healthcare
mikethemadbiologist | August 19, 2009While I'm loath to disagree with ScienceBlogling Daniel MacArthur about genomics, I can't really agree with his assessment of genetic risk prediction:
Wright provides a balanced review of the implications of the article, and finishes with a paragraph worth quoting verbatim:
However, far from supporting calls to forbid such tests being available DTC, this highlights the need for transparencymeasurement of the DNA sequenceitself (the assay) will remain constant, the interpretation of the result (the test) is likely to change as the science develops.
Amen. As I have consistently argued here on…
mikethemadbiologist | August 18, 2009One of the more successful healthcare interventions has been home nurse visits to families that have recently had a child:
"Optional Coverage of Nurse Home Visitation Services" certainly doesn't sound controversial. The initiative, which has existed in various forms at the state and local level for decades, would fund programs that "provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains...modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices; [and] skills to interact with their child." Most similar programs have…
lborkowski | August 17, 2009This post was originally published on our old Wordpress site.
Both the Washington Post and the New York Times report that the Obama administration is signaling a new willingness to jettison the public plan element of healthcare reform legislation. Jonathan Cohn at The Treatment questions whether anything’s really changed, though, because Obama has consistently praised the public option as a good idea without insisting that it be included in the final bill.
As the summer has worn on and Congressional committees have come out with specific proposals, healthcare reform supporters are getting a…
gregladen | August 13, 2009Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care--to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Hmph. That fucked up quote comes from an op-ed in the WSJ by the CEO of Whole Foods Inc.
Whole Foods is now trying to pretend this little missive was never penned, and are backpaddling like kayakers upstream from Niagara Falls.
Joe is on it.
mikethemadbiologist | August 13, 2009I'll get to Whole Foods in a moment, but one of the reasons I wrote about the misuse of heritability by Megan McArdle last week is that I can't stand it when people misuse biology to push a political agenda (and hopefully, I'll be able to get back to that next week). As I argued in a previous post, we can disagree about how to respond to a set of facts, but the facts are what they are.
So, onto the Whole Foods grocery woo. The CEO of Whole Foods recently wrote a far right screed against health insurance reform, in which he argues that it would be unnecessary if we only ate our vegetables.…
mikethemadbiologist | August 10, 2009Over at the Great Orange Satan, I came across a post by a father of a type I diabetic (type I diabetes is an auto-immune disorder wherein a person can not produce insulin, and needs regular injections). To anyone who is familiar with type I diabetes, it's terrifying: maintaining blood glucose 'control' (i.e., keeping blood glucose within the 'normal' range) is an integral part of your daily life. There is the possibility of having too much blood glucose (too little insulin), which, over the long term, is very bad for your health (the effects mimic those typically associated with type II…
mikethemadbiologist | August 9, 2009Or perhaps, health insurance deductions--of mice and men. In response to McCain's healthcare proposal, during the 2008 election, I laid out why tax deductions (or even credits) are a stupid healthcare policy. While I think it's foolish, at least, it attempts to be serious. But this is why I can't take Republican policy initiatives seriously:
Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter has proposed the Humanity and Pets Partnered Through the Years (HAPPY) Act.
McCotter's HAPPY Act would allow pet owners to take a $3,500 tax deduction for expenses related to pet and veterinary care.
As an avid…
mikethemadbiologist | August 8, 2009
Yesterday, I raised the possible specter of violent intimidation breaking out at a health care townhall meeting. Turns out I was off by about twelve hours:
Tampa, Florida-- Fireworks were expected, but organizers of a town hall meeting on health care reform were caught off guard Thursday night by just how explosive the issue became.
Hundreds showed up for the 6:00 forum held at the Children's Board of Hillsborough County on Palm Avenue in Tampa. The auditorium which holds around 250 people, filled up so quickly eventually Tampa Police were ordered to begin turning people away.
Inside, U.S.…
mikethemadbiologist | August 7, 2009
'Her America' is disappearing. Supposedly, this is a bad thing.
(Doug Mills/New York Times)
TPM reports the following from a town meeting about healthcare in Arkansas:
The attendees' overall theme was that their way of life was being destroyed...
"At this point in my life, I have never seen my America turned into what it has turned into, and I want my America back," said one woman, on the verge of tears. "And I don't think the Representatives and Senators are gonna be able to do it. I'm scared!"
Her America. Not our America (of course, were she to use "our America", I suspect she wouldn't…
mikethemadbiologist | August 5, 2009...falling out of the stupid tree and smacking into every branch on the way down would be another. By now, you might have heard about the corporate lobbyist-organized healthcare offensive, which is designed to 'confront' officials at public meetings about healthcare--that is, heckle, intimidate, and shut down these meetings. Democratic Representative Gene Green (R-TX) wasn't having any of it:
During the town hall, one conservative activist turns to his fellow attendees and asks them to raise their hands if they "oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care." Almost all the…
mikethemadbiologist | August 3, 2009The CDC's expert committee has released its recommendations for who should receive the swine flu vaccination (TEH SWINEY FLOO!):
1. Pregnant women; household contacts and caretakers of children under 6 months old; health-care workers and emergency medical services workers; children and young adults ages 6 months through 24 years; adults ages 25 through 64 who have underlying medical conditions that put them at higher risk.
2. Healthy adults ages 25 through 64.
3. Healthy adults ages 65 and older.
This is a good list, but I have several concerns, stemming from the apparent lack of recognition…
razib | July 26, 2009Turkmenistan had a bizarre dictator as its ruler until 2006, Saparmurat Niyazov. Here's a sample of his healthcare initiatives:
So, in a frankly insane healthcare reform effort, he restricted the public's access to care by replacing up to 15,000 doctors and nurses with unqualified military conscripts. The next year, he ordered hospitals and clinics outside of the capital, Ashgabat, to close -- even though the vast proportion of Turkmenistan's population lives in rural areas. The BBC quoted him as saying, "Why do we need such hospitals? If people are ill, they can come to Ashgabat." He also…
mikethemadbiologist | July 26, 2009Katrina vanden Heuvel makes a good point about some bad framing in the healthcare debate--the 'centrists' aren't in the center at all:
Even a good regional paper like Louisville's Courier-Journal-- in rightly blasting the Blue Dogs as "deplorable" for being "unable to muster the spine to pay for health care reform with even so innocuous a measure as higher taxes on the richest 1 percent of Americans"--calls them "centrist".
The danger is that promoting the view that these conservative Democrats are somehow at the center of our politics plays into the hands of those who would like to…
mikethemadbiologist | July 25, 2009There are times I agree with this post by Ian Welsh:
My biggest weakness this year in doing analysis has been hope. I have let hope that the Obama administration and a Democratic Congress will do the right thing, and that they aren't corrupt and incompetent, get in the way of clear thinking. Enough. Hope isn't a plan, and hope isn't policy. Hope without good policy is a con-job.
There hasn't been a good, major, bill come out of this Congress this year. They have all been fatally compromised, from the stimulus bill (larded up with useless tax cuts and without necessary State relief) to…
mikethemadbiologist | July 19, 2009With apologies to Hannah Arendt. From an interview by Bill Moyers of Wendell Potter, a former healthcare executive:
...that was my problem. I had been in the industry and I'd risen up in the ranks. And I had a great job. And I had a terrific office in a high-rise building in Philadelphia. I was insulated. I didn't really see what was going on. I saw the data. I knew that 47 million people were uninsured, but I didn't put faces with that number.
...certainly, I knew people, and I talked to people who were uninsured. But when you're in the executive offices, when you're getting prepared for a…
mikethemadbiologist | July 15, 2009At least someone knows how to play hardball. From Politico:
Under a Republican amendment approved Tuesday in the HELP bill, every member of Congress and their staffs would be required to enroll in the public insurance option. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) authored the measure, which has become a rallying point for conservatives opposed to the public option. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who voted by proxy, and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) called their bluff and voted with Republicans to pass the amendment -- effectively neutralizing the issue for now. It seems unlikely that it would survive the many…
mikethemadbiologist | July 6, 2009From Alegre's Corner:
Karen Tumulty was on a press call with the HELP committee to hear about Kennedy's bill, and she just posted a tweet with the following...
Senate HELP bill: If u hate ur employer's coverage, u have to keep it, unless it costs 12.5% of ur salary. No public plan 4 u.
Looks like you were right ML - anyone above a certain income level is f*cked with this new reform bill. It's Mass-Care all over again :(
Admittedly, this is a Tweet, but, if true, this sucks. I hate Romneycare. Yes, it led to a one-time reduction of about ten percent in healthcare costs, but since then,…
mikethemadbiologist | July 6, 2009He wasn't as pithy as let them eat cake, but the sentiment is the same. What's gone missing in the debate over a public option for healthcare (although when more the seventy percent support it, it's hard to see how this qualifies as a debate) is that tens of millions of people already have a public option: it's called Medicare. So, if you're 65 or over, you get government healthcare. So why can't I have the same options my parents have? One of my parents works so they can choose the employer's private plan or Medicare. Why can't I?
Having said that, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of…
mikethemadbiologist | July 3, 2009see more Lolcats and funny pictures
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a letter (and I encourage others to do the same) calling for a strong public option in whatever healthcare legislation is passed. In the letter, I described the frustration that many rank-and-file Democrats have towards their elected leaders (and yes, it's not the 'base'; >80% of Democrats is nearly the whole damn party--and some of the dissenters oppose the public option because they feel it's too weak):
When you ran for office, you talked about "change." When it comes to our nation's health, now is the time for change.…
mikethemadbiologist | June 21, 2009What's so frustrating about the healthcare debate is that even though 76% of Americans want a public option, this is somehow deemed politically unviable. Never mind that the Republicans were crushed at every level electorally and that President Obama has a 63% approval rating. Even this tepid option--and it is tepid compared to what most other Western nations have--probably won't pass.
With that, I bring you Charles Pierce, who describes this as what it is, a complete failure of our political system:
But we no longer are a viable self-governing political commonwealth, and our…