Medical discount caution is issued; some policies are no help for consumers
T
he ads promise affordable health coverage for $59.95 a month and are plastered on utility poles at busy intersections, on the Internet, on television and in newspapers. For consumers priced out of the health insurance market, they tout protection against high medical bills. But consumer advocates caution that the plans are not real insurance and patients can find themselves owing thousands of dollars to hospitals and other health care providers. More than 1,000 people have called the Florida Department of Financial Services, which oversees insurers in the state, to complain about problems with the plans, said Tom Gallagher, who heads the agency. "We tell them that, unfortunately, there's not much we can do," Gallagher said. Because the discount plans are not real insurance, they fall in a gray area, unregulated by the state. Betsey Plockelman is a massage therapist who could not afford $1,000 a month for health insurance, and husband Ray's employer, an exterminating company, did not provide coverage. A salesperson told the West Palm Beach couple about (Continued on page 5)
How’s My Vending? Call (954)
925-6466 X101
T
onight when I was doing teams, Art one of our captains, told me that Mr. Mercado had saved a baby's life today. The baby wasn't breathing and Mr. Mercado used his Nextel to call 911 and at that time was walked through the procedure. Later when Mercado came in, I said well we have a lifesaver in our midst. He just smiled and said no, he was in the right place at the right time and just wanted to get done for the day and finish out his day. It’s funny, because a staff member had just made an announcement not 10 minutes earlier, thanking all the vendors and telling them that they were heroes because of a particular family situation that was helped because “them the vendors” supplied the funds to help this family. Sean in the past always reminds them that the work they do and the money they bring in helps so many people...but when a family is involved...he really lays on that hero title. But Mr. Mercado wanted no part of “him being a hero” discussion past the fact that there was this group of women who were upset and crying and hysterical and he went over to see what the problem was. I had asked him if he would write out the details of the incident. I called him on his Nextel
the next morning saying that we needed the details so we could write about it in the Homeless Voice: And this is what he stated: He was working in the median and heard all this screaming over in the gas station lot at Glades and Lyons. There were about six hysterical women Mr. Mercado would like to remain anonymous there, nobody had called 911. He called 911 himself and after getting the little boys age from the mother, (20 months old) was given instructions on how to proceed…“with the pumps and everything.” He said he tried to talk to the mother and calm her down. He said the baby was turning blue when he got there. When he turned the baby over on his back and was getting ready to perform the procedure, he noticed saliva coming from the baby’s mouth. He (Continued on page 5)
Alaska's hardcore homeless cope with winter outdoors in deep subzero temperatures ANCHORAGE
A
laska – Ron Feldhouse draws the line at 45 degrees below zero. Then it's time to sleep indoors. Otherwise, he sets up camp in the woods outside Fairbanks, where winter temperatures can hover around 20 below zero or colder for weeks at a stretch, cold enough to be fatal for the unprepared. Dealing with extreme elements is the norm for Feldhouse and other hardcore homeless Alaskans. "It's a learned art," said Feldhouse, 47. "After a while, you just start getting used to it." Many of Alaska's indigent – a population that's difficult to measure – cope by drifting from couch to couch or sleeping
in motels, cars, boats and homeless shelters in the larger cities. But a small number say they prefer dealing with the bitter cold to following the rules at shelters, which limit stays, ban alcohol and drugs and impose strict curfews. Ed Heeckt ar- Ron Feldhouse (above) draws the line at 45 degrees below zero. Then it's time to sleep indoors. rived in Alaska a year -Associated Press ago from Arlington, Wash., and got a shortlived job processing fish for down tent among spruce and al$8.50 an hour in Juneau. He der trees just outside downtown stayed at the Glory Hole shelter Juneau. In the summer, he has a for a week, but hated the cramped perfect view of the cruise ships that visit the Southeast Alaska quarters. "I can't handle the snor- town. Practiced campers say it's ing and the smelly feet of a shelnot that hard to stay warm – it ter," said Heeckt, 36. (Continued on page 7) He set up a hand-me-