Saturday, April 10, 2004
I figure the easiest first step is just to send an email of inquiry to my representatives. If that doesn't work, I can figure out how to step up my involvement.
Here's the letter I just emailed:
Dear X,
I am a constituent in your district, and I have a question for you.
New Jersey is spending $2 billion on Medicaid in 2005. Under federal regulations, states have control over many spending aspects of Medicaid.
Routine, non-therapeutic infant circumcision costs taxpayers up to $70 million annually, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Yet infant circumcision is not recommended by any national medical health organization in the world, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Cancer Society. (source: http://www.icgi.org/Medicaid/index.htm)
By removing non-therapeutic circumcision coverage from New Jersey's budget we can both save money and increase Medicaid coverage for needed services.
What can you do about this? How can I help?
Here's the letter I just emailed:
Dear X,
I am a constituent in your district, and I have a question for you.
New Jersey is spending $2 billion on Medicaid in 2005. Under federal regulations, states have control over many spending aspects of Medicaid.
Routine, non-therapeutic infant circumcision costs taxpayers up to $70 million annually, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Yet infant circumcision is not recommended by any national medical health organization in the world, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Cancer Society. (source: http://www.icgi.org/Medicaid/index.htm)
By removing non-therapeutic circumcision coverage from New Jersey's budget we can both save money and increase Medicaid coverage for needed services.
What can you do about this? How can I help?
Monday, April 05, 2004
I need to figure out who my state representatives are. Doing a Google search for "new jersey senate" returns the New Jersey legislature as the first hit (woo Google).
I've got three Republicans: Senator Martha W. Bark, Assemblyman Francis L. Bodine, and Assemblyman Larry Chatzidakis.
Hmm, I guess that's enough work for another day.
I've got three Republicans: Senator Martha W. Bark, Assemblyman Francis L. Bodine, and Assemblyman Larry Chatzidakis.
Hmm, I guess that's enough work for another day.
So now that I'm in New Jersey, I need to figure out what the next steps will be.
First of all, I thought I'd make a diary of my adventure into politics. I'm pretty impressed with how easy it was to get a blog using blogger. Now I just need to use this site to keep me motivated to make regular progress.
First of all, I thought I'd make a diary of my adventure into politics. I'm pretty impressed with how easy it was to get a blog using blogger. Now I just need to use this site to keep me motivated to make regular progress.
Saturday, April 03, 2004
Here's the story. While I was living out in California I ran into this group. They came up with this great idea to get the states to defund medically unecessary circumcision payments to Medicaid. This seemed like a no-brainer to me. The states could ease their fiscal crisis a bit, and more poor children could get important Medicaid services.
I was working in Austin and decided to bring this up with my state senator (who happens to be on the Health & Human Services committee).
At first, I couldn't get an answer to my emails and phone calls. I decided to take a day off work to visit the capital. I met with one of his legislative assistants. The assistant was very kind, but he told me three things that I didn't like:
1) We can't introduce your idea in this session, it takes about a year to get something like this to the floor
2) We'll have to do our own independant research into this before we do anything
3) We won't try and keep you updated on the process
Since saving money while providing more Medicaid seems like such a no brainer, I'm guessing they were just blowing me off because I'm just a small fry citizen. I contacted the assistant again last month and he hasn't returned my call.
Failure.
I was working in Austin and decided to bring this up with my state senator (who happens to be on the Health & Human Services committee).
At first, I couldn't get an answer to my emails and phone calls. I decided to take a day off work to visit the capital. I met with one of his legislative assistants. The assistant was very kind, but he told me three things that I didn't like:
1) We can't introduce your idea in this session, it takes about a year to get something like this to the floor
2) We'll have to do our own independant research into this before we do anything
3) We won't try and keep you updated on the process
Since saving money while providing more Medicaid seems like such a no brainer, I'm guessing they were just blowing me off because I'm just a small fry citizen. I contacted the assistant again last month and he hasn't returned my call.
Failure.
