Heim Now Heads Physicians' Group

From The Pilot:  October 23, 2009

Dr. Lori J. Heim of Vass has assumed the role of president of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).
Previously, she served three years as a director on the AAFP Board of Directors and one year as president-elect. Heim was elected president-elect in September 2008 by the Congress of Delegates, the AAFP's governing body.
The AAFP represents more than 94,600 physicians and medical students nationwide
A practicing family physician for 20 years, Heim currently serves as a hospitalist at Scotland Memorial Hospital in Laurinburg, where she manages the inpatient care of adult patients referred by primary care physicians in the community. Hospitalists bridge the gap between hospitalized patients and their primary care doctors to ensure continuity of care.

Heim is the first family physician to serve as a hospitalist at Scotland Memorial Hospital. She is joined in the hospitalist program by four internal medicine physicians and two family nurse practitioners. Previously, she was in private practice in Pinehurst. As president of the AAFP, Heim advocates on behalf of family physicians and patients nationwide to inspire positive change in the U.S. health-care system, a news release said.
A member of the AAFP since 1985, Heim served as a delegate to the AAFP Congress of Delegates from 2000 to 2004. She served on the Commission on Health Care Services and on the Task Force of Linkages to Practice Improvement. In addition, she held the offices of president, vice president and member of the Board of Directors of the Uniformed Services Academy of Family Physicians.
Heim earned her bachelor's degree with honors from Portland State University in Oregon and was then commissioned in the U.S. Air Force and earned her medical degree at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Md. She completed her residency at the Family Medicine Residency, Andrews Air Force Base, Md. She then completed a fellowship in faculty development and research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
She is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine and has the AAFP Degree of Fellow, an earned degree awarded to family physicians for distinguished service and continuing medical education.
Heim's appointments with the Air Force included staff physician, clinic chief, residency director, assistant professor, university health center director, chief of the medical staff and commander. She was stationed internationally in Turkey and domestically in Washington, D.C., Florida, North Carolina and Washington state. She retired as a colonel from the Air Force in 2007 after 25 years of service and relocated to North Carolina.
She has lectured worldwide, and her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals. She has participated in humanitarian missions and volunteered in medical clinics in underserved communities.
Heim has received numerous decorations including the Air Force Meritorious Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal and the Air Force Achievement Medal. Her awards include the Joint Meritorious Unit Award, Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, Humanitarian Service Award and the National Defense Service Award.

The Real Liars

From The Pilot: October 23, 2009

In his Oct. 7 letter, Jack Olsen laments what our society has become because Americans "tolerate and applaud" and "raise up" liars.
He says that supporters of liars exhibit "shoddiness in [a] philosophy," which "doesn't hold water." Finally, he postulates that those who "scorn the truth tellers" have "neither the respect nor the trust of others" and will be "unable to govern." In short, people who ignore facts and raise up liars while spreading their lies, then condemn the truthful, cannot be respected.
What prompted Olsen's ire was President Obama's remark that the health-care reform bill would not cover illegal aliens. Olsen supported Rep. Wilson (R-S.C.), who called our president a liar. If Olsen wants to condemn such people, he had better check his facts.
The truth is, the health-care reform bill does not include coverage for illegals. In fact, it forbids payments to cover their medical bills. Go to factcheck.org, a nonpartisan group, part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. (The Annenbergs are not millionaire liberals like George Soros. Indeed, they were close personal friends of President and Nancy Reagan.)

Conversely, Olsen "raises up" Wilson (the true liar in this story) and promotes and repeats his lies. Therefore, Olsen and his Republican heroes are the ones to be scorned and mistrusted. If Olsen's premise is accurate, the Republican "philosophy" "won't hold water," and the GOP will be "unable to govern." Look at eight years under the Bush administration. I rest my case. My thanks to Olsen for making the Democratic case for good governance and health-care reform and against Republicans.
Rick Gagliardo
Pinehurst

Smith for Council

 From The Pilot: October 23, 2009

Marsh Smith and I have been good friends for more than 10 years. I know Marsh very well, and that is why I am voting for him.
Southern Pines is his hometown, and Marsh deeply cares about what is best for all of us, not just the few. His vision is of a sustainable community in which we will all be happy to live and flourish, not just now but in the future.
Marsh is a man of great vision, and he walks his talk. He is actively involved in so many areas of Southern Pines as a community advocate and volunteer and has already brought many positive changes to our lives.
Marsh cares about all of us. Imagine what he can do for us when he is on the Town Council. He is our advocate. I am going to get up early on Nov. 3 and vote for Marsh. I hope you do, too. You'll be glad you did.
Tom Thompson
Southern Pines

Health Reform: It's the Right Thing to Do

From The Pilot: October 23, 2009

Much has been said and written since Joe Wilson's outburst in which he shouted "You lie!" after President Obama said that health-care reform would not extend coverage to illegal aliens.
Democrats point out that the president didn't lie because section 246 of H.R 3200 states, "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States." Republicans counter that without status verification (like a national ID card) the provision will be difficult if not impossible to enforce.
What seems to be at issue here is relative levels of commitment to excluding illegal immigrants from health care. Nobody's arguing for including them. Why is that? How is it that this country, once the world's foremost champion of human rights, is last among developed nations to accept health care as a basic human right?
Rep. Wilson is a supporter of teacher-led school prayer in our public schools. Christianity is central to the "traditional values" that inform his stand on issues -- Christianity, the religion whose namesake proclaimed, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

How is it, then, that in the classroom, Christianity is the applicable traditional value, yet, when it comes to caring for the poor and sick, Mr. Wilson turns away from the teacher who chastised the money changers for turning the temple into "a den of thieves"? Profit is the traditional value Mr. Wilson applies to caring for "the least of these." It might be ­interesting and informative to see how many ­senators and representatives who support school prayer also oppose a public option for health care.
This is not to suggest that we should ignore legitimate security, legal and economic concerns, throw open the borders and extend full rights of citizenship to everybody who makes it into our country. We have an obligation to look out for our national interests. We are right to try to control immigration and to deport those who violate our sovereignty. But how is it good health policy to deny care to sick people regardless of their legal status?
I worked with a gentleman for several years who didn't have health insurance. One Friday morning he asked me to take him home shortly after we got started. I didn't think that much of it. People get sick. Still, it was out of character for him to miss work, and I should have suspected that something was really wrong.
In fact, he was admitted to the hospital later that day as his condition continued to deteriorate. Over the next couple of weeks, he got so bad that a priest administered last rites. At one point he actually flat-lined. He wound up spending months between Moore Regional Hospital and the hospital at Chapel Hill and several more weeks in physical therapy in Pittsboro.
In all, hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent, and a good man (a son and a father) was nearly lost to a condition that could have been diagnosed and treatment begun in the course of a $100 physical.
That's the price we pay when people lack access to health care. In my friend's case, it was diabetes. But for another uninsured person -- whether it is because of poverty, the loss of a job or because of one's legal status -- it might be hepatitis or swine flu.
In cases of infectious diseases, all people who leave conditions untreated for longer than they would if they had access to affordable care raise the level of risk for an entire community. You don't have to know them, you just have to use the ­shopping cart after them in a grocery store or pick up a box in an aisle where they coughed at the pharmacy.
Health care should be regarded as a right, and that right should exclude no one -- not the poor, not the unemployed and not even those who lack legal residency. We should do this because we are morally compelled to and because it is in our own best interest. It is the right thing to do.
Kevin Smith lives in Aberdeen. Contact him at kevinasmith@gmx.com.

Ill-Founded Claims Concerning Obama

From The Pilot: October 21, 2009

There were much easier ways for Allan Jefferys to critique Obama's performance to date than the ill-founded constitutional claims raised in his Sunday, Oct. 11 column.
The one easy way he did choose -- Obama's "wasting millions of dollars" flying to Copenhagen -- leads one to wonder why, in the past, he withheld comment on President Bush's 77 trips to Crawford, Texas, on Air Force One (a consequence of which was, per US News, his absence from Washington for 490 days).
More seriously, Jefferys accuses Obama, directly or inferentially, of violating his oath of office by appointing "czars" without the advice and consent of the Senate. While citing the clause in the Constitution requiring consent to presidential appointments, Jefferys omits mention of the qualification in the same clause permitting appointments without Senate consent, i.e., "the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone."
Without this power, government would be paralyzed. It would be analogous to requiring the CEO of General Electric to consult his board for the appointment of each staff member.
Accounts vary, but according to a compilation in Wikipedia, Obama has created 32 so-called czar positions. Bush created 31 during his tenure. A president is confronted with a huge, multifunctional organization and sorely needs advice as to functions that often cross organizational lines. How he chooses to get that advice is quintessentially a management decision. The presidents have usually used the term "czar" as a convenient description of scope. Obama's more extreme critics have managed to conjoin it with their equally absurd charge of Obama's fascist, socialist (or preferably Marxist) march toward the establishment in the United States of a Muslim totalitarian theocracy.
J. Thomas Tidd
Pinehurst

An American Crisis

From The Pilot: October 21, 2009

I am one of millions of Americans who depend heavily on health insurance, but our monthly premiums are ridiculously high!
Do I want to pay more taxes? Of course not, but I will if it means each American receives the same opportunities I have. This is America -- not some poverty-stricken country!
I am encouraged to fight this cause with Obama because of Sarah, a special person I mentored. I met Sarah in her early teens and was so impressed with her maturity and intelligence. She became like family.
Sarah was raised in a trailer park with deaf parents, and her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia in Sarah's infancy. Sarah earned a scholarship to the University of Michigan.
Unfortunately, as with many other victims that experience the cruelty of mental illness, the onset of the illness developedsoon after Sarah graduated. Her first hospitalization was followed by others. She now lives as a single mother. As many others in this country, she has become unemployed despite her qualifications. But she has stabilized her bipolar diagnosis with the help of the right medication to control her illness.
Her treatment is due for review as a result of cutbacks with mental health facilities and funds such as Medicaid. If she is left without medication, she will have further episodes without intervention. She could become ­vulnerable to fall in with others who fight mental illness, which can lead to homelessness, crime and suicide.
What will happen to her innocent child? What will happen to Sarah? Is this fair to any individual? Is this a country we can be proud of?
I urge each one of you to consider supporting Obama in his fight to reform health care. With your trust, he will be able to help all Americans with equal, balanced rights.
Cindy Continenza
Southern Pines

America's Problems Aren't Simple, and Neither Are Solutions

From The Pilot:  October 21, 2009

"What is Barack Obama trying to accomplish as president?" several pundits have recently asked. "Why isn't more being done to lower the unemployment rate? Why is he hesitating to follow the recommendation of Gen. McChrystal and send more troops into Afghanistan?"
These questions reflect the typical impatience of our populace and media, and a superficial understanding of the fact situation that confronts the U.S. This situation is defined by structural causes, developed over a long period of time, that do not lend themselves to short-term solutions.
I believe that President Obama understands these causes and has two overriding missions -- one domestic and one international -- to respond to this situation. Today, I want to address the domestic mission.
The domestic mission is to restore the middle class and the advancement opportunities that have historically been provided by a strong middle class and middle-income jobs. For the past 25 years, an ever-increasing percentage of the U.S .wealth and income has accrued to a very small segment of the population.
Between 1979 and 2005, the average after-tax income for the top 1 percent of earners increased by 176 percent, for the top 20 percent of earners by 69 percent, and for the middle 20 percent of earners by 21 percent. This trend -- which represents the greatest increase in income inequality among the developed, rich nations -- has given the U.S. the highest income inequality among those nations, and the highest in this country since the pre-Depression year of 1928. This result cannot be adequately explained by education, skill and productivity differentials.
It can be explained by tax and deregulation policies that allowed a limited number of individuals to accumulate massive wealth, not by growing companies and creating quality job opportunities for workers, but rather by financial manipulations, including mergers and acquisitions, that result in companies "too big to fail" and generally produce workforce reductions.
We are experiencing a national economic version of "Barbarians at the Gate," the story of how leveraged buy-out artists acquired profitable but undervalued companies and then systematically withdrew funds through cost reductions and the sale of assets.
In many cases, these actions diminished the capacity of the business to survive, much less continue to grow. Of course, the funds were used to make big payouts to stockholders. The other results? Laid-off workers, bankrupt pension plans which became the responsibility of the federal government, and a loss of production capacity in the economy.
What do we see in the U.S. economy?
-- A steady shift away from goods production, which tends to increase wealth in the economy, to services and entertainment, which simply consume existing wealth.
-- Investing in construction of retail shopping malls, office buildings and sports arenas rather than modernizing plants, equipment, transportation and education systems, and utility grids.
--Deferring the downstream costs of environmental pollution and inadequate health care to future generations.
--Making major payouts to high-income earners through lower tax rates.
We have allowed our capacity to produce goods that will generate future income for the U.S. economy to diminish while providing significant short-term income gains to a limited number of Americans. Our economy has been supported, until recently, by the borrowing power of the country and individual consumers, but we have reached the limit of that power.
Until we can redirect this trend, establish a stronger focus on goods production as a significant component of the economy, and strengthen the earnings of the large number of workers (and, thus, their buying power), we will not be able to experience a significant drop in unemployment.
President Obama understands that this redirection will not be achieved by short-term quick fixes, but will require significant new investments in the infrastructure needed to support business growth, particularly for small and medium-size businesses.
This explains his policy focus on using stimulus funds to improve transportation and education, modernize utility systems, develop environmental technologies, and reduce one of the most significant costs to businesses, workers and the US government -- health care.
Yes, these investments are expensive, and they should not be simply passed on to future generations. Those who have disproportionately benefited from the current situation should be expected to disproportionately pay the costs of getting us out of it.
Brian Deaton, who lives in Pinehurst, is a former chairman of the Moore County Democratic Party.