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Health Care Tag

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 30, 2016 13 Comments
Two Florida universities and the University of Illinois have been battling outbreaks of hand, foot, and mouth disease that involve about three dozen cases in the last couple of months.
According to the National Institutes of Health, about 200,000 people in the U.S. get the disease each year, but Dr. Fenyong Liu, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley, says a lot more than that carry the viruses associated with the disease. “This represents a silent epidemic because people don’t know they have the virus, and we don’t know these people have the virus,” Dr. Liu said. Doctors say the disease is highly contagious, making daycare centers, and now colleges, ideal breeding grounds. “This fecal or oral transmission is really an issue when you have dining hall and all this share the dorm,” Dr. Liu said.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 26, 2016 14 Comments
The claim that you can keep your plan and doctor was the line that sold Obamacare to a skeptical public, and gave Democrats cover to rework the health care system, comprising 1/5 of the economy, by a bare majority in Congress. That false promise generally is attributed to Obama during the 2009-2010 push to pass Obamacare:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on October 25, 2016 11 Comments
Surprise! (But only if you haven't been paying attention.) At the beginning of May, I blogged about the looming October Obamacare surprise -- seriously nasty rate hikes.
Unfortunately (or fortunately — depending on where you stand) for Democrats, pending rate increase announcements could not come at a worse time. Open enrollment begins the first week of November, just in time for Obamacare and independent health insurance consumers to take their sticker shock to the ballot box.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 23, 2016 36 Comments
About one-year ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the state's assisted-suicide bill into law. It fully went into effect this June, with the opening of the first clinic. While there is no data on the number of California assisted-suicides, Oregon recorded over 130 last year as part of their legalized physician-assisted death program. Now, one young mother says her insurance company denied her coverage for chemotherapy treatment after originally agreeing to provide the fiscal support for it, but indicated it would be willing to pay for assisted suicide instead.

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 21, 2016 6 Comments
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) chapter in Florida has sued Broward County Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes after citizens said their mail in ballots did not include Amendment 2 to legalize medical marijuana:
It asked a county court judge to require that the elections office distribute new ballots to all voters who have received vote-by-mail ballots and to include information that explains that Amendment 2 had not been included on previous ballots.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 12, 2016 1 Comment
Reports have surfaced that a new pathogen has made the hop from South America to the Caribbean, and may soon head to our shores. Researchers at the University of Florida have identified the Mayaro virus in an 8-year-old Haitian, the first reported case in that region.
"The virus we detected is genetically different from the ones that have been described recently in Brazil, and we don't know yet if it is unique to Haiti or if it is a recombinant strain from different types of Mayaro viruses," Dr. John Lednicky, an associate professor in the environmental and global health department at the University of Florida, said in a press release.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 11, 2016 24 Comments
One of the biggest surprises of the Sunday debate was the moment that Obamacare came up as an audience-member question. Hillary Clinton basically said she'll mend it, and Donald Trump vowed to end it. Gone are the days of, "if like your plan, you'll keep your plan."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 18, 2016 14 Comments
When President Obama said he would fundamentally transform America, who could have guessed it meant that exotic diseases and once-vanquished illnesses would break out across the county? The Zika virus, which we have been following closely, is increasing its footprint within our country. Florida Governor Rick Scott just announced that the Zika virus transmission zone in Miami Beach has tripled in size.
The new zone was set after the Department of Health identified five people, two males and three females, in the area who all experienced Zika symptoms within one month of one another. The virus poses a particular threat to pregnant woman due to its link with neurological disorders in unborn children. It brings the total of nontravel-related Zika cases in Miami Beach to 35.
When was the last time you heard about leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, which is a devastating bacterial infection that mostly occurs in poverty-sticken regions of the world? Now, a California school has reported two as yet unconfirmed cases among its student body.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 13, 2016 22 Comments
Few sciences have been as settled as dietary science.... until recently. I chronicled the substantial revisions issued regarding the scientific "consensus" about cholesterol last year. The "War on Cholesterol" has officially ended, though there is evidence that it adversely impacted American health and the nation's egg farmers while reaping absolutely no benefit. Now a new analysis of correspondence during the 1960's between a sugar trade group and researchers at Harvard University indicate there was an apparent collusion that ultimately cast doubt on sugar's role in heart disease and directed all the blame at fat.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 13, 2016 6 Comments
Although we haven't heard much about it recently, the VA scandal is very much alive and well. The National Review published an article about the wide-ranging problems with the VA in April of this year.  Here's a quick reminder, neatly encapsulated in NR's review of VA-related stories:
The Veterans Affairs–scandal headlines speak for themselves. The Daily Beast: “Veteran Burned Himself Alive outside VA Clinic”; azfamily.com: “Dead veterans canceling their own appointments?”; New York Times: “Report Finds Sharp Increase in Veterans Denied V.A. Benefits,” “More than 125,000 U.S. veterans are being denied crucial mental health services,” and “Rubio, Miller ask committee to back VA accountability bills.” Two years ago this week [April, 2016]— thanks to courageous whistleblowers in Phoenix and a fed-up House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman — the world was finally exposed to rampant VA dysfunction and corruption. Dozens of veterans had died while waiting for care at the Phoenix VA — which was, unfortunately, just the tip of the iceberg. Across the country, VA officials had manipulated lists to hide real health-care wait times. In total, thousands — and possibly far more — met the same fate: waiting, and dying, at the hands of a calcified and soulless bureaucracy. Investigations were launched, and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki eventually resigned.
Rather than attempting to correct a wide array of serious problems--ranging from incompetence to corruption, the VA has instead and in defiance of a 2014 law  "quietly" stopped sending performance data to a national database for consumers.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 11, 2016 4 Comments
I noted that Senate Democrats protected the sacred cow of Planned Parenthood when they blocked a bill to fight the spread of the Zika virus in this country. That decision now has consequences, as the coffers for the War against Zika are now running low.
Another government agency fighting Zika has run out of cash to do it, as Congress fights over whether and how to come up with more. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has spent all the money it has for work on Zika, says the agency's director, Dr. Anthony Fauci. That includes money for further work on a Zika vaccine.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 10, 2016 17 Comments
The prof's post entitled "ObamaCare is the Gateway Drug to Single-payer" couldn't be more apt.  There are serious flaws with ObamaCare, and in the terms by which it was presented to the American people, it has been a colossal failure from its foundation to its implementation . . . at least those "good" and popular parts that Obama has allowed to take effect (he's kicked the not-so-good, deeply unpopular parts down the road). Hillary has a plan to address the problem that she sees as central to ObamaCare's continued unpopularity, and that plan (surprise, surprise) involves the federal government's involvement with / setting of prescription drug pricing.  Her plan is so threatening to free market principles that Pfizer's CEO says that if implemented this plan will lead directly to single-payer.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 06, 2016 16 Comments
While he was running for Senate in the 2012, Ted Cruz spoke extensively on the virtues of portable health insurance -- insurance not associated with any particular employer, but insurance that works more like vehicle insurance or homeowner's insurance. Though the idea is not unique to Senator Cruz, in a world where Obamacare is causing premiums to sky rocket, coverage to lessen, and government-sponsored co-ops to flop, portable health insurance is becoming a frequent visitor in health insurance reform circles. "More insurance plans will move with the person, not the job. That's real health security," said Speaker Ryan recently, explaining his new health care proposal. "This is not the twentieth century where you have the same job for your entire career, your entire life. You move around, you bounce around. We want to have a twenty-first century system that's portable with the person."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 04, 2016 10 Comments
There is another disturbing report related to the spread of the Zika virus; however, this one doesn't involve birth defects or neurological problems. Millions of honey bees were killed after areas of South Carolina were sprayed to kill the mosquitoes that transmit the pathogen.
"On Saturday, it was total energy, millions of bees foraging, pollinating, making honey for winter," beekeeper Juanita Stanley said. "Today, it stinks of death. Maggots and other insects are feeding on the honey and the baby bees who are still in the hives. It's heartbreaking." Stanley, co-owner of Flowertown Bee Farm and Supply in Summerville, South Carolina, said she lost 46 beehives -- more than 3 million bees -- in mere minutes after the spraying began Sunday morning. "Those that didn't die immediately were poisoned trying to drag out the dead," Stanley said. "Now, I'm going to have to destroy my hives, the honey, all my equipment. It's all contaminated."
Truly, the images of the bee-keepers assessing the loss of both their bees and their livelihoods are heartbreaking:
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