Monday, January 06, 2025

Remote Care


 As our elected officials drift back to Washington, D.C. to resume their bickering, let’s hope they can at least find bipartisan support for extending Medicare reimbursements for Telehealth appointments.

It may seem obscure to younger, healthier folks but the ability to meet with your doctor remotely is critical for people with limited mobility but multiple health challenges. In fact, this issue perfectly encapsulates why we need government in the first place.

Everybody gets old. Along with age comes health problems. Doctors will treat you but they need to get paid. Most of us are of limited means, and Medicare, to which we’ve been contributing our entire working lives, is the government insurance program that reimburses doctors for those services.

During the Covid crisis, as the Times has reported, “Medicare expanded its telemedicine coverage substantially in 2020, and the expansion has regularly been renewed. That could all have ended on Dec. 31.”

The Times details what happened next:

“Supporters of telemedicine, also called telehealth, endured some nail-biting days as Congress considered a continuing resolution to fund the government past year’s end. Included in the 1,500-page bill was a two-year extension for expanded Medicare coverage for telemedicine.

“Republicans had agreed to the resolution, but changed their minds after Elon Musk and Donald Trump condemned it. “That killed the bill,” said Kyle Zebley, senior vice president for public policy at the American Telemedicine Association.

“Finally, Congress approved a narrower version, a three-month extension. So telemedicine lives, at least until March 31.”

So now the viability of this option hangs in the balance as we wait for the new Congress to act. As one of the millions of patients who relies on Telehealth, this one is deeply personal to me. So as the heartless billionaires prepare to cut the government to shreds, let’s hope this one escapes their shredder.

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Sunday, January 05, 2025

Intermission


 I suspect I’m not the only one who feels a bit lost during this odd lame duck transition before the would-be dictator takes over the White House. I’ve wanted to feel joyful at what is indeed a joyful time of year, but always in the back of my mind there is this sense of foreboding about what comes next.

Accordingly, this newsletter has been a bit light on new political content as I prepare myself for the inauguration and what follows.

So while we’re on auto-pilot more or less, I’ve been posting some of my experiments with painting and photography from the past. There were a ton of transitions in my career (which has now entered its 60th year) and my sometimes chaotic personal life, and I’ve been open that I often went through periods of depression.

At such times, while writing helped me deal with the negative feelings, as did visits to therapists and the medications they prescribed, turning to the visual arts also brought some relief. I would photograph my surroundings, or paint what I saw around me. I absolutely adored color schemes, shapes and angles.

I have no particular skill as a painter or photographer, though one little-known fact about my journalism career is that I published photos in Rolling Stone before my first articles there.

***

Joe Biden’s final days in office may well mark the end of many of the traditions related to the peaceful transfer of power that we didn’t even recognize as significant until now, when they are threatened by a despot. It’s a time of grace and dignity, honoring the nation’s heroes, pardoning those who have earned our forgiveness, and preparing to leave power to a new team of people entrusted to lead the nation.

These feel like things we may not miss until they’re gone. In that regard, Biden’s Medal of Freedom ceremony Saturday was a lovely reminder of how things are supposed to work.

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