We hear once again from Mitch McConnell's BFF

Nothing happened in Washington D.C. this week. Absolutely nothing.

I did receive a nice note from Sen./Dr. John  Barrasso, Mitch McConnell's BFF. More of the same gobbledygook. I reprint it here as a public service:

Dear Michael, 

Thank you for taking the time to contact me. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on health care. 

There is no question that there are significant challenges related to health care in our nation. During my time practicing medicine in Wyoming, I saw these problems firsthand through my own patients and their families. One of my top priorities in the Senate is improving the quality and lowering the cost of care for all patients. 

Right now, the country is engaged in a serious and important debate regarding the future of Obamacare. As I travel around Wyoming, family after family keep telling me they are paying much more and have fewer choices for health insurance since Obamacare passed. For some of these families, the cost of Obamacare is more than their mortgage and the high deductibles make it burden to actually see the doctor. For these folks, the law is clearly not working. I told these families I would vote to repeal this law -- I kept my promise. 

With that being said, Congress must do more than repeal this failed law. We need real reforms that will actually deliver on the promises made during the Obamacare debate. First, we must focus on lowering the cost of insurance and the cost of care. Since 2013, premiums in Wyoming are up 107%. This is simply not sustainable or affordable. Second, we need to give states back the authority to regulate health insurance. Simply put, Washington bureaucrats do not understand how care is delivered in Wyoming. Finally, we need to give patients more control over their health care dollars. Instead of sending more and more money to insurance companies, patients need to be empowered to choose the right care that works for their situation.

Thank you again for sharing your views with me. I value your input. 

John Barrasso, M.D.
United States Senator

BTW, Sen./Dr. Barrasso. You kept your promise. That's the problem. You kept your promise to try and dismantle Obamacare yet you offered no viable replacement. We will remember your promises -- and your actions -- at election time.

And just when have you been traveling around Wyoming. Where? You have not held a single town hall on this issue.

I do not believe Sen./Dr. Barrasso when he says he is "passionate about ensuring that patients are able to get the care they need"

Wyomingites call John Barrasso a U.S. Senator.

Before turning to politics, he was Dr. John Barrasso in Casper. An orthopedic surgeon, like the very capable docs in Cheyenne who replaced both of my knees, operations covered by Medicare and my supplemental insurer, CIGNA. I give a lot of credit to CIGNA for its service. I also pay the company more than half of my retirement income to provide necessary coverage for me, my diabetic wife, and my mentally challenged daughter. My knee docs are not in the Senate. Not yet, anyway. They may have noted how much money Barrasso is raking in as as pal of the Koch Brothers and other right-wing funders. And the senator has great hours and plenty of vacation days. He hardly works at all! 

I'm not sure what to call Barrasso. A physician would not demean his profession the way he does. Lately, he's been up to no good in the U.S. Senate, working to deny health care to thousands of Wyomingites. 

So I write letters and postcards. They are cordial but insistent. I do no name calling or cursing. I don't want to get on the Senate's Shit List, which I hear is getting longer by the day.  

My senators write me back. This afternoon I received an e-mail response from Sen. Barrasso. A laugher, if you're into dark humor. Read it and weep or laugh, the choice is yours. You can get your own response, suitable for framing, by writing to Sen. John Barrasso, 307 Dirksen Office Building, Washington, DC, 20510. Get a full list of his mailing addresses and phone numbers in Wyoming by going to http://www.barrasso.senate.gov

Dear Michael,  

Thank you for taking the time to contact me. It is good to hear from you. 

There are serious challenges facing health care in our nation. As a doctor, who practiced in Wyoming for over twenty years, I am passionate about ensuring that patients are able to get the care they need. Right now, Congress is in the middle of an important debate about the future of Obamacare.  

For the past seven years, patients have experienced the impact of this law. The people I talk to in Wyoming tell me they are facing higher premiums and fewer choices. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, premiums in Wyoming are up 107% since 2013. We also have just one single insurance company willing to sell Obamacare policies.  

This law cannot continue in Wyoming or across the country. This is why I voted to repeal Obamacare and will continue to support this effort. Patients need relief from the law’s mandates and taxes that are making health insurance unaffordable for so many families. Importantly, we can do this while still ensuring that people with serious medical conditions continue to have access to insurance coverage.  

The repeal of Obamacare is just the first step. We need to make changes that ultimately lower costs and improve quality of care received by all patients. In particular, this means letting states decide what works best in their local communities. This is especially important so places like Wyoming can meet the needs of residents in our rural communities.  

Michael, thank you for contacting me. I appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments about this important issue. 

John Barrasso, M.D.
United States Senator

Skeletons rejoice at Liz Cheney's defense of Trumpcare

My skeleton crew rejoices at Rep. Cheney's defense of the Congressional Republicans bill to revoke health insurance for 22 million Americans and turn their lazy asses into corpses. My favorite line in the letter is "I appreciate your thoughts and concerns." My second-favorite is this. "No state suffered more than Wyoming under one-size-fits-all regulatory burdens imposed by the Affordable Care Act." I like this one too: "As Congress continues the process of improving our health care system..." It goes on and on. If you want a letter like this, just write Rep. Liz Cheney, at one of her many offices in WYO or call her directly at 307-722-2595. Just ask for the skeleton letter, or the form letter that covers the AHCA, a.k.a. American Harvest of Corpses Act. You'll be glad you did. 

Imagine a worse health care bill than the one drafted by the U.S. Senate's Cruel Thirteen

All my life, I have been sending missives off into the void. I have sent chatty letters off to family and friends -- rarely do they get answered. I send complaint letters that end up in someone's circular file. This prepared my for life as a fiction writer, where many fictions are sent off and few return. It also prepared me for life as a blogger. Many posts, few comments, although I do get some amusing spam. 

So when someone answers a letter I am impressed. It takes some effort to put thoughts down on paper or computer, even if it's bullshit. Today I received an e-mail in letter form from Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, M.D. The letter writer is cool, calm and collected. Not Barrasso, probably, but a staffer. D.C. staffers usually are competent overachievers, college grads who seek to make a mark on the world. I admire their pluck, their ability to make a living in pricey and super-competitive D.C. 

I am including Barrasso's letter here. It's about the health care issue and it deserves to be read. As we know, the "discussion draft" was written by thirteen male Republican senators from red states. Two, Barrasso and Mike Enzi, are from Wyoming. This tells you something right away about the bill.  It does not represent the mainstream of American thought but an aging, white, wealthy fringe group. No surprise that the bill represents a reactionary view of America and Americans. 

I live in Wyoming's largest city (pop. 65,000) in the state's largest county (pop. about 96,000). The entire state has about 580,000 people, mostly white. We are considered a rural state, a "pioneer state" when it comes to federal grantmaking. When I was a grant writer, I often played up the fact that the state has more antelope than humans. The feds always gave us bonus points for that. Not that they wanted antelope to benefit from taxpayer funds. Coastal folks just need a bit of help understanding life without a coffee shop on every corner and sweaty bodies crowded into subway trains. 

If you really wanted to write a health care bill that represented the true needs of Americans, you would convene a committee that represented the U.S. demographic. It would be kind of like the demographic I saw yesterday at the Food Bank for Larimer County in Fort Collins. My daughter's friend had just been kicked out of her apartment. Her husband works but hasn't been paid in months. They have a nine-month-old boy, a smart, cute kid who started life as a premie but is catching up fast. I was in town so I drove her and her son to the food bank. She doesn't have a car. 

At the food bank, I saw an aging hippie, a Hispanic man bent from scoliosis, a young black mother pushing two kids in a shopping cart, three young people who looked like college students. There were lots of white people, most of them without the same means to wealth as Barrasso and Enzi and Mitch McConnell.  They were hungry. Their kids were hungry. Many looked to have health issues. 

Wonder what kind of health care legislation they would draft? Would it cut off access to health care for millions like them? Would it slash Medicaid to benefit the super-rich? 

Lest you think I have some rosy view of poverty, that it ennobles people and would cause them to write benevolent legislation for their fellow humans, think again. If you put thirteen of these food bank patrons into a closed room and demanded them to write a health care bill, they might come up with something terrible, such as death camps for gays or gilded mansions for themselves and screw everyone else. Remember, some of these people voted for Trump. 

But this imaginary committee's legislation cannot be worse than the one drafted by The Cruel Thirteen. A new poll reports that only 17 percent of Americans approve of the Senate bill. That's almost as low as Congress's approval rating.

Did my daughter's friend get food for her baby? The bank was out of formula but had jars of baby food. She was happy to show off a container of blackberries that looked fresh and didn't have any mold on them. Cheese and bread and canned veggies. Nothing great but her family won't starve as it looks for another place to live in Trump's America. 

Anyway, here is Sen. Barrasso's letter. The url of the pdf has a strange title: https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BetterCareReconcilistionAct.6.26.17.pdf. It's a bona fide link and takes you to all 145 pages of this monstrosity. But why "Reconcilistion" rather than "Reconciliation?" Make of it what you will:

Dear Michael,  

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about health care. It is good to hear from you.  

There are serious challenges facing health care in our nation. When Obamacare was being considered in 2009, Americans were promised that the law would give patients more choices and lower costs. This has not occurred.  

Instead, folks in Wyoming are down to just a single insurance company willing to sell Obamacare policies. Our state also has some of the highest insurance rates in the country. Our experience in Wyoming is not unique. Across the county insurance companies are fleeing the individual insurance market and prices continue to skyrocket.  

Congress must act soon before patients are left with no ability to purchase coverage. The Senate is hearing from all sides about the best ways to address the significant problems in health care. In particular, I am committed to improving care for people living in rural communities and protecting patients with preexisting conditions.  

You can review the complete Senate health care discussion draft here: https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BetterCareReconcilistionAct.6.26.17.pdf. In the coming weeks, the Senate will also have an open amendment process, where Senators can bring forward their best ideas to improve this legislation 

Once more, thank you for contacting me. I appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments about this important issue. 

John Barrasso, M.D. 

Trumpcare is a huge issue as we prepare for Children's Mental Health Awareness Week in May

Republicans are trying to sell us Trumpcare or, if you prefer, Wealthcare -- I also like Tryancare.

Everyone deserves quality, affordable mental health care. The system we have now is not so much a system as a scattershot approach that includes mental health professionals, emergency rooms, state hospitals, and treatment centers. Obamacare has helped insure millions and parity laws passed under both Democratic and Republican administrations have helped put mental illness treatment on par with other illnesses. Some mentally ill have found coverage with Medicaid Expansion (we didn't get it in Wyoming, thanks to the troglodytes in the legislature) or through disability clauses under SSI and SSDI. Negotiating the maze of local, state and federal coverage options can be a nightmare for someone who understands bureaucracy as I do. For a schizophrenic or bipolar person -- not so easy.

This announcement comes from the National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health:

As national events continue to illuminate the critical need for mental health care reform in this country, we must increase our efforts to educate the nation about the importance of prevention and early identification of mental health challenges. We must also highlight the fact that children are an integral part of a family unit and create an understanding amongst policy leaders and practitioners that healthy families are better equipped to support resilient children. Legislation, policies, and practices must fully endorse the undisputed importance of full family engagement and participation in the care and treatment of their children. Further, we must advocate for a holistic approach to children's mental health that includes the provision of supports that strengthen the family as they nurture resiliency. 

Please join us as we create a national dialogue about the importance of finding help, finding hope.  FFCMH is tracking events for Children's Mental Health Week, May 1-7. 

Send them your activities. Here's more info:

What are you doing for Children's Mental Health Awareness Week?  Please share the activities that your organization or group is planning for National Children's Mental Health Awareness Week with us. We would also like to see any photos of your event after the week has concluded. Please fill in the event submission form with information about the events and activities you will be holding in your community for Children's Mental Health Awareness Week.

I don't know of any events in Cheyenne planned for May 1-7. If I find one, I will post here.