Painting For Health Care

"We need a societal shift in thinking and feeling. We need people to care about others. We have to turn people around. And I'm hopeful that my story will do it, because look at me. I don't have a job right now, other than I teach part-time art, but I'm out there. I'm working on it." Regina Holliday, health care reform activist and widow.

Regina Holliday, a 37-year-old widow, part-time art teacher and mother of two, has become a media darling in recent weeks, written about, photographed and filmed by countless journalists. The reason is her story, energy and a colorful mural she is working on in Washington, D.C., at the back of a gas station, across from a pharmacy, not too far from an independent bookstore. In paint on the six-meter high wall, she is recounting her husband's death within the U.S. medical system. He died June 17, 2009, the same day the U.S. Senate started debating health care reform.

Her husband was sent home to die of kidney cancer after doctors refused to try more tests or chemotherapy. For years, he didn't have health insurance, so he didn't take the tests that might have given him an early detection of what was causing his bloody urine and night sweats.

Holliday’s mural has a doctor standing in waste, which symbolizes inefficiency in helping sick people. Another doctor seems annoyed, moving away from his patient, talking aggressively on his cell phone. A nurse types into a computer, but the screen is dark, representing a "loop of information" going nowhere. Data is not transfered from one health center to another. In this artistic rendition, health care is not something that is for patients, it seems to be a money-making, cold monster -- a place where information is not used to help the sick get better, but rather it is compartmentalized to keep costs at high levels and avoid any lawsuits.

Holliday has painted quotes to inspire and engage from Thomas Jefferson to Harry Potter, saying in ways old and new there is a difference between what is right and what is easy.

A girl dressed in the American stars and stripes flag has her legs covered with welts, and a switch to whip her lying at her feet. Holliday says she represents an abuse victim, who thinks she doesn't want change, because she has been conditioned to be afraid.

Holliday was abused for 17 years growing up in her home. Her husband was a victim of poor health, and a society that leaves some of its sick behind. But now she says she is fighting back, with her ladder, paints and brushes.

She believes a government-run health insurance plan can help people like her who don't have a full-time job and benefits. She believes in the long-run it could become better for patients and more efficient than what is currently in place. Her views, of course, are hotly contested by some engaged in the current debate, in which there are many ideas, and many fears of rising costs, less incentive for market-driven innovation and more bureaucracy.

This television report by Carol Pearson shows how one company, grocery giant Safeway, allows employees who work on being healthier to pay less for their private insurance plan.

A Summer of Protests and Rage

"People feel that there are certain things that are going to take place which are not at all factual, so based on false information, this anger has been stirred up unnecessarily and it's a shame because we're not really talking about the issues, and people are just venting," Health Care Reform Protester, in Washington, D.C., August 20, 2009.

Television news, the Internet, town hall meetings and street protests in the United States are currently being dominated by the issue of health care.

People on all sides of the issue are fired up. Public option, or no public option, that seems to be the question. But who can explain what the public option really entails? Basically, it opens the possibility of getting government health insurance, but the unknowns of this proposition riles up opponents.

Loaded guns have been taken to health care-related events, including some where President Barack Obama spoke, as well as plastic guns, loaded with flowers. The words Nazis, socialism, and fascism have been bandied about, as well as "Waterloo", in a reference to the 1815 battle in Belgium which ended the reign of European emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

Will this health care battle be Mr. Obama's own "Waterloo"? Tensions seem to be much higher than when the previous Democratic Party president, Bill Clinton, tried unsuccessfully to reform America's health care system. How far can this go? Will a real bullet ever be fired at one of these events? Wouldn't that cause a frenzy?

The president himself is safely on vacation now, but pundits continue to weigh in and lawmakers continue to hold town hall debates. The rhetoric is heated, placards are getting torn, and cameras by citizen journalist of all political stripes, pick up the action. Congress will reconvene in early September, with lots of attention now focused on what will happen then.

This report by Kent Klein has the president complaining that the media is giving too much attention to disturbances at protests.

Still, there is a clear divide, between those who want more government involvement in terms of health care, and those who view such a development as outrageous or at least, unnecessary. It seems an important part of America's future hangs in the balance.

Growing Pains of Health Care

"What people don't understand or don't realize … until it's unfortunately way too late, is that you buy into a system that feeds you the notion that it's there for you. You pay so that you are cared for, but in reality, when push comes to shove, and you really need the system, the system is not there for you." -- Sandra Lemaire, a VOA employee, who is trying to get her mother on Medicaid, which extends health benefits to the ailing poor.

"The large majority of the population, who are middle class people, who have worked all of their lives, squirrel money away, and pay insurance all their lives, they don't qualify for anything. Insurance does not pay for long term care." -- Pascale Lemaire, Sandra's sister.

While the debate over health care reform rages on in the United States, many people and families are struggling to pay for their medical needs. Some attention has been given to the nearly 50 million uninsured in America, but those who have been insured all their lives also struggle.

This is the story of the Lemaire family, which has been hit hard by the misfortunes of bad health and rising medical bills. Sandra spends hours every day helping her ailing parents after working full shifts for the English webdesk of the Voice of America. Her father, who also used to work at VOA, suffered an aneurysm last year.

Shortly after he returned from the hospital, his wife suffered from the same severe predicament, a dangerous blood-filled dilation of a blood vessel, and eight months later, she remains in a nursing facility, attached to tubes, unable to speak, and barely able to twitch. Sandra visits her every day, and has hired a lawyer to try to find a way to cut down on monthly medical bills which are in the tens of thousands of dollars, and are quickly decimating the family's savings.

Pascale, her sister, a freelance hairstylist, stays at home with her dad, who also needs full-time assistance to get by. Pascale has had to cut down on her working hours, and can no longer afford health care for herself. She says she feels she is about to have a nervous breakdown.

This is just one family's story and some of their opinions about the state of health care and the need for reform. There are other opinions out there, with many Americans expressing fears the government will spend too much money to reform the system, and tax too heavily to create wider insurance, as Jim Malone's radio report indicates. Opponents of a so-called public option plan, where the government would provide insurance, say that is like socialism. In the U.S. political context, that is almost as bad as terrorism. Those who support a government-run alternative to private insurance say they will be very disappointed if such a plan is not pushed through Congress, as now seems possible.

Town hall meetings were held across the United States in August to discuss the future of health care, erupting at times with yelling and people tearing up each other's placards. Opponents have started showing up at events where President Barack Obama is speaking with guns and rifles in states where this is allowed, making some in the crowd very uncomfortable.

President Obama once said opponents are trying to turn this debate into his "Waterloo," in reference to the town in Belgium where a 19th century battle ended the rule of European emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. But as Kent Klein reports the president is battling with all his might to make discussions civil and avoid his own demise.

Whistleblowers Unite For Justice

"When I see improprieties that are not keeping up with the expectations under the public trust, then I am not going to be quiet about it, regardless of the circumstances, then I'm not going to be asleep at the switch." Bunnatine Greenhouse, Federal Whistleblower.

A whistleblower is a person who publicly alleges misconduct by a group of people or an organization, usually one they belong to.

Whistleblowers may make their allegations internally, or they may go public and report the misconduct to police, lawmakers, lawyers, the news media or advocacy groups. They usually find much more support from outside the organization than within.

Bunnatine Greenhouse, the former chief contracting officer of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, was demoted in August 2005, after repeatedly expressing her reservations about -- and trying to block –military contracts being awarded in the run-up to the U.S-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Just prior to her demotion, she testified before Congress.

She called the no-bid $7 billion dollar contract awarded to Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of the Halliburton company, to restore Iraqi oil, "the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career."

Dick Cheney, who was U.S. Vice President from 2001 to early 2009, was chairman and chief executive of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. Greenhouse says she was up against "an old boys’ network" which took advantage of the pre-war situation to violate normal rules of competition.

She also complained that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office took control of every aspect of the disputed contract.

Greenhouse's attorney, Michael Kohn, says she was demoted because she followed rules which didn't suit the needs of those in power.

Those implicated have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and said they were following the complex rules that govern contracts involving classified information.

Greenhouse was downgraded to a less senior position just as Hurricane Katrina hit the southern United States, leaving the Army Corps with a new person to handle billions of dollars for relief and reconstruction. To this day, she is fighting to get her old job back.

Attorney Michael Kohn is helping her do this. He is the president of the Washington D.C. based National Whistleblowers Center. He is also lobbying Congress to pass new legislation to protect federal whistleblowers, so that what happened to Greenhouse does not happen again.

Under the current system, he says, he has never been able to successfully defend a whistleblower’s rights. He hopes a new law would ensure jury trials, which he says are less prone to corruption, and less vulnerable to being manipulated by the people the whistleblowers are trying to expose.

This report by Dan Robinson about other federal whistleblowers was written in 2006, when employees in several government agencies tried to sound the alarm about what they saw as abuse of power. They were also demoted.

Oklahoma Goes for Wind

"It is part of something where you are sort of on a leading edge. We enjoy and work every day with the idea of leaving this place better than we found it." -- University of Oklahoma official

(Norman, Oklahoma)-- Wind power is a hot topic in Washington, D.C. these days, as the Obama administration wants to make sure the United States becomes more energy independent.

In the American plains state of Oklahoma -- known for its tornadoes and repetitive oil booms -- residents, businesses and universities are also getting behind wind energy.

This vlog shows a few of the protagonists at work as they help Oklahoma increase its use of wind energy and expand the number of wind farms in the state.

A recent radio / television report by Greg Flakus showcases a wind power museum in nearby Texas.