New England Ethnic Newswire has been perking for two years. The health angle is new.
This is cross-posted at Marry in Massachusetts. (Head shots there.)
A major player in this latest effort is former Senator Jarrett Barrios. On paper, he's the president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts foundation, one of the health project sponsors. Those of us who have seen him fighting for marriage equality or other progressive causes know he'd be more than that. In fact, he made it happen, say the reps for the other sponsors, The Boston Foundation, Partners Healthcare, and MetroWest Health Care Foundation.
In turn, each told of how a very wired Barrios called, said his foundation was kicking in $25,000 to start this effort and encouraging them to do the same. They said they agreed after hearing about the project. Barrios added with a laugh that they probably were thinking they'd have agreed to anything to get off the phone with him.
The key idea is to piggyback on the existing newswire, kind of an Associated Press for smaller broadcast and print media, whose audiences are not served or not served well by larger MSM. Particularly for the many and varied non-English speakers, having any understandable access to important health information is a big leap.
Barrios said that he became aware of this issue as a senator. Some of his constituents told him they did not have access to health-care information and processes. They were sick or worse because of simple ignorance. Some were literally dying because they did not know what was available or if they could afford access to what they or their families needed.
The existing newswire covers the range of diverse area communities, which you can see on the partners page. That would be from Chinese to Portuguese to Polish to Haitian to Korean to Irish to India to Spanish to Armenian and on. Already in other news areas, these media share important stories that the others can run.
(On the main site, click Channels at the top to get a sense of what's on offer.)
This works in large part because they consider themselves partners and not competitors. Consider the different audiences for such papers as The Jewish Advocate, The Brazilian Journal and The Boston-Bay State Banner. Each of these has limited staff and can serve readers or listeners better with more health features.
The health project adds regular and special coverage. In addition to health-related stories each will report, the newswire (Newz on their cards) will provide more pieces like editor Mary Thang's Understanding Drug Labels When You Don't Read or Sseak English. She writes some health articles already and will be doing more.
A star at the lunch was Eduardo Amaral de Oliveira, Newz' heath reporter. A native Brazilian, he is already turning out a stream of news and investigative features on health. For example, a recent piece was on a B.U. doctor, Milagros Abreu, who has seen that over 1,000 Latino families who had never had health insurance got it.
He too is passionate and impatient about the many in this area who are underserved. He notes that media often do not find essential issues about knowledge of and access to care as exciting as sensational angles. For example, he broke the piece on the Brazilian doctor whose Framingham basement liposuction ended up with a dead patient. Many media outlets contacted him, “but all they wanted to ask about was the immigration status” of those involved.
Instead, he notes that the questions about immigrant and new citizen health care is much more complex, going beyond language as well. It's “culture, family and education,” he says.
Several speakers discussed how serious and pervasive these problems are. Allison Allison Bauer, senior program officer for the Boston Foundation cited the report The Boston Paradox: Lots of Health Care, Not Enough Health. as a good reference point. Barrios elaborated on the cycle in which, “You cant get access and they can't get to you to make their programs and policies a success.”
As the launch wrapped up, I developed the uneasy feeling that this was all well and good, but what if Amaral de Oliveira suddenly disappeared? Is he such a linchpin that the coverage would collapse?
Frank Herron, Newz' editor, said they were covered. As important as the health reporter's pieces are, between the other media's contributions and Thang's, they'd be steaming along.
Want to Help? It turns out that there is a pressing need for volunteer translators for Newz. Professional services, particularly for medical and health topics are pricey, too pricey for current funding. If you can work in any of these languages, drop Herron an email.
By the bye, in addition to Barrios, another chum connected with this effort is Susan Ryan-Vollmar, the former BayWindows and South End News editor in chief. She's the BCBS foundation's communications director, still doing good but in a different location.
= Hero Opportunity for Barrios
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p>What is a Hero Opportunity?
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p>A compelling problem or crisis that
provides policymakers with public
occasions to be the champion of a
solution that makes a positive
difference in the lives of a critical
mass of their constituents.
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p>Policy making in the dreaded private sector produces Hero Opportunities.
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p>from Real Clout
health for all “ethnicities” if you are going to ration my health care in doing so. My most sincere wish is that mandatory health care bankrupts this state all the way back into redstateism.
happening to all of us who have to wait a month or two or three for an appointment for a specialist or who have our access to RXs limited to generics by our health insurer.
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p>It’s called cost controls. Nothing to do with the fact that ethnicities are joining the pool of insured persons.
Good points, Judy. Plus, the non-English speakers who didn’t get the messages and were missing the deadlines are still in the required-to-join class. We can’t be about mandating enrollment, only to say if you enroll, that may be bad for me.
and “co-incidentally” in lock step with mAssachusetts requiring health care my $5000 company sponsored health insurance plan totally sucks, is a scam and routinely denies benefits just to see if the insured will bitch about the denied claims. When first circulating benefit denials on the company email system the company said that was “improper use” of company computer equipment.
Seig heil to fascist America.
…instead of ranting about how health insurance opportunities for minorities will take the entire state back to the Stone Age.
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p>If you and others you know are having claims denied, the Mass Insurance Commission would be a better audience audience for your concerns.
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p>I’d recommend joining together with your co-workers, documenting specific incidents and presenting those facts to the Commission without political commentary.
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p>If there are many incidents and they are egregious enough, you and your co-workers might want to consider hiring a lawyer — not to attack your company (fascist as it may be), but to get justice for yourself and others. Many lawyers will work on commission, so your cost will be minimal.
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p>At any rate, taking action to resolve the injustice you feel might just make you feel better about your fellow citizens who have it even worse than you do.
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p>Good Luck!
It appears what you are really saying behind all of the colorful touchy feely language is:
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p>There are many people im Masachusetts who are illegal aliens and they have medical issues and want medical treatment at my expense.
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p>Aforementioned illegal aliens cannot read and write English. This is an astonishing presumption. Perhaps these people cannot read and write in any language.
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p>Again, we have issues of housing, medical care, and education od people who have no business or legal right to be in my community, my state and my country.You want me to pay for someone who has no right to be here, yet I am now having trouble seeing an MD at my convenience and then I have to justify to my insurance company that this is an essential medical issue to forestall my iminent death.
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p>If you want to help people out, please feel free to travel to Africa, Mexico, and SE Asia and assist the billions of people there who are in need of assistance. Why is it that anything beyong ten miles of your “home” is an inconvenience and unjustifiable in your mind. What is it with most “do-gooders” most especially the “part time do-gooders” that everything must be done at their convenience and their time schedule. Put your life on hold. Go somewhere else on this planet and provide some service to some culture to help them provide food for themselves. Medical issues are moot if you are starving to death.
under cover of law here.
Sheesh! These are your fellow citizens! Even if they were undocumented, they are your fellow human beings.
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p>After all, the basis of our government and society is to insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare, NOT promote class warfare.
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p>Have sympathy. Try for understanding. Work with people trying to make things better instead of parroting some Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh talking point. Try and put yourself in the shoes of people different from you.
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p>You might just feel better about yourself and our state. Plus, your blood pressure will go down and you will be less likely to die from a heart attack!
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p>Seriously! Hostility towards other people is a huge factor in heart disease.
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Well, fortunately, ignorance is often very easy to fix. Not knowing rarely has anything to do with intelligence. Nor does it speak to someone’s ability and willingness to contribute to society.
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p>In the case of non-native-English speakers, as Barrios said, making them aware of existing programs provides new access. Often those programs are not even government funded. The hospitals, foundations and other just don’t have the outreach for these small and diverse communities, on of the services they provide.
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p>In this case, hooking up families for preventative health care makes much more sense than dealing with far more serious problems that neglect brings. If it isn’t obvious, I do think this project from its specific aims has a good chance of saving us as a society money as well as helping the target audiences.
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p>Good on them.