Finding a Voice

My Dear Friends,

We are in quite a different world. How are you dealing with it? Who is hurting?

My voice is finally coming back to me in many forms. Fear and anger can make you lose it. If you forget to sing, you will not be the singer you dream of. If you forget to speak up for yourself, you will forget to respect yourself. That is key: I respect myself. I have made many positive changes in order to understand the importance of my life.

For many years, I did not think my life mattered all that much. I was alone and felt abandoned. The result was that I quit respecting myself.

People are angry and afraid. It is powerful. It is something that as a child, I thought could be slayed by a dragon or rescued by a hero. As an adult, it makes me wonder what prophecies are being fulfilled. Their country is pushing fear like an IV into the veins of the overweight, overworked, underpaid and under-educated people.

People are not taught how to truly respect themselves. People who feel so strong to defend their honor in a quarrel they could have easily chosen to walk away from are those who are afraid of facing the very foundation of their view of self.

Some have the opposite problem. The ones who cannot look you in the eye; the ones who makes themselves small and choose to hide- I would argue they do not respect themselves either. One example is when someone asks you what you would like to eat at a drive-thru and they answer, "I don't care". Though it has a hint of aggressiveness, the root of the answer says, "I do not know what I want, I am not willing to take the time to find out and I choose to forfeit a decision that benefits me".

Where does the root of the problem lie; In the parents that raise them? In the lack of education they receive? Is it lack of direction in their government? I would suggest that the common American carries a proverbial sack of rocks. Each day, the bag gets bigger. Some days, a rock is taken out; others, a rock is added. Some people have bigger bags than others. The ones who can move to freedom faster are the ones who realize they can take their bag off.

My point is, there are no available resources for people to truly deal with their burdens. The drug epidemic, the alcohol and drug addiction and the violence have no safe place to unmask what they are masking. Take your burdens off. Take the rocks out of your bag and set it down. Walk away from it and move into freedom. Make decisions in your life that influence your goals. Make your goals greater than yourself. Serve something greater than yourself.

The Southern Way

  Not everyone understands the culture behind the Southern, Conservative Christian culture that lies deep in the roots of our ancestors and our congregations. It has a long history of mass conversions, revivals, political parties that deeply identify with fulfilling those Christian ideals and fighting against Satan's overtake of America; converting our homeland from what my parents' generation once knew to this "new fangled" idea of diversity and peace and homosexuality.
  The people of the Southern Culture are proud of these roots. They dig deep into the lives of the families they support and the friends they choose. They affect the schools their kids grow up in, the churches where they all attend Youth Group and the boys their girls date. I know from personal experience- this was my childhood and these were my adolescent years. Over time, however, there began a slow, creeping fear that would rear its head into reality: this is highly, widely spread and imminently dangerous.
  I will begin by saying that not all Christians are bad people and not all Southerners are Christians. I am specifically pointing out a culture; a type of people that have found something in common and believe it so strongly that their children and their children's children's souls are at stake. I was one of these children. I grew up in that Southern Christian culture. I was told to believe in God and Jesus and that if I didn't, my soul was in danger of Hell. I was told that anyone who didn't believe this either was also going to Hell. Everything in our lives revolved around this belief. Church every Sunday, Youth Group, school. No sex before marriage. Homosexuality is a grave sin. George Bush is our Christian president who will get this country back to its Reagan-like, God-fearing track it belongs on. Fox News was my source for current events. My pastor was my source for advice. My parents were my source for direction. The question was, "Where was my source for freedom"?
  The idea of isolation is how this culture runs its business and its marketing tactics so well. The churches in America run a brilliant marketing scheme: that everyone who is saved will go to Heaven. Give us your money, support us, or your soul is in danger of Hell. Tell us your deepest, darkest secrets, then repent as we use you to gain leverage to gain a large body of members. Conduct your behavior in such a way that keeps you from questioning anyone. Just believe everything we tell you under the guise of "faith". Have "faith" that even though you don't understand it, don't question it, because you don't understand the mind of God. Are you beginning to see the danger yet?
  Children are isolated into groups where nothing is questioned by anyone because everyone believes the same things. Your church leaders are your source for that guidance and anyone who questions it is on a "bad path". The danger is the brainwashing and ideology that sinks its roots so deeply, they are made to believe that these "natural born sinners'" souls are at stake. The people they become friends with at school who don't think or believe like they do may go to Hell and you must convert them if you want to see your friends for the rest of eternity in Heaven!
  It is also a matter of control. If you can control a large population of people into thinking what you want them to think; doing what you want them to do; you have gained the ultimate power over them by making them believe it's God's will. That was what happened to me. I was controlled. I was manipulated. My parents always told me they "just wanted the best for me" and "had my best intentions at heart". It took me getting kicked out of their house while I was in college to realize that they didn't want my best interests, they wanted theirs. They wanted to pull support and their already conditional love from me because I wasn't behaving as the person they raised me to be. I was not identifying with this Culture. I did not want to marry a man I didn't love and who parroted the ideologies of my parents. I questioned my pastors and my leaders at church to be met with reprimand. I used to be afraid, but not anymore. Their justification for their lack of love for this daughter they did not understand was that they could not abide by someone who's behavior did not reflect their views. See the condition here? They couldn't love their own daughter for who she was because they believed so strongly in the Southern Culture. We see this happen all of the time in the political sphere: a member of the Republican party in Congress has a son who comes out as gay to his family. He is isolated and shunned or loved and accepted. The ones who love and accept him love their sons. The ones who isolate and shun them are protecting their own souls.
  So how do we convince these people that they are the victims of a time-honored marketing scheme? We don't. I realized at 24 that I don't have to be afraid anymore. That I can love my parents at arms' length. That I can be true to myself and not be worried about being reprimanded at a country club party for saying the "F-word" because "it's not what nice, Southern women do". My dad's response was, "Why can't you just be more feminine?" I responded, "So, it's O.K. for you to say it around your friends, but when me or another woman says it, it's improper?" His response was, "Yes".
  The danger is being sucked in. It doesn't happen obviously or quickly, but slow and creeping. People begin to criticize you for speaking out against your family. They tell you that you should just love them and that it isn't worth it. What they fail to ask is do you love yourself enough to stand against what will ultimately bring you down and cause you to lose your inner voice, or do you love them from a distance and accept that they may not change, but they way you change is how you become true to yourself? I choose to do both, but I have found my true freedom from the Southern Culture and will fight it every step of the way.

“Billing System Issues Remain: Error Discovered in Medicaid Raid”

“Billing System Issues Remain: Error Discovered in Medicaid Raid”
In reference to the original article written by Anna Harvey in the News and Observer on Sunday September 22, 2013
Morehead City
Emily F. Kelly, author

NCTracks is the Medicaid billing software for which area hospitals and medical offices have implemented computerized Medicaid billing for patients and presumably receive reimbursement by Medicaid for their physicians. Tammy Lenhart, a Carteret County billing expert who is employed by A+ Medical Billing Services, Inc., discovered a hidden rate cut for physicians treating patients on Medicaid. The billing system error causes Medicaid to be treated as a second insurance policy, presumably making it more difficult to bill for the services rendered to these types of patients, but the main problem is that physicians are being reimbursed only 15-29% of what they were previously being paid on the old system, (or, for example, the service for a new Medicaid patient as a secondary insurance policy will pay the provider just $6.28, whereas the old system paid them $23.24). The problem seems to lie in the authorization of certain taxonomy codes, which are codes that are used to identify the services rendered by a doctor billing a patient; and the way this is done is by setting the system up to treat Medicaid as secondary insurance. It appears that someone installing or programming the software has authorized this rate cut by authorizing these new taxonomy codes that does not comply the same way the old ones did. The result of this error has been the disruption to patients’ medical care because physicians are essentially turning Medicaid patients away from the lack of payment they receive. Dr. Margaret Merrick, President of the Carteret County Medical Society is quoted in saying, “The disruption to [the patients’] medical care that has been caused by the NCTracks train wreck…it’s a crime”.

            Drawing inferences through speculation, it would appear that the implementation of help from Carteret County’s Rep. Pat McElraft and Sen. Norm Sanderson and Ms. Lenhart’s employment of several outreach attempts to Governor Pat McCrory’s office, the representatives of the software and the investigation pending by the Department of Health and Human Services, all with little to no response, has been leading to the conclusion that this may be a political issue. There is certainly suspicion that in recent news, Pat McCrory has opted out of Medicaid expansion in North Carolina; the DHHS is investigating the issue but not helping it and the Republican agenda seems to be to cut Medicaid by a long stretch in their effort to “ween” NC citizens off of government assistance, this software glitch is a convenient factor in achieving this cause. However, thankfully, Ms. Lenhart was savvy enough to have noticed the glitch, most likely once her office began receiving the reimbursement from Medicaid and noticing how little the amount was.

           

            

The Abortion Contradiction

  The recent legislation passed on restrictive abortion procedures in North Carolina (which you can read here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07/29/nc-gov-mccrory-signs-anti-abortion-bill-into-law-monday-night/) has many on the edge of an infuriated rant. When NC Governor Pat McCrory tried to pass a plate of cookies to protesters outside of the Governor's Mansion in an effort to "become friends", although he would certainly not change his position, was received as a devious insult to those who responded, "We want women's health care, not cookies". The Washington Post reported that, "among other provisions, will make clinics adopt some of the regulations that apply to ambulatory surgery centers, and allow health-care providers to opt out of performing abortions if they object", (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2013/08/01/north-carolina-gov-pat-mccrory-gives-protesters-cookies-seriously/). The sad confession I make is that I actually voted for this man. I believed that he had created a positive, entrepreneurial change in Charlotte, NC and that he could mirror that same success here in Raleigh. 
  I also believed that McCrory was a moderate Republican. These days, it seems as though there are no "moderate" Republicans left in North Carolina. I suppose my own definition of "moderate" was a Republican that could separate his religious beliefs from the law, the legislation and the wishes of the people. He has hopped on the bandwagon of radicals that believe that their moral victory lies in the bridging of the two and to advocate for the life of an unborn fetus. While this may be a noble pursuit, there is no logic in the argument and in the formation of the law. The belief that one should take the power out of the hands of the woman carrying the child is a daunting feat that simply displays an ignorance of the situation and a lack of understanding that results in more harm than good. The mother can make a decision in her first trimester,for example, that she is unable to care for the child and give it a good life. Perhaps if she had affordable access to birth control before the fact, this kind of decision would not have to be made. The contradiction in the argument against both birth control and abortion that many Republicans make has been pointed out by many. 
  This kind of restrictive access has other consequences as well. What many don't realize is that birth control has other positive effects besides preventing pregnancy. It can reduce the risk of ovarian cysts and cancer, reduce excessive menstrual bleeding and balance a woman's hormone production. It seems as though the facts do not outweigh the moral victory that comes from "promoting promiscuous behavior". Of course, there is no logical connection between using birth control and being a promiscuous woman. In fact, who cares? Sex is an integral and inevitable part of a human being, so why not practice it safely? If the legislature thinks they are truly going to somehow convince a sixteen-year-old to abstain from sex until they are getting married, they have another thing coming. The nanny-state concept has taken on a new meaning to legislators moving in on the role of the parents and the adults who make decisions on their own accord. Another contradiction in itself: they scream for less government, but they create more regulation for you...just their way. 
  Unfortunately in North Carolina, those who recognize these kinds of fallacies are not in the majority. That is why continuing the Moral Monday protests are essential to catalyzing change into the 21st century and eventually, becoming the productive state that I have come to love over so many years.