As noted in my last blog, I am expecting my second child soon. While I will be out on maternity leave, a series of guest bloggers will be contributing posts to the blog. I thank them in advance for their contributions and hope that you all enjoy hearing some new voices.
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I’ve been spending a lot of time lately at the doctor’s office. Fortunately, for good reason; I am expecting my second child – soon! I really like my doctor and trust the care that I receive, but every now and then feel that I am at the mercy of their expertise and my lack of a medical degree. This becomes particularly true when dealing with my health insurance company.
Yes, the downside to my numerous doctor visits has been my increased interaction with my insurance company. Only two years has passed since my last pregnancy, but it feels like light years in regards to the changes and complexity of insurance.
What is most striking about this complicated system is that it feels like the onus is all on me. I, the patient, need to be sure to ask all the “right” questions. For good or bad, we can no longer blindly follow doctor’s orders. Before agreeing to any tests or procedures I have to first find out if it is covered by my insurance and then weigh the cost against the potential benefit to me or my baby. This would be a lot easier if we were talking about weighing the choice of car seat or stroller. I would ask friends and family for opinions and diligently read Baby Bargains and Consumer Reports. I would do my homework and as a skilled shopper make a decision. But, I am not a doctor. Being a savvy consumer of my healthcare is totally daunting and yet, totally necessary.
At the same time, I am incredibly grateful that my husband and I both have access to good medical insurance through our employers. We are fortunate to have choices. But even that gets tough as our plans our annually tweaked. As we weighed the pros and cons of each plan on the myriad of spreadsheets my husband designed only one thing became clear – we were comparing apples to oranges. High deductibles vs. monthly premium costs. FSAs vs. HSAs. Each option has risks and it was clear that any choice would affect the way we access our healthcare – how often do we go, when to fill prescriptions, etc. We have to know our plan and wisely navigate our usage. Again, it is our responsibility and it does not always coincide with doctor’s orders.
What bothers me most as I am struggling to understand the health care landscape is that I am one of the fortunate ones. I have access to insurance and the means to afford it. I am educated and have resources around me to get my questions answered. And yet, it is still hard!!! What about those who don’t have access to insurance? Who are not native English speakers? Who don’t have choices of doctors to see? What does the future of health care have in store for them?
I also keep thinking that with more pressure on individuals to navigate their own health care, what happens to the big picture? What does this mean for the overall health and wellness of our community? My health affects others. From the passing of germs as I go about my day to accessing preventative care or taking a sick day from work, my personal health has an impact on those directly and indirectly connected to me.
With all of this in mind, I thought it would be relevant to invite Dr. Josh Riff to be the next speaker at our At the Table lunch series. Dr. Riff is the Medical Director of Target and will present “The Do It Yourself Patient: Alternate Sites of Healthcare Delivery.” He will address how the future of our healthcare system will affect the way in which we access our individual care and how consumer driven healthcare affects the broader community. If you are interested in attending the session, click here.
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Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti I know that many of us are anxious to do something to help. We also want to be sure that we give to organizations that will effectively and efficiently get our dollars to the people in need. I wanted to share some links that may be helpful.
The Minneapolis Foundation’s list of organizations offering aid in Haiti.
Blog post by President and CEO of the Council on Foundations on philanthropy’s response to Haiti.
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Its 2010 and a new year which brings new projects and new ventures.
As previously mentioned here The Minneapolis Foundation was selected by the Knight Foundation as one of twenty-one community foundations to receive a Community Information Needs Challenge grant to promote public affairs journalism in collaboration with MinnPost. Now the project is off and running.
Known as Community Sketchbook, MinnPost will run six stories each month focused on “the economic and social challenges facing communities, especially low-income communities and communities of color, and how people are trying to address them.” Additional articles on related topics will also be highlighted through the Sketchbook.
Community Sketchbook debuted on January 6th. Click here for the first feature. The first topic happens to be about Minnesotans living on food stamps, a topic also recently discussed here.
One of the benefits the Foundation is most excited about from this partnership is that all stories can be republished or distributed, in print or online at no cost. This effort will be promoted to ethnic, community and rural media outlets who may not always have easy access to this kind of information.
We hope you enjoy this new feature.
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The hectic season is upon us.
Every year I am surprised at how busy the holiday season is — buying gifts for all my relatives near and far; sending out our family holiday cards; baking cookies and making our end of year charitable donations.
. . .And then there are all the holiday parties – work parties, family parties, school parties and friends’ parties. I tend to panic before walking into a party: what on earth I will talk about?
For the sake of those who share my panic — and those whose parties I will be attending – I wanted to get some ideas from you. What do you expect to be talking about at holiday events this year? In addition to the stories featured in supermarket tabloids:
Take a second to complete this poll and feel free to offer other suggestions.
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I returned to work after the Thanksgiving holiday still feeling full. It was a long weekend filled with an abundance of my favorite foods. Of course, on my way from the front door of the office to my desk I passed two fully stocked candy dishes and then opened my email to an announcement that pastries were in the kitchen. On mornings like this, it is hard to remember that there are many who go hungry or struggle to buy groceries on a daily basis.
Yesterday’s Star Tribune cover story examined the increase in food stamp usage in Minnesota, specifically among the middle class and not just in urban areas. Carver County’s food stamp participation increased by 85 percent in between June of 2007 and June 2009, while in the same time span Scott County saw a 70 percent rise, and numbers were up 49 percent in Dakota County and 40 percent in Washington County.
The Strib article provides a state lens to last week’s Sunday New York Times’ article, “Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades” which looks at hunger and how food stamp use, already at a record high, is growing in our country.
Today 1 in 8 Americans and 1 in 4 children utilize food stamps for daily nutrition. Growth in usage is taking place in urban, suburban and rural communities as families deal with repercussions of unemployment, the housing bust, and increasing medical costs.
A recent study by a professor at Washington University found that half of Americans receive food stamps at least briefly by the time they turn 20. Among black children the figure was a staggering 90%.
Both articles address the stigma of food stamp usage. Nationally, only two-thirds of those eligible actually access food stamps, often because they feel relying on food stamps is embarrassing or a sign of laziness. However, many are forced to overlook those stigmas as time passes and people face the realities of needing to feed their children. You do what it takes to make it happen.
One response to the increase in hunger was announced right before Thanksgiving as a collaborative campaign by the White House, United States Agriculture Department, and the Corporation for National and Community Service called United We Serve: Feed a Neighbor. The campaign asks people to do things like prepare or deliver meals to the elderly, donate or volunteer at a food shelf, plant a shared garden or develop anti-hunger programs. The campaign refers people to Serve.gov to find specific local opportunities and to access its anti-hunger volunteer toolkit.
What programs do you know about locally that are addressing hunger effectively?
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Guest Speaker Joel Kramer
The news business has changed dramatically in recent years. There is a huge increase in citizen journalism, the role of social media is consistently growing, and advertisers are finding new ways to reach their customers. According to MinnPost Editor and CEO, Joel Kramer, our guest at the most recent At the Table event, every paper in every city has been affected in some way and approximately 10,000 journalists have lost their jobs in the process.
Mr. Kramer discussed that while most assume the reason for problems is the trend of readers moving from print to online as their primary source of news, he argues that it is a flawed financial model behind advertising that is breaking the business. Traditionally, 80% of newspaper expenses were covered by advertising revenue. Today, companies do not need an intermediary like a newspaper or a web page to meet their customers, particularly in a social media environment where advertisers can rely on viral marketing or can easily collect emails to communicate directly with their customer base. The only publications immune to this trend are so hyper-local or uber-specialized that their advertisers are not looking for online marketing to meet the masses. For example, print remains a viable option for the local hardware store or place of worship.
At the Table Participants Connecting
MinnPost was created by Mr. Kramer in 2007 as a non-profit media source, which is heavily focused on public affairs journalism that combines reporting, analysis and commentary. According to Mr. Kramer, there is “no such thing as unbiased journalism”, so he’s using this model to take down the curtain and be more open with the readers, which he estimates at between 25,000-30,000 on a regular basis. Mr. Kramer had three primary reasons for structuring MinnPost as a non-profit media source.
Discussing the topic
As a non-profit, MinnPost does rely on donations of readers, foundations, and actively searches out sponsors of content. They receive some ad revenue, but this is a small budget line for them.
Mr. Kramer’s model is based on an interesting argument – media as a public good and not a consumer good. Do you agree?
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Today’s Star Tribune published the six finalists for the St. Paul Public School’s Superintendent position. The article provides a brief overview of the individual candidates and stresses the district’s interest in local candidates. For more history on the status of the school district, read here, here, and here for previous posts.
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A few weeks ago I wrote a post about my love for the show Glee that also highlighted the Entertainment Industry Foundation’s iParticipate campaign. The campaign set out to raise awareness of service and increase volunteerism. If you watched television during the week of October 19-25 you may have noticed that volunteerism was written into story lines. Though, I will thought that some of the stories were such subplots that they were easy to miss.
Evidently, the results of the campaign have not been as expected. Here is a link to an interesting post on the Volunteer Match blog that suggests why the campaign has been a bit of a flop and unsuccessful at motivating people to take action. Definitely worth a quick read.
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I love the Sunday New York Times. I anxiously wait all day for my son’s nap time in order to have the freedom to really dive in. Sadly, this plan does not always work out and the chaos of work week does not always afford time to read the daily newspaper. Then what does a girl do if she still wants to stay informed?
I rely on Minnesota Public Radio in the car, links on Twitter and Facebook that friends post, a handful of blogs collected on Google Reader, and a quick perusal online of headlines of the big papers. I have a suspicion that this cacophony of sources that create my own newsfeed is not unique. We all collect our information in a variety of formats from an even more diverse list of sources. We know that this has had an impact on traditional newspapers. The Star Tribune is financially struggling and The New York Times recently laid off 100 newsroom staff. But, outside of saving our papers there does seem to be some greater risks. How do we guarantee that we are getting accurate and accountable information from so many sources? How do local issues get equal coverage when so many media sources are nationally based? And most importantly, how can we make change in our community if we don’t have all the facts?
Recently a report by the Columbia University Journalism School, “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” was published that offered a variety of models for financially supporting the new media landscape. Some of the suggestions include providing non-profit status to news organizations, encouraging foundations and individuals to support local news reporting, and increasing involvement of universities and colleges to hold news agencies accountable. It surely seems that if we want to ensure that we get quality information, that the model for supporting news needs change. And who is responsible for making that change? The report argues that we all are:
“American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reporting — as society has, at much greater expense, for public education, health care, scientific advancement and cultural preservation, through varying combinations of philanthropy, subsidy and government policy. It may not be essential to save or promote any particular news medium, including print newspapers. What is paramount is preserving independent, original, credible reporting, whether or not it is profitable, and regardless of the medium in which it appears.”
The Minneapolis Foundation recently got involved in supporting local news coverage through The Knight Foundation. The Minneapolis Foundation was selected by the Knight Foundation as one of twenty-one community foundations to receive a $100,000 Community Information Needs Challenge grant. The grant was awarded to promote public affairs journalism in collaboration with MinnPost. The Knight Foundation’s grant matches contributions by TMF and those by our donor advisors. Our partnership with MinnPost identifies specific beats to underwrite that will increase or sustain media coverage to help raise awareness of critical issues and of promising strategies to strengthen our community – and extend that coverage into ethnic, community, and rural media. In addition, 100% of the articles generated by this effort will be made available to ethnic, community, and rural media outlets at no charge. The Minneapolis Foundation believes a community foundation’s role is to promote the health and well-being of a community. Quality journalism plays a crucial role in shaping both public perception and public policy on issues that affect our community.
While The Minneapolis Foundation has taken a step in pursuing a new model for funding media, there are many other options on the table. Through the report by Columbia University, some additional digging and working on the partnership with MinnPost, I feel as though I have just started to scratch the surface of understanding the rapid changes in the field of journalism. As an opportunity to learn more about the funding models of journalism, The Minneapolis Foundation has invited Joel Kramer, Editor and CEO of MinnPost, to address the At the Table audience. I hope you will join us at “Be in the Know: The Future of Quality Local News.” Click here for details on the event.
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