I’m no joiner. You won’t find me in many clubs or groups. It’s just me.
But when I do, I go all in.
Take this website and blog. It’s all about finding solutions when politics and the media can’t or won’t.
I’m “all in” with my favorite jobs: news anchor at KTNV in Las Vegas; host of Real TV; and co-creator of Undercover Jetsetter with the iPhone TV production technology.
It’s even more so with Liberty Health Share. As many of you know, I am a spokesperson and advocate for this medical cost sharing nonprofit. I am also a member.
Yes, it gives me freedom. It also binds me with a community of like-minded folks who take responsibility for their healthcare as well. And, more importantly, it keeps me on the road to health and wellness.
But it goes much deeper than that. It’s helping people with the most important aspect of their lives — their health.
That is what I believe America is really all about.
Liberty Health Share allows members to share each other’s medical bills. It is based on the American tradition from churches in farm communities that banded together to help their neighbors in times of need for centuries.
It dawned on me recently how deeply ingrained Liberty Health Share is in my family history.
Yes, Liberty Health Share has only been around since 2014 but like all of us our roots are embedded in our past.
My grandfather, Charles W Daly M.D., was a first generation Irish-American.
He was a legendary doctor in the Hartford, Connecticut area.
Family friends, especially nurses, marveled at his precise prescriptions that were all written in Latin. My grandfather was also a tea-totaler, refusing to drink alcohol after his father’s alleged drinking problem and the cultural curse that seemed to follow many Irish back then.
At his death in 1967, the huge St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Hartford was packed with mourners.
The night of his death while sitting with my grandmother (seen with him in the photo) taking phone calls I heard about his service to people especially during the Depression.
Those stories confirmed many of my father’s memories of my grandfather coming home from a full day of house calls with only a “head of cabbage” for the family.
Another family friend called and praised my grandfather for providing his family with medical care during their lifetime — for free.
Upon further listening, this was Grandpa Daly’s early 20th Century version of “pay it forward”.
Here’s how the story unfolds. My grandfather was a young man working at a plant called Pratt & Cady which made the fire hydrants for the city of Hartford.
My grandfather was skillful at mechanical drawings. However, it was known by the company’s owner that my grandfather was only working there to save money for medical school. He had been accepted to the University of Baltimore.
However, those dreams were nearly dashed when his mother, my great grandmother, was in a horse and buggy heading to church on Christmas day, when she was hit and killed by a train. The way the story goes my grandfather had to drain his medical school savings to bury his mother. According to the family story, when the plant owner heard about this, he fired my grandfather. He told my grandfather that you couldn’t work there anymore because he was going to medical school. That owner paid for my grandfather’s medical school.
That was the family who received free medical care from Grandpa Daly throughout his medical career.
While also having a family practice, my grandfather went on to help run St. Francis Hospital and Hartford Hospital in the Hartford area.
The family began to prosper after World War II.
But it appears my grandfather never lost his zeal for making sure people were healthy. And that benefited me more than a century after his birth.
I recently chronicled how I no longer am a fan of football. I marvel at my health and wellness because I never played football as a youngster or in high school or college.
Why? It was a direct order from Grandpa Daly — through my father — to me — which we both heeded.
Hey, it was Grandpa Daly!
Although I probably fought the notion, there wasn’t much arguing from a 12-year-old in an Irish Catholic family whose elders had endured prejudice and witnessed the bleak 1930s and World War II.
Today I see friends who are retired NFL players in horrible shape compared to me.
I thank Dad (to the left here in high school) and Grandpa every day.
But really think about that medical edict delivered to me. Grandpa Daly, in the 1960s, understood then what decades of massive research is finding out today.
Isn’t that the kind of doctor do you want?
Isn’t that the type of prescient knowledge we all need?
Lucky for me, it was in my family.
Liberty Health Share encourages all of us to think about our future wellness now.
We also follow big data research that can tell us which medical procedures and treatments really work so we all can enjoy lower costs and a higher standard of healthcare.
It’s people helping other people directly. We don’t need a government or a bureaucracy to help each other.
Besides keeping costs low, we do what we have to do to help each other in their times of need.
Granted, I am no servant to the people like my grandfather. I am just a journalist/TV host. Despite that, I feel I am doing my best to walk in my grandfather’s footsteps by bringing this great organization to the many who so desperately need it.
Now you understand why Liberty Health Share is so much a part of me.
Just go here to see if you can join us.
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