Typical day in Kansas ! 

Rita strengthens to Category 5 hurricane
Storm on a course to Texas with wind speeds up to 165 mph

AP Associated Press, Sept 21, 2005

GALVESTON, Texas - Hospital and nursing home patients were evacuated and as many as 1 million other people were ordered to clear out along the Gulf Coast on Wednesday as Hurricane Rita grew to a Category 5, 165-mph monster that could pummel Texas and bring more misery to New Orleans by week’s end.

Read entire article

Paige Patterson (left) and Haly Donaldson compare passport photos. Students make their own passports as they get ready to learn about the Continents. Read the entire article.

How Hurricane Katrina's costs are adding up.
Insurance industry costs plus federal outlays could equal '$200 billion event'

By Martin Wolk
Chief economics correspondent
MSNBC
Updated: 7:30 p.m. ET Sept. 13, 2

It will be months -- or even years -- before the cost of Hurricane Katrina is fully known, but insurance industry experts are refining their estimates and agree losses will far exceed $100 billion, making it the nation's costliest natural disaster.

Read full article here.

Sept. 13, 2005 -- Local Nurses from Springfield, MO volunteer their time at the local RedCross Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief Center in Springfield. 

Hurricane 2005 Relief

Victims of Hurricane Katrina are attempting to recover from the massive storm that is still making its way across the Mid-Atlantic States. American Red Cross volunteers have been deployed to the hardest hit areas of Katrina’s destruction, supplying hundreds of thousands victims left homeless with critical necessities.
By making a financial gift to Hurricane 2005 Relief, the Red Cross can provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to those in need.

Click here to donate to the Relief Effort

Facts on US health insurance & COBRA Laws:

Who are the uninsured?

Approximately 45 million Americans, or 15.6 percent of the population, were without health insurance coverage in 2003. The number of uninsured rose 1.4 million between 2002 and 2003.(1)
Nearly 82 million -- about one-third of the population below the age of 65 spent a portion of either 2002 or 2003 without health coverage.(1)
The percentage of people with employment-based health insurance dropped from 70 percent in 1987 to 61 percent in 2004. This is the lowest level of employment-based insurance coverage in more than a decade.(2,3)
In 2003, 27 million workers were uninsured because not all businesses offer health benefits, not all workers qualify for coverage and many employees cannot afford their share of the health insurance premium.(4)
The number of uninsured children in 2003 was 8.4 million - or 11.4 percent of all children. (1)
Young adults (18-to-24 years old) remained the least likely of any age group to have health insurance in 2003 - 30.2 percent of this group did not have health insurance. (1) Based on three year average (2001-2003), people of Hispanic origin were the least likely to have health insurance. An average of 32.8 percent of Hispanics were without health insurance during that time. (1)

Why is the number of uninsured people increasing?

Millions of workers don't have the opportunity to get coverage. A third of firms in the U.S. did not offer coverage in 2003. Two-thirds of uninsured workers in 2001 worked for employers who did not offer health benefits. (2)
Nearly two-fifths (38 percent) of all workers are employed in smaller businesses, where less than two-thirds of firms now offer health benefits to their employees. (4)
Rapidly rising health insurance premiums is the main reason cited by all small firms for not offering coverage. Health insurance premiums are rising at extraordinary rates. Over the past five years the average annual increase in inflation has been 2.5 percent while health insurance premiums have escalated an average of 11.4 percent annually. (2)
Even if employees are offered coverage on the job, they can't always afford their portion of the premium. Employee spending for health insurance coverage (employee's share of family coverage and deductibles) has increased 126 percent between 2000 and 2004. (5)
Losing a job, or quitting voluntarily, can mean losing affordable coverage - not only for the worker but also for their entire family. Only seven (7) percent of the unemployed can afford to pay for COBRA health insurance, the continuation of group coverage offered by their former employees. Premiums for this coverage average almost $700 a month for family coverage and $250 for individual coverage, a very high price given the average $1,100 monthly unemployment check. (6)
Coverage is unstable during life's transitions. A person's link to employer-sponsored coverage can also be cut by a change from full-time to part-time work, or self-employment, retirement or divorce. (7)
About 58 percent of uninsured adults report having changed or lost jobs in 2003. "Job lock" keeps others in positions they might have left if not fear for losing coverage. Job mobility of husbands is 25 percent to 32 percent lower when their wives do not have employment-based health insurance. (7)

By several measures, health care spending continues to rise at the fastest rate in our history.
Total national health expenditures increased by 7.7 percent in 2003 (the latest year that data is available) over 2002 - four times the rate of inflation in 2003.(1)
In 2004, employer health insurance premiums increased by 11.2 percent - nearly four times the rate of inflation. The annual premium for an employer health plan covering a family of four averaged nearly $10,000. The annual premium for single coverage averaged $3,695.(2)
Between 2001 and 2003, increases for national spending for prescription medications averaged 14 percent.(1)
Experts agree that our health care system is riddled with inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management, inappropriate care, waste and fraud. These problems significantly increase the cost of medical care and health insurance for employers and workers.

In 2003, health care spending in the United States reached $1.7 trillion, and was projected to reach $1.8 trillion in 2004. (3)
Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense. (4)
In 2003, the United States spent 15.3 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health care. It is projected that the percentage will reach 18.7 percent in 10 years. (3)
Although nearly 45 million Americans are uninsured, the United States spends more on health care than other industrialized nations, and those countries provide health insurance to all their citizens. (4)
Health care spending accounted for 10.9 percent of the GDP in Switzerland, 10.7 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in Canada and 9.5 percent in France, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (5)
Total out-of-pocket spending on health care rose $13.7 billion, to $230 billion in 2003. (1)


COBRA Law:The federal Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, also known as COBRA, is a guarantee that working Americans who lose their jobs do not lose their health insurance. Under COBRA, the federal government allows those employees, retirees, their spouses and their dependent children the right to extend job-related coverage for up to 18 months at their own expense.

Click here to learn more about

Domestic Short Term Medical Insurance

God bless the Gulf Coast
by Kim Komando Read full article here

What can I say about this tragedy? The terrible fate that has fallen upon New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is beyond words.

Thousands and thousands of people have lost their homes and their livelihoods. People like you and me—with middle-class lives, children in school, some money in the bank— are refugees. Many have lost family members, or have become separated from their families. I associate disasters like this with the Third World, not the United States of America...

Click here for links to Charitable Organizations, Missing People websites and Governmental Agencies