Mother Denise Pariseau-Mantell, an Episcopal priest, has traveled all over the world, including to the bowels of the 9/11 wreckage, which left her with three different types of cancer.
On Aug. 10, she came to 2 Gannett Drive in White Plains in support of her sister Andrea Monroe to discuss the health care crisis.
“I have stood by the banks of a filthy river and watched a young mother washing her clothes in that river and I knew that baby was not going to make it,” she said. “I know there are great needs. But you cannot ask those who”™ve done so much work over the years to pay for everything.”
Pariseau-Mantell said that in the past, “The system attempted to be the best it could be. We made tremendous medical inroads and helped a lot of people.”
Of the current situation, she said, “Giving to those who don”™t pay into the system has not been properly looked at. It”™s causing consternation and anger. The system clearly needs to be fixed so that it is more functional and able to do what it is proposing to do.
“We have to be honest with what we can do. There is a lot of excess bureaucracy and an enormous amount of money that goes into nonsense.”
Echoing Pariseau-Mantell”™s sentiments was Scarsdale doctor Tom Schossau, president of Innovative Scientific Engineering Inc. and inventor of the newly patented MultiKeratome, a corneal cataract-correcting instrument, which awaited a six-year-long patent process.
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He noted the timing of the proposed H.R. 3200 bill, more commonly known as America”™s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.
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“We”™re in economic times where things aren”™t very good and yet we”™re in a major health care reorganization,” Schossau said. “It just doesn”™t make sense. If we look more carefully, we see a failure of government to oversee and supervise. Health care and Wall Street are examples. People have created government for the purpose of establishing safety and order. But, they”™re not here to control lives.”
When asked of efforts in Albany, Schossau said proper representation is key.
“They need to support the people and represent the people,” he said. “My impression is that they are not. I can tell through feedback from other small business owners that between the tightness of the economy and the pinching of business, they can”™t survive.”
Accompanying medical professionals, health policy organization representatives and county legislators was Assemblyman Greg Ball, R-Patterson, a congressional candidate in New York”™s 19th district, who took an early campaign stand against the nationally proposed health care reform bill.
“The crisis of the uninsured and the crisis of runaway lawsuits are two issues that need to be addressed,” Ball said. “This nation should be bending over backwards to help small business owners extend health insurance coverage to their employees because we all know folks that have part-time jobs who don”™t get the health coverage that they desperately need.”
In turn, “those small business owners, because of the prohibitive costs, are forced to shift their employees around and not necessarily provide health care coverage,” he said.
Ball said the health care proposal would “formalize a broken relationship by extending at taxpayer expense, the health care coverage to undocumented workers.”
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Putnam County Legislator Vincent Tamagna expressed concern for Andrea Monroe, one of his constituents that “has been put through hell.”
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Monroe, evidently plagued by the turmoil her family has faced, read a letter written by her husband Ed Monroe.
Monroe worked for the New York State Bridge Authority until October 2005 when an 8- to 10-pound piece of steel fell off of a gantry suspended some 17 feet in the air.
It hit him directly on the head; he was brought to a local doctor”™s office, had his wound cleaned and was given 20 stitches.
“I didn”™t know where I was after the accident,” Monroe said, in the letter. “I look back and wonder now if 911 was ever called. My whole life was turned upside down. There was an outdated, dangerous piece of equipment that had not been inspected or taken offline.”
In between lobbying government officials to remove the faulty equipment, which Monroe said proved unfruitful, he is battling through extended waiting periods for medical procedures and disability payments have yet to surface.
“I am appalled at the dysfunctionality of the New York State Insurance Fund and how it operates and dictates what, where and when things can be done and by whom,” Monroe said. “After all, isn”™t it in your best interest to provide immediate medical attention so people like myself can return to work?”
“I am prohibited by law from discussing any of our claimants,” said Bob Lawson, spokesman for the New York State Insurance Fund. “We have tens of thousands of claimants that we follow up on, but rest assured I am going to follow up on this.”
