healthcare – Houghton STAR

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the Houghton community celebrated its local first responders and healthcare workers. On April 15, 2020, around seventy vehicles lined up to form a parade, whose route passed two healthcare facilities near the college: the Houghton Nursing and Rehabilitation Center (HNRC) and Houghton Universal Primary Care (UPC), both located on Luckey Drive.

The event was initiated by Patricia Barber, administrator at HNRC, who contacted the Allegany County Chamber of Commerce about showing appreciation for their employees. As a member of the Chamber of Commerce board, the college’s community engagement director Phyllis Gaerte led the coordination. According to Gaerte, Barber’s request cited employees’ “around the clock” work to protect HNRC residents: “They are a great bunch of staff members and I just want to show them that the community is behind them 100%.” The group of organizations involved in the event included Houghton College, Houghton Academy, 3 Bums Pizza, Houghton Wesleyan Church, and the Houghton Volunteer Fire Department.

The parade included personal vehicles decorated with signs and balloons, as well as emergency vehicles, the Houghton Academy school bus, and a college Highlanders bus. As vehicles lined up behind Houghton Wesleyan Church and the college facilities building next door, Gaerte observed that more people were arriving than initially expected. The final line that proceeded towards the healthcare facilities started at the entrance of Houghton Wesleyan and ended with many cars in the fire hall lot. Two police cars blocked traffic on Route 19 for several minutes so that the procession could safely move forward.

Parade participants got creative with their vehicle decoration.

In addition to the parade, healthcare workers were thanked with free pizzas, wings, and subs delivered by 3 Bums on the same day.

Gaerte’s invitation to the event, posted publicly on the Houghton Wesleyan Facebook page, advised adherence to social distancing regulations – specifically that all participants should remain in their vehicles at all times. Nonetheless, event attendees expressed appreciation for the opportunity to see friends in person, even if from a distance. (Familiar faces in the parade included Profs. Young, Gaerte, Zoller, and Freytag, women’s soccer coach Nikki Elsaesser, and Pastor Wes Oden, among many other community members.)College physician Dr. David Brubaker works at the UPC health center; he was unable to attend the event due to a class he was teaching, but thanked the college, Houghton Wesleyan, 3 Bums, and the Houghton VFD for “putting on this very thoughtful and encouraging event.” He added, “in the midst of a situation that has caused uncertainty and has required significant adjustments for everyone in the community, I’m thankful for the flexibility and support [UPC staff] have felt as we have navigated changes to our workflow. I’m grateful too for the ways in which people have embraced the efforts to slow the spread of the virus; I think it has made a big difference.” He also expressed gratitude towards members of the local health department, “who have been working tirelessly to care for the people of this county and to support local medical providers.”

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has been no stranger to criticism, but since the official launch of its Healthcare Marketplace website HealthCare.gov at the beginning of October, criticism has become less ideological and more concrete.

Courtesy of http://www.firstcoastnews.com/

The intent of HealthCare.gov was to provide insurance-seeking Americans with a simplified interface through which to compare private insurance plans, determine eligibility for government insurance subsidies, and ultimately enroll in an eligible plan as per the Affordable Care Act. However, the site’s launch on October 1st brought with it a bevy of issues, including a server unable to handle the incoming traffic as 250,000 visitors instead of the estimated 60,000 attempted to log in the first day. In addition, various glitches in back-end code—code controlling not the visual aspects of the website but the mechanics of it, what the site does that the user can not see—manifested themselves, keeping the site’s help hotline busy. One reported glitch resulted in incorrect recording of information entered into forms by users, information which then became unalterable after submission.

Experts say much of the blame for the site’s current problems lies with CGI Group Inc., the Canadian IT firm which, along with several other firms, was contracted by the Obama administration to develop the back-end code. CGI in turn subcontracted parts of the project to other firms, not an uncommon practice, but the numerous changes made to the project by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services since its inception not only caused the firm to blow through the estimated $93.7 million for the project and raise costs to about $292 million. The frequent changes also forced project employees to scrap large portions of the code and eventually brought them to code to accommodate these future frequent changes. While this method of coding is common amongst developers and often prevents the surpassing of funds budgeted for a project, it also employs shortcuts or certain practices which may not bode well for the strength or stability of the program, especially if such a program intends to service over 300 million people.

However, CGI points to the rushed nature of the project as one of its reasons for downfall. A senior vice president at the company stated that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decided to test the site two weeks before launch rather than months beforehand as CGI had recommended. Also to blame was Quality Software Services, Inc. (QSSI), an American company also contracted by the Obama Administration to work on HealthCare.gov. Coincidentally, the Obama administration has since placed QSSI in charge of overseeing repairs on the site. Further controversy arises from the fact that QSSI is owned by UnitedHealth Group, a major provider of private insurance in the U.S.

Although officials from the Department of Health and Human Services have stated that exact healthcare enrollment numbers will not be released until November, at which point the site is expected to be fully functional, Bloomberg estimates that between the 1st and 21st of October, 1% of visitors successfully signed up for insurance through HealthCare.gov. This amounts to about 370,000 enrolled citizens. The deadline for healthcare enrollment has since been extended from the original date of December 15th to March 31, 2014, allowing more time for enrollment if technological difficulties persist.