Tag: Medical Care

Eat Well…Stay Fit….Die Anyway

First it was Ewell Gibbons, the health food advocate, did some ads for Raisin Bran or something back in the 70’s or 80’s…..that is the eat well part….he died from a bleeding ulcer.

Second was Jim Fixx, the running guru, the man who single handed (almost) made jogging a way of life in this country…..I Believe that was in the 80’s also….that is the stay fit part……he died while jogging.

Now in Detroit….another dig at the stay fit part….as reported in the Free Press:

In the span of just 16 minutes, three men collapsed and died while running the 32nd Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Marathon.

The first to collapse was Daniel Langdon, 36, of Laingsburg, at 9:02 a.m., said Rich Harshbarger, vice president of consumer marketing for the Detroit Media Partnership, which handles business operations for the Free Press and Detroit News. Langdon was on Michigan Avenue between the 11- and 12-mile markers.

Rick Brown, 65, of Marietta, Ohio, collapsed at 9:17 a.m. near where Langdon went down, Harshbarger said. And Jon Fenlon, 26, of Waterford collapsed at about 9:18 a.m., just after finishing the half-marathon in 1:53:37.

And now that brings us to the part of the “die anyway”…..no matter how good you are at eating properly or staying fit….you will DIE!  No one gets out of this life alive…sorry dudes….

Swine Flu Comes A Calling

The media has been full and I mean FULL of stories about the swine flu, better known as H1N1….every “real” news media has done story after story on what to look for, what to do, when to do it and on and on….in reality it has been almost endless since the end of summer….there can be NO body who is unaware of this deadly predator.

In case you are living in the hills of Arkansas and have not heard the hype….let me help out….Symptoms of H1N1 swine flu are like regular flu symptoms and include fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose, body aches, headache, chills, and fatigue. Many people with swine flu have had diarrhea and vomiting. Nearly everyone with flu has at least two of these symptoms.

But before you run into the doctor’s office and infect everyone else there is more you need to know…..the run of the mill yearly flu symptoms spell FACTS:

Fever

Aches

Chills

Tiredness

Sudden Symptoms

Now you will ask what is the difference between the two….and a good question….who knows…they are saying it is not the Spanish Flu or the Hong Kong Flu or pick one from the past…..the flu is the flu….pig like or otherwise.

Now we are told that a shot will be needed to help fight off infection….and we can go to our local drug store chain and get an injection for $24.99….a deal at any price…..

The vaccines will trickle in at a rate of about 20 million doses a week, and officials are unsure how many Americans will actually get them. The U.S. government is providing them for free, but clinics and retailers may charge to administer them.

*******STOP! and re-read the paragraph above**********(Pause here for effect)

They get free drugs paid for by the government (your money) and the drug stores can charge for the convenience of having the shots on site.

After hear that and checking up on the media and its attempt to “inform” the public……and as I have said…every network is pushing hard for the people to be informed and to help them get the information that they require…..is it really a public service?  Or is it helping to create a demand for the injections at $24.99?

At least two surveys have suggested that demand may be somewhat higher for the swine flu vaccine than for the seasonal influenza vaccine.

A survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions and Harris Interactive found that 53 percent of Americans say they plan to get vaccinated, compared with 41 percent who say they will not be vaccinated.

Not a bad deal at $24.99 a pop……

After the summer’s hysteria over the swine flu and the warnings of a pandemic…I question the motives of the media and their concern for the public….is it real or is it all a game to help the companies bring in more paying customers?

Drive-Thru Medicine

Is this the way of the future?  We will get our medical care in a similar fashion as we get our Big Mac?  So you think that is a crazy question, eh?  But in a recent article in Time Magazine written by Jeffery Kluger:

Doctors are having a hard go of things. Squeezed by falling reimbursements, soaring malpractice insurance and punishing patient loads, they shouldn’t have much to fear from the likes of Wal-Mart. But the fact is, the greeter in the red vest is increasingly going toe-to-toe with the doctor in the white coat – and winning – thanks to the growing phenomenon of retail health clinics.

There are roughly 1,000 clinics now operating in the U.S., offering acute care for such routine problems as throat infections and earaches as well as providing diabetes and cholesterol screenings, routine checkups and vaccinations. The fees are low – and conspicuously posted; nearly all of the clinics treat both the insured and uninsured, and there is little or no waiting time. With 50 million Americans lacking health insurance and family budgets collapsing under the weight of medical costs, what’s not to like about the clinics?

Plenty, say physicians associations, whose members warn that clinics – which are typically staffed by nurse practitioners and are positioned in stores that also sell prescriptions – will be inclined to misdiagnose and overprescribe. Worse, they are not built to provide long-term care for chronic conditions such as hypertension, and they threaten the ideal of a lasting doctor-patient relationship, denying consumers a so-called “medical home.”

The studies, which took months to compile, were based on the performance of the 982 retail clinics that existed in the U.S. as of August 2008 – a tenfold increase since 2006. While that proliferation is impressive, as with much else in the health-care system it doesn’t necessarily mean equal access to care. Clinics exist in only 33 states, and in those that have them, an overwhelming 88.4% are in urban areas. Just 10.6% of the U.S. population lives within a five-minute drive of a clinic, and 28.7% lives 10 minutes away. The South is better served than the Midwest and West, and all three regions are better served than the East. Just five states (Florida, California, Texas, Minnesota and Illinois) are home to 44% of all American retail health clinics.

If the results are any indication, the next time you have a routine medical need, you should probably make haste to a clinic. On a quality scale of 0% to 100%, the clinics finished first with a 63.6% while urgent-care centers and doctor’s offices followed within a couple of points. Habitually overcrowded emergency rooms came in last at a distant 55.1%. When it came to fees, the results were even more dramatic. For the various kinds of services studied, the average visit to a retail clinic cost $110, versus $156 for urgent care and $166 for a family doc. As for ERs? A cool $570. While even $110 for a clinic visit seems pricey, that is only the average for the three procedures studied. Minute Clinic, the industry leader with 514 outlets, charges just $62 for a minor illness or injury exam and $20 to $66 for a wellness or prevention visit.

There are pros and cons to the retailing of medical care, but the best question I would like to ask is…..is this the future of health care and where would any reform from Washington likely effect the industry?

The Horror Of Rationing….Or Is It?

That is it a horror…..if we listen top and believe those on the far right we will be having rationing of our health care if the Dems get their way.  We have been bombarded with this prediction for a couple of months now and I want to know…what do they mean by “rationing”?  There are several types of rationing:  about.com has some of the answers.

Self-Rationing

Sometimes we limit ourselves. Suppose you develop a rash. You have two choices. You can go to the doctor, pay a co-pay, or pay cash from your pocket. Then you’ll still need to pay for whatever prescription your doctor writes for you, too.

Or, you may choose an over-the-counter rash treatment instead — much less expensive, not to mention the time you saved by not making an appointment, even waiting for heaven-knows-how-long to see the doctor. If you choose the no-doctor-visit route, then you have self-rationed your care, and saved money for something you believe is more important.

Health Insurer Rationing

Health insurers ration care, but they don’t call it rationing, and they don’t even want you to realize that it is rationing. Dr. Rich Fogoros, the About.com Guide to Heart Disease gave this its own term. He calls it “covert rationing.”

Health insurers ration care through co-pays, deductibles and caps. In fact, what they are really doing is encouraging you to self-ration. Knowing that a certain amount of your care will have to be paid from your pocket, you may choose not to get the care or drug you need.

Health insurers deny services or reimbursements for services. Denial of care is perhaps the most understood form of rationing, because it causes outrage and frustration. What most patients don’t understand is that this is also the aspect of rationing that is most affected by laws and regulations, too.

Government Healthcare Rationing

Even the government rations healthcare. The difference between the government’s rationing and the rationing conducted by health insurers is that there is no profit motive. The government, through Medicare or state Medicaid or other programs, keeps costs lower as much as possible in order to keeps taxes lower, or to expand care to others, both considered to be the greater good.

People need to understand and understand completely what is meant by rationing…no matter what one believes, one should have ALL the facts and not just some 20 second buzz from a well groomed millionaire.

There are several reasons why understanding healthcare rationing will help you.

First, should you run into a denial of care, you’ll know why it’s been denied, and will better understand how to go about combating it, should you want to do so.

Second, in the coming years you will hear more and more about and why it will, or won’t, affect how you receive care. The biggest arguments center on how payment should be handled; whether it should be handled as it is now with both government and private payers, or whether the United States should move to an all-government, single payer system.

Some experts in healthcare rationing will tell you that private health insurer rationing means that the insurers are the ones determining who is getting what care. They cite the fact that which treatment you receive has more to do with whether or not your insurer gives permission than what you and your doctor think would be best. Private insurers argue that if the government takes over all cost coverage of all healthcare, then the government will make healthcare decisions for patients.

The far right of the GOP is making noise about the Dems will have rationing to all people…especially to the elderly whgich will let them die by withholding treatment….Sorry, I have read the bill and that is just not so.  Besides we already have rationing, look at a transplant list….if the money is not there then the top person can be skipped over…..there is rationing now…only thing it is done by the insurance companies and not the government.

As usual the talk over the proposed health bill is just using fear to make a point and to incite verbal revolt.  Rationing is not a coming fear…it is a reality of today.

What The Hell Is A Health Co-op?

Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  Health Care

A health co-op?

Single payer health care is DOA…..public option is on life support…..now the latest idea, but not an original one, is a health co-op.

I know…I know…what the hell is a health co-op? I will answer that in awhile but first let us look at why it is a priority, at least in one Senator’s little mind.

Sen. Conrad threw this out there in the beginning of the health debate, back in June. Here is what Slate.com says about co-ops:

A cooperative is basically a not-for-profit patient-run insurance organization. Instead of executives running it, you’d have people who are themselves enrolled. There would be relatively little overhead compared with a private insurance company—no profit means less advertising and no commissions or underwriting—and every patient would have a say in how it’s run. Many such cooperatives already exist. Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound near Seattle and HealthPartners in Minnesota are two of the most successful examples

The co-op idea is being pressed by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND). “I believe they’re a good idea because they can provide competition to for-profit insurance companies, and one of the things we need in the system is more competition,” he says.

Conrad is trying to deal with objections from the insurance industry, as well as from some health care providers and some Republicans, to something called a public option. This would be a government-run plan designed to nudge private insurers into lowering prices and make health insurance more widely available. Opponents are concerned the government plan would pay too little to doctors and hospitals and would drive private insurers out of business because they couldn’t demand the same kind of deals from doctors and hospitals.

But what does Conrad’s proposal say?

The proposal also says:

* There are no free rides in co-ops. Every person would have to pay dues, whether they have the money on their own or they get a government subsidy (which would have to be worked out). Costs are not spread among paying and non-paying members.

* The feds could pay the start-up costs for a co-op, but could not pay to sustain it.

* Co-ops could be different sizes — local, regional, or national. NYC might have several, while parts of North and South Dakota could team up to offer one.

* Every state would be required to have at least one co-op option.

What would the costs look like to the individual?

The cost for a mid-30s single, self-employed woman runs from $78 per month for a catastrophic plan to $277 per month for full coverage, with big swings in deductibles and cost sharing. A family of four, with no employer support, would pay $244 per month to $862 per month.

NPR is reporting that there are some drawbacks to the co-op idea.

Several co-ops have failed because of tension between the board and health care providers such as doctors and hospitals. The providers wanted more money or autonomy or better facilities than the co-op was willing to provide. The relationship between doctors and HealthPartners appears to be good.

Now with that drawback how would a massive co-op be with massive amounts of cash at their disposal? The failure rate would most likely be huge….greed and power would kill this type of effort….as it does with most other efforts.

Now my question is–what will the co-op regulation look like to make sure that the people are being treated fairly and honestly? Good question and there is NO mention of what regulations will look like. I guess that is for another day.

Personally, I think this idea sucks! It is to keep the insurance companies in the loop and to help protect them from health care losses. Wondering how much cash Sen. Conrad has received from Insurance companies…that should be looked at closely.

Insurance Could Compete With The Public Option

The Public Option is taking a lot of heat in the current health care debate in the Congress….of course many are saying that the insurance companies could not compete with the option and that they would lose all their money if the public option is adopted.

On the BNET Healthcare website I found the following suggestion:

So how would the private health plans compete with the government-backed plan? “Offering a public health insurance plan as an alternative choice should be a catalyst for private plans to innovate in the way they operate and pay for care,” the report states. “It would help them reduce their administrative costs and implement payment and system reforms that lead to more appropriate utilization, better care, and slower cost growth—and, in the process, contribute to reduced premiums.”

The authors suggest that “community health plans” that partner with integrated delivery systems would be in a good position to reduce costs through joint preventive and chronic care programs. But even if truly integrated hospital-and-doctor systems were more widespread than they are, health systems and health plans have not had a good track record of working together when they’re not fighting over rates.

The Commonwealth Fund has another bright idea: “Private plans could also be given the authority to adopt public plan payment methods and rates.” Whoa! If that means what I think it does, the government and private plans would jointly decide what they wanted to pay providers. I don’t think that idea would go down very well among hospitals and physicians — although in the long run, we may have no other choice.

Finally, the report predicts that if private plans adopted effective cost-control measures “sufficient to slow a rise in their premiums relative to trends in public plan premiums,” the private and public plans would be charging about the same within five years.

If these other “options” were considered then could the insurance industry truly compete with the proposed public option?  If so, then argument that the insurance company is spending $1.4 million a day trying to defeat would be a waste of money, IMO.

A New Deal In Health Care

The debate carries on….and on…..and on…..and with each passing day the Dems show their cowardly side m0re and more……Drug industry has a deal and now the Hospitals have caved, not an accurate word, to the Admin.

Joe Kishore has written an analysis of the newest deal the Dems have made on wsws.org:

US Vice President Joseph Biden Wednesday announced an agreement with major hospitals to cut a projected $155 billion in future Medicare and Medicaid payments over the next ten years. The announcement is the latest in a series of deals worked out between the Obama administration and major corporate bodies and lobby groups.

The administration’s health care proposals are based on two fundamental premises: 1) The need to reduce health care costs for businesses and the government; and 2) To do this while ensuring the profit interests of all the major business interests involved: drug manufacturers, insurance giants, and hospitals. The inevitable results flowing from these premises will be higher costs and reduced care for ordinary Americans.

Currently, hospitals receive higher payments through Medicare if they treat a higher percentage of low-income patients, if they treat expensive cases, and if they are in an area with higher wages for hospital workers. These hospitals are generally not those that dominate the industry lobbying groups in discussion with the Obama administration.

The Associated Press noted: “Officials of public hospitals say they have concerns such reductions could also squeeze funding for trauma centers and burn units, which receive Medicare and Medicaid money.”

Biden repeated the administration’s claim that as more people become insured under the Obama plan, hospitals will face lower costs for treating the uninsured, and so can receive lower payments from the government. To the extent that this is the case, however, it will be because the costs are shifted from the government and the hospitals to individuals. Under the proposals being considered in Congress, individuals will be required to purchase insurance themselves and could be fined as much as $1,000 if they do not.

In fact, every agreement with different industry groups has come at the expense of health care for the population. For example, the drug industry had secured as part of its deal a commitment from Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to oppose a House measure that would reduce payments to the drug industry for Medicare patients previously covered by Medicaid. There are no doubt many other backroom deals that have yet to come to light.

The administration is also indicating that it is willing to reconsider plans for a “public option”—a government-run insurance program that would compete with private insurers as part of the reform proposals. The measure is, not surprisingly, fiercely opposed by the insurance industry.

The ultimate aim is to establish a system in which the vast majority of the population will receive inadequate or no health care, where the majority of the elderly simply can’t receive more expensive treatments because they are expected to die soon anyway. The rich, of course, will continue to be able to afford the best possible care.

Sorry guys but this deal sounds more like the industry is trying to head off any deal on a public option…they are promising savings and any other form of price reduction.

I realize that I am preaching to the chore here, but Americans need to know absolutely everything pertaining to the debate.  It is important that the debate include the people, all the people, not some control group that is suppose to speak for us all.

My interviews of people in my area, shows that overwhelmingly that people do NOT care about the cost…they want adequate health care for them and their families……and I live in a red area that is more neo-con than the neo cons.

The American people want health care and damn the deficit!