So...what you think about the health care bill?

[Foxrac]

Too bad Condi isn't an option

Condi is better than Sarah Palin but she is too way off my limit for political vews, I prefer Pelosi over Condi and Palin.

 

[Jiro]

Pelosi an idiot? ha...because she doesn't follow your dreams. She is considered to be a very good political achiever. Hardly something an idiot can do. I like her.

a very good political achiever? what has she done??? She is the worst flip-flopper and the worst hypocrite I've ever seen.

PELOSI GO AWAY!

 

[Jiro]

Condi is better than Sarah Palin but she is too way off my limit for political vews, I prefer Pelosi over Condi and Palin.

ew. I prefer Condi over both of them plus Hillary

 

[Foxrac]

ew. I prefer Condi over both of them plus Hillary

I have different taste and political views, man.

 

[Jiro]

I have different taste and political views, man.

no need to tell me that. that's why we post our different taste and political views in here.

 

[kokonut]

A bit off note here but Hillary said she wouldn't mind having coffee with Palin, and vice versa. Something to think and mull over.

 

[Jiro]

A bit off note here but Hillary said she wouldn't mind having coffee with Palin, and vice versa. Something to think and mull over.

that's interesting. never thought it would ever happen!

I'll believe it when I see it

 

[Eve]

A bit off note here but Hillary said she wouldn't mind having coffee with Palin, and vice versa. Something to think and mull over.

This reminds me of a scene from the Princess Bride lol

 

[Foxrac]

no need to tell me that. that's why we post our different taste and political views in here.

I prefer Colin Powell over Condi and Palin for republican.

 

[Jiro]

I prefer Colin Powell over Condi and Palin for republican.

same. too bad they tarnished his reputation and credibility. what a sham.... threw him under the bus for their gain.....

 

[Cowpuppy]

You don't get that position in these times without political smarts. And running the health care bill thru was not easy. It took work. Not to be denied. I am talking about political savvy....not about what ones views are.
You have a very undefined political base. Perhaps your political views are only used to attack people. On both sides. Simply an attitude with no political base.

a very good political achiever? what has she done??? She is the worst flip-flopper and the worst hypocrite I've ever seen.

PELOSI GO AWAY!

 

[kokonut]

She's one sick puppy.

 

[Jiro]

You don't get that position in these times without political smarts. And running the health care bill thru was not easy. It took work. Not to be denied. I am talking about political savvy....not about what ones views are.
You have a very undefined political base. Perhaps your political views are only used to attack people. On both sides. Simply an attitude with no political base.

political base? political view? perhaps you should ask Pelosi that because she is inconsistent.

 

[Jiro]

America’s Defining Choice

President Obama and Congress will soon make defining choices about health care and troops for Afghanistan.

These two choices have something in common — each has a bill of around $100 billion per year. So one question is whether we’re better off spending that money blowing up things in Helmand Province or building up things in America.

The total bill in Afghanistan has been running around $1 million per year per soldier deployed there. That doesn’t include the long-term costs that will be incurred in coming decades — such as disability benefits, or up to $5 million to provide round-the-clock nursing care indefinitely for a single soldier who suffers brain injuries.

So if President Obama dispatches another 30,000 or 40,000 troops, on top of the 68,000 already there, that would bring the total annual bill for our military presence there to perhaps $100 billion — or more. And we haven’t even come to the human costs.

As for health care reforms, the 10-year cost suggests an average of $80 billion to $110 billion per year, depending on what the final bill looks like.

Granted, the health care costs will continue indefinitely, while the United States cannot sustain 100,000 troops in Afghanistan for many years. On the other hand, the health care legislation pays for itself, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while the deployment in Afghanistan is unfinanced and will raise our budget deficits and undermine our long-term economic security.

So doesn’t it seem odd to hear hawks say that health reform is fiscally irresponsible, while in the next breath they cheer a larger deployment of troops in Afghanistan?

Meanwhile, lack of health insurance kills about 45,000 Americans a year, according to a Harvard study released in September. So which is the greater danger to our homeland security, the Taliban or our dysfunctional insurance system?

Who are these Americans who die for lack of insurance? Dr. Linda Harris, an ob-gyn in Oregon tells of Sue, a 31-year-old patient of hers. Sue was a single mom who worked hard — sometimes two jobs at once — to ensure that her beloved daughter would enjoy a better life.

Sue’s jobs never provided health insurance, and Sue felt she couldn’t afford to splurge on herself to get gynecological checkups. For more than a dozen years, she never had a Pap smear, although one is recommended annually. Even when Sue began bleeding and suffering abdominal pain, she was reluctant to see a doctor because she didn’t know how she would pay the bills.

Finally, Sue sought help from a hospital emergency room, and then from the low-cost public clinic where Dr. Harris works. Dr. Harris found that Sue had advanced cervical cancer. Three months later, she died. Her daughter was 13.

“I get teary whenever I think about her,” Dr. Harris said. “It was so needless.”

Cervical cancer has a long preinvasive stage that can be detected with Pap smears, and then effectively treated with relatively minor procedures, Dr. Harris said.

“People talk about waiting lines in Canada,” Dr. Harris added. “I say, well, at least they have a line to wait in.”

Based on the numbers from the Harvard study, a person like Sue dies as a consequence of lack of health care coverage every 12 minutes in America. As many people die every three weeks from lack of health insurance as were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

Health coverage is becoming steadily more precarious as companies try to cut costs and insurance companies boost profits by denying claims and canceling coverage of people who get sick. I grew up on a farm in Yamhill, Ore., where we sometimes had greased pig contests. I’m not sure which is harder: getting a good grip on a greased hog or wrestling with an insurance company trying to avoid paying a claim it should.

Joe Lieberman, a pivotal vote in the Senate, says he recognizes that there are problems and would like reform, but he denounces “another government health insurance entitlement, the government going into the health insurance business.” Look out — it sounds as if Mr. Lieberman is planning to ax Medicare.

The health reform legislation in Congress is imperfect, of course. It won’t do enough to hold down costs; it may restrict access even to private insurance coverage for abortion services; it won’t do enough to address public health or unhealthy lifestyles.

Likewise, troop deployment plans in Afghanistan are imperfect. Some experts think more troops will help. Others think they will foster a nationalist backlash and feed the insurgency (that’s my view).

So where’s the best place to spend $100 billion a year? Is it on patrols in Helmand? Or is it to refurbish our health care system so that people like Sue don’t die unnecessarily every 12 minutes?

 

[kokonut]

Hmmm, dump an additional 40 million people into the health care system without even adding doctors will do wonders with the coming rationing care. Now, we're seeing our first "death healthcare panel" of sorts when you had health officials 6 months ago warned ladies over 40 to not stop with their annual mammogram check-ups because they saw a slight decline in the number of women doing these check-ups but now they recommend women to wait until 50 and beyond to do their check-ups. Sounds about right. Save money. Put more women at risk of getting breast cancer and hoping they die a little earlier just to save money for the federal govt Obamacare. That's what you get should we see 40 million people get dumped into this healthcare system all at once. Massive rationing.

Don't say you weren't warned.

 

[somedeafdudefromPNW]

Ah, but you see.. if everyone has insurance coverage with no loopholes, then that means the insurers (whether it's the government or private) will be forced to pay for the exams to catch illness early on because they don't want to cover the cost of the treatments with advanced diseases and cancers. Right now, nothing has changed yet so we wouldn't know if the advices given by the panel is relevant to the existing healthcare, or the healthcare that is coming in the near future.

There's two sides to every coin.

 

[kokonut]

Ah, but you see.. if everyone has insurance coverage with no loopholes, then that means the insurers (whether it's the government or private) will be forced to pay for the exams to catch illness early on because they don't want to cover the cost of the treatments with advanced diseases and cancers. Right now, nothing has changed yet so we wouldn't know if the advices given by the panel is relevant to the existing healthcare, or the healthcare that is coming in the near future.

There's two sides to every coin.

The advice is preparing the way for Obamacare. Ergo, massive health care rationing at the earliest possible stage. Ask yourself this question. Why in the space of 6 months when you had health officials trying to encourage women to get their early mammogram checkups once hitting 40 and suddenly do a 180 degree turn now, 6 months later, saying, "Nah, just wait until you're 50." The U.S. leads the world on the lowest number of prostate and breast cancer rate only because we were aggressive in getting these check ups done. And, now, in order to "save" money they are willing to see women risk their lives to wait another 10 years? If you can't see what's wrong this picture I certainly cannot help you.

 

[Jiro]

I think you like to hear yourself talk.

 

[Jiro]

Uninsured ER patients twice as likely to die

CHICAGO - Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a troubling new study.

The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who have believed emergency room care was equitable.

"This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist.

The study, appearing in the November issue of Archives of Surgery, comes as Congress is debating the expansion of health insurance coverage to millions more Americans. It could add fodder to that debate.

The researchers couldn't pin down the reasons behind the differences they found. The uninsured might experience more delays being transferred from hospital to hospital. Or they might get different care. Or they could have more trouble communicating with doctors.

The hospitals that treat them also could have fewer resources.

"Those hospitals tend to be financially strapped, not have the same level of staffing, not have the same level of surgeons and testing and equipment," Gawande said. "That also is likely a major contributor."

Gawande favors health care reform and has frequently written about the inequities of the current system.

The researchers took into account the severity of the injuries and the patients' race, gender and age. After those adjustments, they still found the uninsured were 80 percent more likely to die than those with insurance — even low-income patients insured by the government's Medicaid program.

"I'm really surprised," said Dr. Eric Lavonas of the American College of Emergency Physicians and a doctor at Denver Health Medical Center. "It's well known that people without health insurance don't get the same quality of health care in this country, but I would have thought that this group of patients would be the least vulnerable."

Private hospitals more likely to transfer uninsured
Some private hospitals are more likely to transfer an uninsured patient than an insured patient, said Lavonas, who wasn't involved in the new research.

"Sometimes we get patients transferred and we suspect they're being transferred because of payment issues," he said. "The transferring physician says, 'We're not able to handle this."'

Federal law requires hospital ERs to treat all patients who are medically unstable. But hospitals can transfer patients, or send them away, once they're stabilized. A transfer could worsen a patient's condition by delaying treatment.

The researchers analyzed data on nearly 690,000 U.S. patients from 2002 through 2006. Burn patients were not included, nor were people who were treated and released, or dead on arrival.

In the study, the overall death rate was 4.7 percent, so most emergency room patients survived their injuries. The commercially insured patients had a death rate of 3.3 percent. The uninsured patients' death rate was 5.7 percent. Those rates were before the adjustments for other risk factors.

The findings are based on an analysis of data from the National Trauma Data Bank, which includes more than 900 U.S. hospitals.

"We have to take the findings very seriously," said lead author Dr. Heather Rosen, a surgery resident at Los Angeles County Hospital, who found similar results when she analyzed children's trauma data for an earlier study. "This affects every person, of every age, of every race."

 

[Jiro]

Veterans Die from Lack of Health Insurance

From the web site of Physicians for a National Health Plan comes this summary of a new study on American veterans' limited access to health care. These figures as an estimate, extrapolated from an earlier study--but if they are right, they dwarf the number of deaths from combat, and rival the suicide figures I wrote about earlier today.

A research team at Harvard Medical School estimates 2,266 U.S. military veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they lacked health insurance and thus had reduced access to care. That figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911 as of Oct. 31) since the war began in 2001.

The researchers, who released their analysis today [Tuesday], pointedly say the health reform legislation pending in the House and Senate will not significantly affect this grim picture.

The Harvard group analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s March 2009 Current Population Survey, which surveyed Americans about their insurance coverage and veteran status, and found that 1,461,615 veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 were uninsured in 2008. Veterans were only classified as uninsured if they neither had health insurance nor received ongoing care at Veterans Health Administration (VA) hospitals or clinics.

Using their recently published findings in the American Journal of Public Health that show being uninsured raises an individual’s odds of dying by 40 percent (causing 44,798 deaths in the United States annually among those aged 17 to 64), they arrived at their estimate of 2,266 preventable deaths of non-elderly veterans in 2008.



As the PNHP piece points out, many veterans do not have free access to government-funded health care through the VA system:

While many Americans believe that all veterans can get care from the VA, even combat veterans may not be able to obtain VA care, Woolhandler said. As a rule, VA facilities provide care for any veteran who is disabled by a condition connected to his or her military service and care for specific medical conditions acquired during military service.

Woolhandler said veterans who pass a means test are eligible for care in VA facilities, but have lower priority status...Veterans with higher incomes are classified in the lowest priority group and are not eligible for VA enrollment.

So after these men and women risk their lives in the military, we throw them on the mercy of the private system of medicine-for-profit, which is touted as a cherished part of the American way of life. It all gives a whole new meaning to dying for your country.