Friday, April 27, 2007

Calling anyone from North Carolina

One of the most surprising things I've discovered in my time as a blogger is the disproportionately large number of bloggers and blog-commentors from North Carolina. You would think that many of the blogs you come across at semi-random would be from more populous states, like New York or California. But North Carolina comes up again and again, closely followed by Michigan. SuperG, dee, cooper (from Adam Felber's site), whim, all are from North Carolina.

If you're from North Carolina, I'd like to ask you for a favor.

Please go to whim's Whimsicalbrainpan and read this post. Read the background posts, too, so you can understand where she's coming from - though if you're over 30 years old you may be familiar with her situation, or at least with part of it; I expect it made the news statewide when it happened. Then follow whim's lead and please contact by phone and email the Governor's office, the NC State Assembly for "Mental Health Reform", DHHS, and your State Representatives. Use her message as a reference.

I would call upon everyone to join whim in this effort, but I doubt voices from outside of North Carolina carry the same weight in the state legislature as voices from within the state. But if you are from North Carolina, please do this! Thank you!

3 comments:

whimsical brainpan said...

Thanks so much D.B.!

I found out that the best thing to do is to email the Governor.
http://www.governor.state.nc.us/Contact.asp

dee said...

According to this morning's paper, this is already a done deal, so I'm not sure what good emailing the governor is going to do at this point. The compromise rate for reimbursement of services is now $52/hour, which is down from the $61 it had been but up from the $40 that the state originally proposed. I actually read this article instead of my usual skimming of local news, since I know several therapists and many of my patients are also clients of the mental health system. The mental health delivery system in NC is pretty screwed, but I'm sure we're not the only state that sees mental health services as "non-essential."

Anonymous said...

D.B.

I'll gladly send a note to my governor. May be he'll figure a way to spin out a few lottery dollars on this. However, we're likely to relect Elizabeth "looking to kiss Rove's butt" Dole, so don't expect too much.

Until then, "Go Heels!"

Best to WNBP. Hang in there.

Reporting from Chapel Hill.

Super G

PS Yes, I'm sorry to say, "Duke really does suck."