As a mom of a child with many medical issues, I have had much experience with how hospitals do not want to provide costly care to the severely impaired population. Jahi Mc Math was a healthy 13 yr old girl who was medically neglected during her post operative aftercare in the PICU at Children's Hospital Oakland. As a result she suffered an anoxic brain injury. CHO owes her and her family every possible rehabilitation technique, every possible treatment, medication, regardless of the cost to bring this girl back. At the very least she deserves time and nutrition to see if there is a chance that she could recover. CHO is currently denying Jahi nutrition by refusing to allow a simple feeding tube surgery. This surgery takes only minutes to perform. GiveJahi Mc Math another chance at life. CHO took her life away once, don't let them take it away again!

They complain about money spent, yet they drag things out for so long and put peoples bodies through the stuff of horror stories. And in the end they have to preform more stuff then if they had done the right thing in the first place. I would have signed off a long time ago, if they had just been doing the right thing and treating me like a human being. And if you give meds that a person has a bad reaction to, get them off of it instead of adding more drugs.

My nephew went into cardiac arrest on thanksgiving day he suffer some brian damage and his doctor basically told my sister in law and brother in law to pull the plug on their baby stating they were being selfish having their baby soul less the baby still have some brian activity and is not clinically dead they were then being denied stay at the st. marry rehabilitation. The insurance will refuse to pay because the doctors are telling the insurance company the baby is not moving and opening his eyes its false yes he is please help us fight to get Iziah into the rehabilitation

The Southside of Chicago has no or inadequate Trauma units within community hospitals. The South side needs a complete medical district..

In many states the unemployed fall into the so called "gap" of not making enough income to qualify for a subsidy under the Affordable Care Act, yet not qualifying for Medicaid. There should not be a bottom income threshold when Medicaid expansion was left up to individual states. We are one country and we should all have the same opportunities to afford medical care no matter what state we live in.

I am a local activist who is concerned about community access to mental health services. I was shocked when I discovered the University of Arizona Medical Center (UAMC), the largest provider of behavioral and mental health in-patient care in Southern Arizona, doesn't have a single black physician working at its treatment facility. This shameful situation sends a clear message about which segment of the community the UAMC, a nationally recognized teaching institution, serves and which one it doesn't. Tell the National Institute of Health to stop giving millions of dollars in federal grants to the UAMC because its hiring record is inconsistent with a true commitment to serving all Southern Arizonans.

Illinois mental health patients and professionals face serious trouble due to cuts in funding for mental health care. Since 2009, Mental Health lines are down about $20 million total. From 2009-2011 the number for Mental Health was cut $108 million, however Illinois has restored funding to Mental Health  but still down 20 million from FY 09. Illinois ranked third among states with the highest cuts, totaling $113.7 million.  Petition By: State Representative La Shawn K Ford- Member of the Illinois House of Representatives Appropriations-Human Services Committee. http://www.dhs.state.il.us/onenetlibrary/27897/documents/mental%20health/marysmith/strategicplan/mentalhealthservicesfiveyearstrategicplan2013.pdf

Last session the Florida Senate proposed a solution to take the federal money. While not the best it did attempt to help our population. The house refused to do anything. The Governor gave a half-hearted endorsement and nothing was accomplished. The reason the house gave was that they didn't trust the government to pay its bills and medicaid has many flaws. Both of these reasons are ridiculous. The Federal government has always paid its bills and the state has a large say in how medicaid is done. So if there are problems with the program, the very people who are complaining are the ones who should be fixing it. Florida has the third highest number of people who die prematurely each year because they are without health insurance, according to a Families USA study. The nonprofit, created to get all Americans quality, affordable healthcare, found that 2,272 people ages 25 to 64 died in Florida in 2010 because they did not have health insurance to pay for medical costs. Also we gave up 50 Billion dollars that will go to other states and the payments to hospitals for caring for people without insurance will be cut drastically. This will cause a huge strain on our hospitals since they are required by law to care for the poor.

Only one side of the story is being told by the media. Why are we so afraid of providing health care to everyone? Why are we so afraid of taking care of our brothers? How can other countries make health care services available to the populace and we turn our heads? America, we are better than that!

The healthcare cost savings alone to these people, going back into the economy, plus savings to the state in indigent healthcare costs, will far more than offset any perceived disadvantages of participation in the program.

Can you imagine going to your local pharmacy and paying $21 for a single aspirin tablet, $18 for two Alka-Seltzer, or $35 for a tube of hydrocortisone cream?* Hospitals in California charge prices like these every day--overcharging by 500% or more above their actual costs. On top of that, nonprofit hospital system CEOs are making up to $4.8 million a year!** Rising healthcare costs are keeping many Californians from getting the care they need, and leaving others under a growing mountain of healthcare debt. Meanwhile, the hospital industry in California made more than $4 billion in profits in 2012. We can’t afford it. California’s healthcare providers must bring costs down to reasonable, affordable rates. Ask California’s health care regulators to keep hospitals to a reasonable rate of no more than 25% above the true cost of medical care (including material, facility, and labor costs), with allowances made to offset costs of charity care. We will deliver your signature directly to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, and California Health & Human Services Secretary Diana S. Dooley. *Prime Centinela Medical Center, Inglewood; Sutter Memorial Hospital, Sacramento; Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles **Lloyd Dean made $4,882,756 million from July, 2011 to June, 2012 as CEO of Dignity Health.

When I read a recent news story about how one hospital charged $1000 for one toothbrush, I admit to being skeptical. But then my friend’s wife accidentally cut her finger and was charged $1000 for one tube of skin adhesive -- medicine you can buy online for $40. Turns out, overinflated medical prices wasted an estimated $105 billion in America in 2009. And that’s the tip of the iceberg. Excessive administrative costs and paperwork wasted $190 billion. Duplicate treatments and medical errors wasted $130 billion. Overall, roughly one-third of all health care spending is waste. (source: Institute of Medicine) Insurance companies should focus on cutting this waste, but too many of them just raise premiums and expect consumers to foot the bill. That's why we're calling on Governor Kitzhaber to require insurers to do more to cut this waste, before they are allowed to raise premiums.