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Corvallis, OR, United States
My personal obsession with prion diseases with smidges of music I like and rescue dog advocacy from a disabled Oregonian.

6.13.2004



Song in my head: Dear Andy, Dear Andy...It's all going to hell
Democracy's fading, our rights gone as well....Jo Fish

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BUMPERSTICKER SITINGS:

~Elvis Shreds the Gorge~

~Drive Now..Talk Later~

~New York Tokyo Paris Hood River~


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ALTER-ABLED NEWS

Access to health care for low income Oregonians is just about non existent.


Access to Oregon Health Plan shrinks

The Standard package will stop taking new members as officials struggle to reduce coverage, but co-payments will end

Oregon's health plan for poor people continued its collapse Tuesday as state officials announced a halt to new enrollment in the Oregon Health Plan Standard benefit package beginning July 1.
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and the Willamette Week explains further...

Code Red
The state's progressive health-care plan reaches the beginning of the end.

Now it's official: After years of near-death experiences under the blades of budget cuts, Oregon's most important health-care option for the poor will finally be put on life support.

This week, the state Department of Human Services will begin mailing letters to the 51,000 remaining clients of Oregon Health Plan Standard, notifying them that the program will stop accepting new clients as of July 1.

"This is going to have a huge effect across the state," says Vanetta Abdellatif, a top health official for Multnomah County. "It will just reduce access for other uninsured patients in the community."

When OHP began in 1994, it was a groundbreaking attempt at providing health care to anyone in need. Under federal Medicare and Medicaid law, groups like the elderly and the disabled are guaranteed medical coverage. But Oregon went a huge step farther, by extending an insurance program to extremely low-income clients who previously had no health-care options.
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and the new Medicare prescription plan would have reduced senior and alter-abled food stamp allowances...

U.S. to Drop Benefit Cuts Linked to Drug Discounts

The Bush administration said Saturday that it would rescind a federal policy that threatened to cut food stamp benefits for several million low-income elderly and disabled people who save money on their medicines by using the new Medicare drug discount cards.

The administration's reversal came two days before President Bush was scheduled to visit Missouri to promote use of the cards, which have received a tepid reaction from many Medicare beneficiaries.
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