Health and Sanity category archive
The Privatization Scam 0
North Carolina has a new twist on the Privatization Scam.
I can see the outcome now: the rich will get richer and the sick will get sicker.
Eight Glasses a Day 0
Bennett Cerf told the story of an American tourist who visited a little shop in the provinces.
Eventually, he picked up a wine skin, wandered over to the clerk, and asked, “What about water?”
The clerk gasped. “Water. Non non. Water rots the insides, water erodes the brain, water destroys!”
The tourist says, “So you mean I can’t put water in the wine skin?”
“Oh, monsieur, of course you can. I thought you were going to drink it.”
Not a Leg To Stand On 0
God forbid that health insurance should pay for (gasp!) health care.
After all, paying for health care may imperil country-club memberships for insurance CEOs.
Sticker Schlock 2
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tries to make sense of consumer health care prices and finds out that it can’t.
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
The right likes to fulminate about market forces and health care costs, as if someone whose doctor has admitting privileges at only one hospital, who is experiencing sudden chest pains, or who just fell of a ladder is in a position to stroll through the “health care marketplace” inspecting the wares.
Furthermore, comparison shopping for health care may indeed be contraindicated.
Banged for the Buck 0
Wendell Potter explains that, when it comes to American health care, no, you are not getting what you pay for. Here’s a bit:
A big reason for that is our collective gullibility. We continue to believe what many politicians tell us, despite evidence to the contrary: that we have the best health care system in the world.
Similarly, we continue to be persuaded by insurance companies that they’re essential to the system and better than any government program could possibly be at controlling health care costs.
And we are still buying the pharmaceutical industry’s argument that if Americans don’t keep paying more for prescriptions than anyone else on the planet, drug companies—which have gargantuan profit margins—won’t be able to keep developing the drugs we need.
Blue Shielding Its Profits 0
The California Franchise Tax Board has yanked Blue Shield of California’s non-profit status because, surprise, Blue Shield makes lots of profits. Blue Shield, natch, will appeal. Here’s a bit from the story:
“It also opens the door for us to challenge the tax exemption of a host of other not-for-profit companies that act as though they were for-profit companies by stockpiling cash and paying executives seven-figure salaries and having skyboxes,” said Jamie Court, president of Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog.
Court was referring to Blue Shield’s $2.5 million purchase of a skybox at Levi’s Stadium, the San Francisco 49ers’ new home in Santa Clara. Blue Shield has called the skybox a business expense needed to increase sales.
I am mildly surprised that Blue Cross did not justify the skybox at the football palace as a treatment for acrophobia.
No Vaccine for Dumb 0
Science 2.0 republishes an article by Harvard professor Scott O Lilienfeld exploring fads and myths about autism and the treatment thereof. In it, he attempts to understand the increase in diagnoses of autism and offers this explanation:
There is therefore ample reason to doubt that the “autism epidemic” actually reflects a genuine increase in the frequency of the condition. But the dramatic rise in diagnoses has led many people to believe in shadowy causal agents, such as childhood vaccinations.
He goes on to explore how treatment fads and fraud spread. In the light of the recent measles outbreaks because of the actions of anti-vaxxers, the whole article is worth a read.
Anti-Vax Facts 0
The Deseret News skewers the notion of “religious objections” to vaccinations.
But the world’s major faiths — Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam — have no explicit prohibitions against oral or injected vaccines. At times, some followers or preachers within a given religion or sect may have spoken against vaccination, but researcher John D. Grabenstein of Merck Vaccines, writing in the scientific journal Vaccine in April 2013, could find no sustained teaching against the practice in any major faith community.
According to the story, even Mary Baker Eddy said that vaccinations were okay.
A Picture Is Worth 0
GOP Health Plan: Don’t Get Sick. If You Do Get Sick, Die Quickly 0
John Romano comments on those states that still refuse to expand Medicaid so as to take full advantage of the Affordable Care Act:
How about Florida, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Nebraska and Wisconsin? They all lag behind the U.S. average for percentage of residents 25 or older with bachelor’s degrees, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
And how about Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia? They’re among the states with the highest number of convictions of public officials in federal court from 1976 to 2010, according to the website FiveThirtyEight.com.
Do read the rest.
Welcome to the Machine 0
A new mother, a doctor no less, describes her experience as a patient in the Medical-Industrial Complex.
Do read it.
“Don’t Get Sick. If You Do Get Sick, Die Quickly.” 0
(Open tag fixed.)
A medical student summarizes the effects on Virginia’s rural poor of Republicans’ partisan rejection of Medicaid expansion. A snippet:
However, our state legislature has demonstrated their allegiance to partisan politics over the health and welfare of the commonwealth. As a result, chronic diseases are more prevalent here in Appalachia than in any other part of the United States.
For example, disparities in cancer screening between Appalachian and controlled non-Appalachian populations result in significantly higher cancer incidence and mortality here in Appalachia. In addition, five-year survival rates for cancer patients in Appalachian populations are significantly lower than their non-Appalachian equivalents.
Medicine Show 0
Wendell Potter explains the scam. A nugget:
The purpose of that campaign — a campaign that’s ongoing, by the way — is to protect the profitable status quo by obscuring an empirical truth: that when it comes to access to affordable health care, millions of Americans might as well be living in a third world country. And that’s still true today, more than four years after Obamacare became law.