Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick Venice Art Walk & Auctions – Sunday, May 20 from Noon-6pm . Silent Art Auction Noon–6pm Gregg Chadwick Cool, Gray, City of Love 24"x24" oil on linen 2018 Honored that my painting  Cool, Gray, City of Love will be featured in this year's  39th Venice Family Clinic's Art Walk and Auctions .  In the years that I lived in San Francisco, on most weekday mornings, I would walk with my young daughter along Market Street to the Cable Car turnaround. She would board eagerly, her face pressed up against the glass as the car would climb a seemingly insurmountable hill. The Gripman would nod to me and smile as we rode together into the fog. My painting Cool, Gray, City of Love  looks back to those San Francisco mornings. City of Love indeed. Venice Family Clinic’s Art Walk & Auctions raises funds to help provide quality primary health care to 26,000 low-income men, women and children annually. Servic...

by Gregg Chadwick Today in 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare & Medicaid into law. We must strengthen and expand, not slash, them. pic.twitter.com/0zX6opMpMw — Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 30, 2017 Fifty two years ago on July 30, 1965, in a groundbreaking act, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law. Both programs still stand as strong examples of the United States government at its best. Because of LBJ's vision and the thousands of health care activists that laid the groundwork before the bill became law, Medicare and Medicaid have brought high quality, affordable health care to seniors, people with disabilities and qualifying individuals. The 1965 Medicare Act required that hospitals had to desegregate in order to get Medicare money. Medicaid, also, required the desegregation of skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). Both programs pushed the country forward towards a more equitable health care system.  Instead of cutting back or...

by Gregg Chadwick On June 27th , I posted a criticism of the GOP led Senate's horrific proposed healthcare legislation. Their bill is back with a few revisions and it is just as awful as before. The New York Times reports that, "The revised bill is broadly similar to the earlier measure that Senate leaders hoped to vote on before the Fourth of July recess, though the new version includes some additional provisions meant to entice reluctant Republican senators with varying policy concerns.  Like the previous bill , it would end the requirement that most Americans have health coverage, and it would make deep cuts to Medicaid , capping payments to states and rolling back its expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Though some Republican senators expressed concern about how the previous bill would affect Medicaid, Senate leaders stuck with the same approach in the new version." Also, the proposed new bill would allow insurers to offer substandard insurance packages tha...

by Gregg Chadwick As the husband of a cancer survivor I ask those who support Trumpcare- "How can you help pass legislation that you know will kill people? Where is your compassion? Where is your humanity?" Yesterday, the American Medical Association released a letter  expressing fierce opposition to the GOP Senate's current proposed healthcare legislation that would repeal the Affordable Care Act passed during President Obama's first term. The AMA writes,"Medicine has long operated under the precept of Primum non nocere , or “first, do no harm.” The draft legislation violates that standard on many levels." Written in a series of secret closed meetings, the GOP cabal's Better Care Reconciliation Act , or more accurately Trumpcare , is worse than imagined. According to the latest Congressional Budget Office estimations the bill will strip millions of Americans of their health insurance  - increasing the number of people without health insurance by...