Health and Sanity category archive
The Medicine Show 0
Thom and Wendell Potter discuss how Big Pharma and Big Insurance are trying to scare Americans from fixing the healthcare mess that feeds their bottom lines.
More here.
The Cost of Staying Alive 0
In the Sunday New York Times Magazine, Siddharta Mukherjee took a fascinating look at a recent study as to what makes health care in the United States consume twice as much of GDP as it does in other industrialized nations. A snippet:
I commend it to your attention.
Profiteers of Misery 0
Part One.
Part Two:
Aside:
Brodock is quite correct about doctors’ not knowing how much health care costs. When I told my doctor how much one prescription he gave me cost, he nearly fell off his chair. It was almost 10 times the cost of an equivalent over-the-counter nutritional supplement. He okayed my using the OTC product.
“He Couldn’t Afford To Live” 0
Thom tells of the story of a friend who died because he couldn’t afford health insurance and draws its lessons.
Suffer the Children 0
It’s policy in the coming Republican dystopia.
Details at the link.
Suffer the Children 0
Mike wonders why Republicans and their vocally self-proclained “Christian” supporters are willing to condemn children to sickness and death through their failure to renew CHIP. (Warning: Language.)
The GOP’s Pathological Partisanship 0
Danny Westneat tries to understand the Republican obsession with repealing the Affordable Care Act.
He starts with recalling Rep. Cathy McMorris’s (R–Don’t Get Sick; If You Do Get Sick, Die Quickly) request for ACA stories a couple of years back, She received over 10,000 responses, the great majority of which were positive. Nevertheless, she announced that she would favor the repeal of the ACA:
But the larger problem — the one that continues to hang the party today — is that she wasn’t remotely interested in the real story.
The Republican Hypocritic Oath 0
Dick Polman tries to understand why the Republican Party is determined to strip affordable health care from millions of Americans, despite opposition from “the American Medical Association, the AARP, the American Heart Association, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and at least five Republican governors who care a great deal about their affected constituents.”
He proffers four theories, each one of which I think has a piece of the truth, and no one of which rules out any of the others. Here’s one of them:
Follow the link for the other three.
“Not Political Footballs” 0
In the far western corner of Virginia, there is an annual event called the Remote Area Medical Expedition at Wise. Doctors, dentists, nurses, and many other volunteer their time to treat persons who otherwise have no access to health care.
In The Roanoke Times, Dr. Ralph Northam, current Virginia Lieutenant Governor, writes eloquently of his experience there this year. Here’s a bit:
She was scared, but not about her plan for treatment. She was scared her daughter would be unable to get health insurance because she now had a pre-existing condition. This is a mother and child. These are our friends, our neighbors. They are not political footballs.