in Vermont, we are hoping to expand our small-agoperations yet again. We have our first clutch of chicks growing up right now.They will provide us with eggs, and we are now able to raise meat birds withoutworrying about neighbors. We have three turkeys on the way in June. We hope toadd dairy goats or even a cow within the next couple of years so that we’llhave a source of milk and cheese. And Mr. Felagund has started fishing(although he hasn’t caught anything edible yet!) and wants to learn to hunt.We’re both hoping to study more deeply of wild foraging.

Next is independence in terms of energy and other resources.We already have well water and a septic system. We are hoping to soon invest insolar panels on our roof; we have a south-facing house that would be ideal. (Wecurrently use all renewable energy, but again, one of the goals is to reduceour bills as much as possible, even though the electricity bill in a house thissmall is negligible.) We heat our home primarily with wood pellets, which isgood in some ways compared to a regular woodstove (it’s far easier to use and much less messy!) but less than ideal asfar as self-sufficiency goes since this isn’t something we can produceourselves.

Also important to us is strengthening the self-sufficiencyof our community. It always amazes me that people don’t worry when most oftheir food is imported from places nowhere near where they live. What do theythink they will do if a natural or other disaster interrupted the constantdelivery of food from far-flung places?

In Maryland, we had relationships with a number of farmerswho raised and grew what we could not. We are building those relationships nowin Vermont. For example, we don’t tap our maple trees for syrup (yet!),but Mr.Felagund knows quite a few people who do, so he barters for maple syrup, whichwe can use as an all-purpose sweetener to limit the amount of (imported) sugarwe must buy. We’ve found sources for the animal products we can’t or areunwilling to raise. (Mr. Felagund is forbidden from owning a pig, for example,because he has a soft heart and would become attached.)

We want people inour community to be doing things that are useful to our community, and we want our money to go toward supportingour neighbors rather than a corporate office a thousand miles away. This is anargument Mr. Felagund and I have constantly with our Walmart-obsessed families:savings at the cash register often mask more costly losses to a community wherepeople cannot find good work that pays good wages. We are very fortunate inVermont; almost everything we need as far as food is produced by someone inVermont (often the Northeast Kingdom, where we live) or nearby (like Maine orsouthern Quebec), and even our supermarkets sell local products. Big box storeshaven’t taken over here, so we can buy other necessities from local businessesrather than relying on Target and Home Depot (and having our money flowconstantly out of our community as a result).

In general, we try to avoid buying things, especially disposable things. We’re not obsessive about it,but we use things like cloth napkins to avoid cluttering the landfill withpointless trash. We compost food scraps and much of our paper waste. We have developed a flavored seltzer habitsince moving to Vermont (and my husband can’t resist Vermont beer!) so we dohave a lot of recycling, but everyone’s allowed one sin, right? ^_^ We’ve alsoworked to unlearn the cultural mindset that success, happiness, andaffection/love are represented by material things. This is deeply ingrained andhard to unlearn. When we moved from our house in Maryland, we were both shockedby the amount of stuff we had accumulated over the years and had to give away.(We live in a single-wide trailer in Vermont which is roughly half the size asour house in Maryland, which had a basement, i.e., a clutter pit.) It wasembarrassing: stuff we’d bought and used maybe once or even never, that we’dwasted money on for no reason.

For us, self-sufficiency is more a process than adestination. It’s possible to go entirely off the grid, but really that’s notthe objective for us. Instead, we never again want our lives to be governed byan employer’s (or anyone else’s!) convenience or to feel we have to choosebetween doing the right thing and having a roof over our heads. We both teachhere and both adore our jobs–I love my school so much that I even love the wayit smells when I walk in every morning!–and I hope to have a long teachingcareer here. But were things to change–and under the current presidentialadministration, one has to worry about that in a public school–I like havingthe power to walk away rather than being forced to do something I completelydisagree with (e.g., teaching to standardized tests versus critical thinkingskills and global citizenship, or denying services to students withdisabilities, as our Secretary of Education would like to see done). So we’vededicated ourselves to doing as much as we can on our own, to always improvingand doing better in terms of our obligations to protect and care for the Earth, and most importantly, to learning skills that maybe we’re notalways using at a particular moment in time but could use if the need arose. Over the course of years, it’s justbecome life: weird or fascinating to some people but just our life as we’vegotten used to living it.

#dawn felagund #self sufficiency

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gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years ago

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Readers And Tweeters Ponder Racism, Public Health Threats And COVID’s Cost

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names.

Rising Above Racism

I want to compliment writer Anna Almendrala on her article “Masked or Not, Asians Are Still Attacked” in the Los Angeles Times (“Hate Unmasked In America, May 29). I was deeply moved by her eloquent prose and her compassionate voice. During this difficult time, after being cruelly attacked by a neighbor, she was still able to respond to an egregious insult with an impressive amount of empathy. I hope that readers learn from her example. I have.

— Jayne Muñoz, Santa Ana, California

Journalist @annaalmendrala shares a recent experience that broke my heart. We must work to #StopHate Hate Unmasked In America https://t.co/Pu8SUM2OQ5 via @khnews

— Barbara Glickstein (@BGlickstein) May 29, 2020

— Barbara Glickstein, New York City

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Threats Against Public Health Workers

Thank you for publishing the story describing the dire threats that public health professionals have received (“Public Health Officials Face Wave Of Threats, Pressure Amid Coronavirus Response,” June 12). I left an academic career in public health, as the former director of prevention and control for the Cancer Center of Hawaii, because of institutional racism. But that pales in comparison to what these professionals are being subjected to.

— Dr. Brian Martin, Portland, Oregon

I would have liked the authors of this article to also have mentioned what percentage of the officials who quit or were fired were female. I have noticed since the beginning that most state and local health officials are female. (Noticed it is the same in Canada.) And did they investigate/consider whether that fact has also played a part in the hostility and threats?

— Ann-Marie Tate, Phoenix

Editor’s note: Please be on the lookout for follow-up stories, produced in partnership with The Associated Press, which will include more data.

Being a public health worker is like being Batman, but w/o the funding. Everyone's happy you're out there when things are good. But when shit hits fan, they set the dogs on you.

Public Health Officials Face Wave Of Threats Amid Coronavirus https://t.co/0xs96gN1vz via @khnews

— Faiz Kidwai, DO, MPH (@KidwaiFaiz) June 14, 2020

— Dr. Faiz Kidwai, Syracuse, New York

Lessons In Holistic Healing

The long history of mistreatment and distrust between Native Americans and the federal government is no secret (“Returning to Roots, Indian Health Service Seeks Traditional Healers,” May 14), but I find that myself and many of my peers in medical school have limited knowledge when it comes to the health care of Native Americans. This article provides an enriching example of the importance of cultural diversity and holistic medicine.

In the era of medicine where chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease are the most common cause of death, there are no treatments that “cure” conditions as there are with many infectious diseases. As such, treatment relies on addressing risk factors, lifestyle changes, and the social environment. While the advancement of modern medicine is nothing short of remarkable, there is something to be learned from the traditional healers of the Native American reservations. They seek not only to treat physical conditions, but also to address the “mental, emotional, and spiritual needs” of the community, as so elegantly stated in the article. This comprehensive approach to medicine is perhaps more suitable to the chronic diseases we see today, where cardiovascular disease is intertwined with risk factors such as poor diet, low income, distrust of medicine, etc.

The recruitment of traditional healers by the Indian Health Service, a federally funded organization, gives me hope that not only is the government starting to accept the importance of cultural diversity, but that it is beginning to acknowledge a more holistic approach to medicine.

— Brandon Jocher, St. Louis

“When an elder dies there’s a whole history, a whole line of information that we lose. It’s like the library burning down” says Stewart-Peregoy of the Crow

Elders are a living link to our history—not too far distant in 2020 if you consider long lifespanshttps://t.co/7nU8u9q8Vt

— Brett Chapman (@brettachapman) June 6, 2020

— Brett Chapman, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Their Lives Did Count

I watched Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal on CNN and related to her story “First-Person Perspective: My Mother Died Of The Coronavirus. It’s Time She Was Counted,” May 27). I lost two parents. Ten hours apart. In two different New York City hospitals. One came from a skilled nursing facility. One came from an independent living facility. 92 and 93 years old. Neither of them “counted.” It’s a terrible feeling. Their lives surely counted, but not their deaths.

— Robin Tolkoff Levy, Owings Mills, Maryland

On Dentists Cleaning Up

I saw your article on increased dental fees (“Open (Your Wallet) Wide: Dentists Charge Extra For Infection Control,” June 3). It is very true. I am a private practice dentist and am facing increased “disposable goods” costs, as well as additional trash collection fees, and have hired an additional staff member whose sole task is cross-contamination prevention. I am forced to pass these charges along to the patients.

To the patients interviewed in your article who were “shocked” by the added fees, you can look for a dentist who will not have to increase his or her fees — but you likely won’t find one. I have had a few patients refuse to pay the charge and they are dismissed from my practice. When they realize that our charges are reasonable and call to try and get an appointment (and 80% do), we won’t make them an appointment. “But there isn’t another dentist in 200 miles who takes my insurance,” they complain. Shouldn’t have complained.

Several local dentists have retired completely because they couldn’t (or chose not to) keep up with the changes. We are booked into November. On the plus side, my existing patients are thrilled to be able to be seen and arrive early, don’t balk at having to wait in the parking lot and are extremely pleased with our efforts to avoid cross-contamination. My rate of “missed appointments” is way down.

Dentistry now outpaces logging and fishing as the most hazardous job on the planet. We went from being the brunt of jokes to valued members of the health care community.

In 1962, there were 100,000 dentists, 100,000 physicians and 70,000 attorneys. Today there are about 190,000 dentists, 950,000 physicians and 1.1 million lawyers. Earning a dental degree requires more than a quarter of a million dollars. There is a reason modern dental care is so expensive — because it is worth it.

— Dr. William Hartel, Bristol, Tennessee

In case you needed more proof that universal healthcare also should mean a single-payer system for dental and vision care, not just major medical, mental health and prescription plans. https://t.co/iHQuxokByY

— Jennifer S. Hyk (@JenHyk) June 3, 2020

— Jennifer Hyk, Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Not only am I disturbed by the inflammatory title, but also by the tone of this article. I am waiting for one journalist to actually do some research and find out exactly the level of expense related to all the new (and ever-changing) rules and regulations related to patient safety because of COVID-19. These additional measures are costly and ongoing. Add to that the fact that many suppliers are acting like black-market profiteers by escalating their costs. It’s almost like Martin Shkreli bought out all the supply chains that provide PPE.

The dental offices you covered in your article all handled this exactly how the CDC, OSHA, ADA and almost every state dental organization has recommended. This is not a routine “cost of doing business.” For offices contracted with the dental “insurance” companies, the offices are contractually forbidden to charge above the usual, customary and reasonable (UCR) cost dictated by the companies. In short, if the dentist tries to bundle the fee into the cost of a procedure, he/she will not be reimbursed by the insurance companies. Bottom line: The dentist is expected to eat the cost.

In contrast to what the general public may think, the great majority of dentists are not millionaires. They are hardworking men and women who sacrificed eight additional years of their early adulthood to learn their specialty. Many graduate from dental school with loans in excess of $250,000, which is close to what the average American spends to buy a home. Once in practice, they are pushed around by the dental “insurance” Goliaths that have not increased their average annual “benefit” maximum since the 1960s. Oh, and let’s not discount this increasingly litigious society that directly affects annual malpractice premiums.

These dentists endure all of this. They carry the responsibility of usually being a solo business owner, leader of a team and responsible for them and their families, having to deal with constantly changing local, state and national regulations, ever-increasing license and business costs, and possibly being exposed to a deadly disease on a daily basis. (By the way, I’m not lumping COVID in with “deadly disease” — I’m talking about deadly diseases like hepatitis, tuberculosis, HIV, etc.).

I don’t know of any dentist who has gotten one red cent in “unemployment benefits” during the past three months. Yes, they may have received PPP money, but guess what? That goes straight to expenses or must be paid back. This is quite different from the unemployment benefits that millions of American employees have received since the middle of March.

Lastly, for those patients who are complaining about the $10 PPE fee, I wonder how many of them drop at least that much within two days of going to their local Starbucks? I’m willing to bet it’s a pretty high percentage of them. It’s almost as if those people value their full-fat, whipped-cream, half-caf, double shot, venti mochaccino more than they do their oral and general health.

— Dr. Gerilyn Alfe, Chicago

‘Lost on the Frontline’: Beyond The Statistics

Not sure why this is a story (“Lost on the Frontline: Exclusive: Nearly 600 — And Counting — US Health Workers Have Died Of COVID-19,” June 6). The ratio of COVID deaths in health care workers to the number of health care workers (about 600 of 16 million) is the same as the national rate (about 11,000 of 328 million) and is virtually the same as the world rate (about 400,000 of 7.8 billion). Presenting the death toll in that light would show that health care workers are contracting COVID at the same rate as everyone else. We’re not special (in the eyes of disease). Who’d a thunk?

— John Coburn, Atascadero, California

No one else counting as accurately. Includes all—janitors, aides, RNs, MDs, housekeepers, etc. Read bios & know they were not protected enough. Exclusive: Nearly 600 — And Counting — US Health Workers Have Died Of COVID-19 https://t.co/IizC1KDWEy via @khnews

— Julie Fairman (@fairmanjulie) June 6, 2020

— Julie Fairman, Philadelphia

This is a wonderful service. Thank you for doing it. They are the heroes in this world and should be memorialized. I’m a retired surgeon and have nothing but awe for every single one of these people and their efforts on our behalf.

One request: Dr. Atul Gawande and others have indicated that “properly protected” health care workers have a very low risk of infection with SARS CoV-2. It would be beneficial to all of us if you could perhaps publish weekly a tally of those who have passed and how many of those were wearing adequate PPE. I’m particularly interested in how well surgical masks protect people (as opposed to N95, which we know work but don’t have enough of), so having that tidbit of information would be great. Thanks again so much for your work and dedication.

— Dr. Robert Ley, Aptos, California

I read the article and sent it to family and friends. Everyone was very pleased and also saddened. Once people see all the faces and the different occupations, it seems to be a collective gasp. Thank you again for reaching out to me so that I could be a part of this expression of love, knowledge, informative journalism and dedication.

— Barbara Abernathy, Chicago, mother of Michelle Abernathy, a residential services supervisor who died of COVID-19 on April 13

As a spouse of a healthcare worker, I find it obscene that police are funded to be armed to the teeth to beat protestors, but healthcare workers don’t have enough PPE. I worry everyday that my husband will contract this deadly virus. https://t.co/qTe2iuAQl5

— Laura Elena Belmonte, Ph.D. (@educadaxicana) June 13, 2020

— Laura Elena Belmonte, Albuquerque, New Mexico

I just wanted to drop you a note of thanks for your ongoing documentation of medical workers killed by COVID-19 in the line of duty. Our charity is dedicated to providing recognition and support for both medical services personnel who become casualties, and their families who suffer loss, as a result of the providers’ care for patients in the fight against COVID-19 and infectious disease. So we’re very appreciative of your efforts and hope that we can do more to support these incredible people.

— Kevin Higgins, president of The Fallen Providers Project Inc., Lebanon, Ohio

Go ahead and dismiss these lives because you are not personally affected. Go ahead and make this your political hill and for f*cks sake definitely make your personal limited discomfort more "Constitutionally Protected" than another's right to life.https://t.co/BKXfptSrzf

— Nancy Quinn (@nancysquinn) June 7, 2020

— Nancy Quinn, Concho, Arizona

In your “Lost on the Frontline” series, respiratory therapists are not mentioned as health care providers. They intubate and place patients who have difficulty breathing on life support. They make up an important front-line team that manages the ventilators and helps with transport while patients are on life support. Respiratory therapists work with COVID-19 patients and many have been exposed — in the ICU. The doctors, nurses — and respiratory therapists — are the main people in the COVID-19 rooms!

— Barb Homberger, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Steer Clear Of ‘Painkillers’

While I appreciate the info and public education on the need to be prepared (“Asking Never Hurts: Society Is Reopening. Prepare To Hunker Down At Home Again,” June 9), I think using the term “painkillers” in this article was not the best choice of words. If your point is to educate people to have medications that help relieve body aches from the virus, using a different term such as OTC pain relievers (Tylenol, etc.) is more appropriate.

Many people think the term painkiller means opioids/narcotics. We are in the middle of an opioid crisis, so using that term should be avoided if we are encouraging people to make sure they are prepared for the coronavirus.

— Amy Krajec, Oceanside, California

A Missed Opportunity To Educate

You are missing an important opportunity with this story (“A Teen’s Death From COVID,” June 15). You glossed over the importance of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and focused mainly on the positive COVID test. This boy died from something that, if caught early enough, Type 1 diabetes, is entirely manageable. There are many groups and families trying to work and raise awareness about DKA and the warning signs of Type 1 diabetes. This story could have helped these efforts. If more had been known, that child may not have died. His symptoms were normal for advanced DKA and coma associated with that. Organizations like Beyond Type 1, Project Blue November and Kisses for Kycie have been trying to raise awareness of the symptoms of DKA and need help from the media. Too many children die needlessly in this country and around the world each year from undiagnosed Type 1 diabetes. Not to undermine the reporting and seriousness of COVID-19, but we are fighting an uphill battle to raise awareness and save lives.

— Carrie Berry, Austin, Texas

As a parent, articles like this one scare the hell out of me. https://t.co/4IdSn4DoUH

— Rob Szczerba (@RJSzczerba) June 19, 2020

— Rob Szczerba, Pittsburgh

I was overwhelmed by the story about Andre Guest’s battle with COVID-19 and his passing. I can’t get it out of my head. Cry every time I think about that sweet, beautiful child devastated by this thing. Is there a way to let the parents know my thoughts are with them?

— Kevin Orton, Newcastle, Washington

While this is a tragic story, the reporting is not thorough and the stated facts are concerning, indicating possible negligence of care.

Despite this teen’s age, obesity is a known and well-reported underlying condition associated with higher mortality in those who are infected with the coronavirus. And, for still unknown reasons, so is being Black. Although the article does not mention in the text either contributing factor, the accompanying photos show them clearly.

The article states: “Although Andre had no underlying medical conditions, the first thing doctors discovered was that he had developed Type 1 diabetes. …” It is also well known that obesity and diabetes are comorbidities. While a recent COVID-19 finding is a possible potential for the development of acute diabetes, this teen’s obesity should have alerted health care professionals to the potential for diabetes and prior monitoring, especially considering it “was the first thing doctors discovered” in this case.

It is also known that autoimmune disease is associated with autism, although the precise etiology remains unknown. Diabetes is an autoimmune disease associated with increased mortality in COVID-19 patients.

The actual facts of this boy’s health and that the mother is a nurse and that this article originates from a major hospital system seems to imply ignorance and potential negligence of care. The bizarre inclusion of quotes about bedtime peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and video games implies further evidence of questionable lifestyle choices contributing to childhood obesity.

While this case does highlight the fact that young people can die from COVID-19, that this particular boy’s death would be publicized as an example that “perfectly healthy” young people are dying of COVID-19 is inaccurate. The real takeaway of this tragic story should be a focus on the fact that young people can and do have multiple underlying health concerns and that parents need to be informed and proactive in the health care of their children.

— Barbara Tefft, Newfield, New York

It Happened To Me

When I read your article about unusual symptoms in the elderly, it sounded like my experience (“Seniors With COVID-19 Show Unusual Symptoms, Doctors Say,” April 24). I am 77 and on the evening of March 2 something clicked off in my brain. When speaking, all that came out of my mouth was gibberish. I went to bed but don’t remember doing that. My alarm went off at 6 a.m. — I had an appointment at 9 a.m. for chemotherapy and my daughter was coming to pick me up for that appointment. When I got up at 6, I could not figure out what I was supposed to do. I could not figure out how to get dressed, so I went back to bed. The doorbell rang at 8 a.m. I got up but was in some kind of fog.

We live in a two-story house. I went to the top of the stairs and kept walking. I fell facedown and bounced down the stairs. My daughter called 911. I do not remember the paramedics coming or the 18 hours I spent in the ER. My daughter said I never spoke a word during that time. When spoken to, she said, I would get a confused look on my face but never spoke. I did not have a stroke. An MRI showed no clots or bleeds. I woke up the next morning and was able to speak and answer questions.

I was in the hospital for 10 days due to my injuries related to the fall. I am doing fine now. The doctors were never able to come up with a reason for what happened. He said we’ll just call it a TIA (transient ischemic attack) because we don’t know what else to call it. But my symptoms were not those caused by a TIA. I am wondering if what happened could have been caused by COVID 19. The symptoms were so bizarre. It frustrates me not to know the cause. I only hope that reliable antibody tests might eventually provide an answer.

— Kathy Oldershaw, Visalia, California

Don't let ageism or apathy interfere with access to timely testing. Changes to eating or sleeping patterns, withdrawal, confusion, disorientation & dizziness may be signs of COVID-19 in older adults: https://t.co/DymTUEwXfZ via @khnews #coronavirus #ageism #healthcare #geriatrics

— Amy Abrams (@amyreneeabrams) April 25, 2020

— Amy Abrams, San Diego

Cutting Through The Confusion

The article “Antibody Tests Were Hailed As Way To End Lockdowns. Instead, They Cause Confusion” (May 28) is misleading and reflects incomplete reporting.

Both the FDA and the CDC have suggested doing two independent antibody tests to confirm a positive finding in low prevalence areas. The FDA has had those data pertaining to test accuracy posted for a long time.

This story ignores the many other places in the USA and abroad that have done seroprevalence studies.

There is an indication for using antibody testing: the large number of people who had classic COVID-19 symptoms and clinical course but who were told to stay home and were never tested. It’s too late to do antigen studies on them. They need antibody testing to confirm the diagnosis.

People with symptoms shed antigen for perhaps 10-14 days or even longer. But testing for antigen later in the disease can yield negative findings and antibody testing can be useful.

The “gold standard” antigen test can be falsely negative 30-40% of the time.

Then there is the problem of the large numbers of asymptomatic persons with the disease. Antigen testing can be misleading, too. Antibody testing plays a role.

Given the complex nature of the disease, the timing of testing both for antigen and antibodies is critical. That’s why the instructions for use (IFUs) for antibody tests break down test results in terms of days since symptom onset.

Just because the disease is complex does not mean that testing should not be done. What is needed is a better understanding and less media bashing of manufacturers and labs.

Why don’t you interview some of the professors who have done seroprevalence testing and who have the required academic credentials you approve of?

This report sounds like the ones that were written weeks ago. Nothing new here.

Those of us who participate in the weekly live FDA town hall webinars have heard these issues discussed for weeks and seen them reported also.

— Dr. Brant Mittler, San Antonio, Texas

Antibody tests got all the buzz in the last month, but was that just a flash in the pan? Or do we just have to wait a little more until the tests are perfected? @KHNews https://t.co/gJPzkinSnJ

— Carmel Shachar (@CarmelShachar) May 28, 2020

— Carmel Shachar, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Emergency Care’s Most Urgent Problem

The extortionate costs of ambulance services in California is worse than that ER bill (“Bill Of The Month: COVID-Like Cough Sent Him To ER — Where He Got A $3,278 Bill,” May 25). My daughter experienced a medical emergency while traveling in California. The first hospital where she received care arranged to transfer her to another hospital. The ambulance service selected by hospital A was outside her network. She has been hit with an $8,000 bill, which includes a $4,600 base rate and $2,645.50 for mileage (37 miles from hospital A to hospital B).

The selection of ambulance service was completely outside her control. Of course, a reasonable rate is appropriate, but this amount is extortionate and bears no relationship to the cost or value of the transport.

This should not be allowed to occur to anyone, but especially not to someone who is not in a position to select their own provider. Apparently, the hospital staff arranging the transfer confirmed that hospital B was within the insurance network, but did not confirm the status of the ambulance service.

I am outraged by the impact of this incident on my family and suspect others have also been treated this way. This is price gouging at its worst! This practice should also be exposed by KHN.

— Bobbie Gregg, Dallas

One thing that's impeding our ability to control the virus is that people are frightened of our healthcare system. Because it can be extremely predatory:https://t.co/0F6qsCfjsp

— Mededitor (@Mededitor) May 27, 2020

— Daniel Sosnoski, Jacksonville, Florida

I was a nurse contractor in San Jose, California, when I started getting short of breath and experiencing chest pain. I went to the Valley Health emergency room, the one closest to me, and I received an $8,000 ER bill. I can’t afford to pay this bill and our insurance didn’t pay. I’m trying to negotiate the bill, but I was never tested for COVID-19 while there, which I found out I had after I returned home to Houston. Ridiculous charge for a non-traumatic ER visit.

— Kelly Lenz, Houston

COVID-Like Cough Sent Him To ER — He Got A $3,278 Bill. This is so infuriating! I've had many experiences just like this. Ever wonder why many sick people don't show up for health care until it is almost too late? This is exactly why! https://t.co/lO6iWtOPgB

— Gunner 😷🇺🇸🇭🇰😷 光復香港 😷 時代革命 😷🇭🇰🇺🇸😷 (@AgeCosmos) May 30, 2020

— Devon Seeley, Salt Lake City

Perhaps the most important takeaway is not that his bill was coded incorrectly, but that we need low-cost urgent care facilities that are open 24/7, so that we are not billed thousands of dollars for simple tests or a couple of stitches. How many people go into debt or go untreated because basic services are simply not available?

— Isabel Cabanne, Glencoe, Illinois

Getting The COVID Code Right

I am a certified professional medical coder, and love your podcast, as I am also a grad student majoring in epidemiology. I listened to the episode in which Phil Galewitz suggested patients should tell their health care providers to code “possible COVID-19” in order to avoid the bill for services (“KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Still Seeking A Federal Coronavirus Strategy,” May 28).

This is incorrect; national coding guidelines prohibit coders to code “suspected, possible or rule-out diagnoses.” Health care providers as well are not able to document such conditions until confirmed by a test, study or another diagnostic means, described as “gold standard” for that specific condition. This rule is described in “ICD-10-CM Professional for Physicians” manual, 2020.

What UnitedHealthcare stated was correct: It is unable to recognize a claim for COVID-19 when an ICD-10 diagnosis for it (U07.1) was not reported. The proper procedure would have been to get the patient tested, defer the claim processing until the results came back, and then report the U07.1 as the reason for the encounter. When a patient is not tested, the proper coding initiative would be to report symptoms only, which of course would not suffice for the copay reduction initiative. However, a patient would have the option to request that Denver Health appeal the claim with proof of documentation, which would require them to submit a provider’s note from the visit and prompt UHC to manually review the claim and have it reprocessed.

Overall, this is a common reason certain claims are not covered by payers, but there are multiple stipulations in terms of coding guidelines that limit what can be coded for any particular encounter.

— Ksenia Brewster, Poquoson, Virginia

Readers And Tweeters Ponder Racism, Public Health Threats And COVID’s Cost published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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stephenmccull · 4 years ago