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Health Care Tag

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 20, 2014 6 Comments
The ultra-liberal state of Vermont never liked Obamacare but not for the reasons most Americans object to the law. Vermont felt it didn't go far enough and was determined to establish its own single payer system. As of this week, that plan is dead. Sarah Wheaton of Politico:
Why single payer died in Vermont Vermont was supposed to be the beacon for a single-payer health care system in America. But now its plans are in ruins, and its onetime champion Gov. Peter Shumlin may have set back the cause. Advocates of a “Medicare for all” approach were largely sidelined during the national Obamacare debate. The health law left a private insurance system in place and didn’t even include a weaker “public option” government plan to run alongside more traditional commercial ones. So single-payer advocates looked instead to make a breakthrough in the states. Bills have been introduced from Hawaii to New York; former Medicare chief Don Berwick made it a key plank of his unsuccessful primary race for Massachusetts governor. Vermont under Shumlin became the most visible trailblazer. Until Wednesday, when the governor admitted what critics had said all along: He couldn’t pay for it.
Advocates of a single payer healthcare system may not realize just how bad this news is for them. Vermont was their best shot. John Fund of National Review noted this:
Health-care experts from outside Vermont point out some of the implications. “It’s a very liberal state, and its leaders spent years trying to design a system that would work,” Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute observes. “If Vermont can’t make it work, single-payer can’t work anywhere in the country where the economy has free and competitive markets. It’s more evidence that centralized government health care is simply not workable in America.”
All is not lost for the Green Mountain state. One of their senators might even run for president.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 16, 2014 16 Comments
It looks like a mumps outbreak has body-checked the National Hockey League!
This is the most baffling sports medicine story of the year: Thirteen NHL players and two referees have been diagnosed with mumps—a potentially severe and exceedingly viral infection that classically causes fever, body aches, malaise, and in about half of cases, parotitis (a painful swelling of the salivary glands). It's gotten so bad in the NHL that Sidney Crosby set off a mumps alert last week when he spoke to reporters with a welt on his face. (On Sunday, the Penguins confirmed Crosby does indeed have the disease.) So what's going on? The story of this outbreak appears to have begun in early November, when Anaheim Ducks defenseman Francois Beauchemin noticed a swelling in his jaw after a game against the Arizona Coyotes on November 7th. A few hours later, he developed a fever, chills, muscle aches, and lost his appetite. Four days later, he was ten pounds lighter. By then, the virus was spreading around the Ducks locker room. Three of his teammates would catch the disease before it leapt to other teams: the New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, and the Minnesota Wild, where five players came down with mumps, including all-star defenseman Ryan Suter. "Ten percent of our team population contracted it," Minnesota Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher recently said. "As far as I know, everybody received the immunization when they were young." If that's true, what's the explanation? We know that the mumps vaccine unquestionably works—cases in the United States declined by 99 percent following its introduction in 1967—so why is an outbreak in hockey happening now?
CBS This Morning reviews the story:

Posted by New Neo on December 10, 2014 12 Comments
The administration is still trying to convince us that Obamacare is a good thing:
On Dec. 3, federal actuaries released data showing that health spending inched up only 3.6 percent in 2013. Marilyn Tavenner, the head of Medicare and Medicaid, boasted that it’s “evidence that our efforts to reform the health-care-delivery system are working.” Sorry, not true. That 3.6 percent figure is an improvement only by a hair. The real slowing of health care spending started way back in 2009...long before ObamaCare even passed. Health spending slowed to a comfortable 3.8 percent rise that year, and stayed at that slow pace in 2010. Not that the president acknowledged that health spending was growing at the slowest rate in a half-century. To pass his health bill, he needed a crisis. So he and then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius repeatedly lied, warning that costs were “skyrocketing,” spending was “spiraling” out of control... On Dec. 2, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced “demonstrable progress” in making hospital care safer. Her report claims that some 50,000 fewer patients died from bed sores, infections, medication errors, falls and other mishaps from 2010 to 2013, largely due to new payment incentives and a patient safety program in ObamaCare. That happy claim was repeated verbatim by many media outlets. Not so fast, say patient safety experts who actually read the report...
There's another much more subtle lie inherent in the administration's claims, which is the assumption that if an effect follows an event, the effect is caused by that event. That sort of "lie" is hardly limited to the Obama administration or Obamacare, of course. It's a common problem with a great deal of social science and medical research that relies on correlations, and where rigorous controls are impossible with the human subjects involved.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 26, 2014 2 Comments
Some good news from the frontlines related to our battle with Ebola: The outbreak is now "stable" in Guinea, according to the World Health Organization.
There were still some flare ups in the south-east, but things were improving in other prefectures, WHO co-ordinator Dr Guenael Rodier told the BBC. More than 5,400 people have died in the latest outbreak, with Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia the worst hit. The outbreak can be ended by mid-2015 if the world speeds up its response, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said.
Although the rate of new cases shows signs of decreasing in parts of West Africa, Mali - where six people have died and a seventh case has been reported - is now of concern. Additionally, the United Nations Ebola Emergency Response Mission has formally announced that it will not meet its self-imposed December 1st deadline of containment.
The mission set the goal in September, seeking to have 70 percent of Ebola patients under treatment and 70 percent of Ebola victims safely buried. That target will be achieved in some areas, head of UNMEER Anthony Banbury told Reuters news agency, citing progress in Liberia. "We are going to exceed the December 1 targets in some areas. But we are almost certainly going to fall short in others. In both those cases, we will adjust to what the circumstances are on the ground," he said in an interview.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 18, 2014 15 Comments
As Ebola continues to rage in Africa, one key person seems to be missing in action: Ron Klain, Ebola Czar.
Ebola was on the top of everyone’s minds five weeks ago, but now that it’s largely disappeared from the mainstream media, it continues to fade into the background in this country. But the fact remains: Ebola continues to kill hundreds of people in Africa. Ebola continues to destroy families and leave many children without parents. It was sad for me to hear about the passing of a surgeon – who was a citizen of Sierra Leone and a permanent resident of the U.S. – on Monday. From what I know, he was a dedicated health care professional who did his best to keep his patients safe and alive. But what is sadder to me is that our Ebola czar, Ron Klain, did not have the courage to publicly come out and offer a statement in regards to the death of this physician, and also has failed in keeping the American public informed about the progress in this Ebola war.
I would have expected a political operative such as Klain to at least try to "message" us. Hopefully, we won't discover videos of him calling Americans stupid for being concerned about a potential pandemic..after being paid millions in taxpayer dollars for questionably professional services. However, at least Ebola did attract some mainstream media coverage. That differs from Enterovirus-D68, which has swept through the country and has sent hundreds of American children into emergency rooms with respiratory distress. There has been very limited, local coverage. One of the few who took up the story is Sharryl Attkisson, who now reports that 12 deaths have now been linked to this pathogen.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 12, 2014 16 Comments
Just as the last remaining US patient with Ebola, Dr. Craig Spencer, is released from New York's Bellevue Hospital, comes a report that another tropical disease, deemed "the new AIDS," has already infected 300,000 people and is poised to strike more.
Over 300,000 Americans have already been infected with the potentially fatal 'kissing bug disease' called Chagas but U.S. healthcare workers lack of knowledge about the illness is letting many cases of the parasite unnoticed. Some doctors are calling it the 'new AIDS' because of the way it develops. Researchers who gathered on Tuesday at the annual American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene meeting in New Orleans said that if caught early the disease can be cured however sometimes the disease can be asymptomatic and there is a dearth in medication for the condition. The CDC reports that the initial symptoms of the disease caused by a parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, which is spread through the feces of kissing bugs includes fever, fatigue, body aches, rash, diarrhea and vomiting. One of the first visual signs can be a skin lesion or a purplish swelling of the lid of one eye.
More details are offered in an IN News Report:

Posted by New Neo on October 29, 2014 51 Comments
Kaci Hickox is back home in Maine. But she's as defiant as ever:
Kaci Hickox, the nurse who was quarantined at a New Jersey hospital despite exhibiting no Ebola symptoms after arriving from West Africa, won't follow the quarantine imposed by Maine officials, her attorney said tonight. "Going forward she does not intend to abide by the quarantine imposed by Maine officials because she is not a risk to others," her attorney Steven Hyman said. "She is asymptomatic and under all the protocols cannot be deemed a medical risk of being contagious to anyone." Hickox will abide by all the self-monitoring requirements of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state of Maine, Hyman said.
But I wonder how many people in Fort Kent, Maine are going to be eager to attend her "Welcome home, Kaci" party? Now that Christie has washed his hands (metaphorically speaking) of Hickox---which is beginning to look more and more like a savvy decision---what will LePage of Maine do? Treat her with kid gloves, perhaps:
Maine requires that health care workers such as Hickox who return to the state from West Africa will remain under a 21-day home quarantine, with their condition actively monitored, Gov. Paul R. LePage said in a statement. "We will help make sure the health care worker has everything to make this time as comfortable as possible," he said.
The comments to the linked article are uniformly angry. Typical is this: "She makes it REALLY easy to hate her." And that's among the nicer ones. From some of the statements in this article, however, it sounds like Maine may be ready for a legal battle with Hickox:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 25, 2014 4 Comments
While all the Ebola-stricken patients in America seem to be on the road to recovery, with the tragic exception of patient zero Thomas Duncan, Enterovirus-D68 is reported to have claimed its 8th victim:
The U.S. death toll from the mysterious Enterovirus D-68 continues to rise. The latest CDC update on the current outbreak of the polio-like Enterovirus D-68 states that it has now been detected “in specimens from eight patients who died and had samples submitted for testing.” That’s one more death than was disclosed in last week’s update. The CDC account does not provide any information as to where the patient died and does not disclose his/her name, age or other details. According to the latest weekly update from CDC, 167 more people have been sickened with EV-D68 in the past week: a total of 973 patients in 47 states and the District of Columbia. That’s up from last week’s total of 796 people in 46 states.
Two new cases have just been reported in North Florida.
Unlike the popular saying, if it quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Health department workers tell us Enterovirus D-68 is a lot like having the common cold, except it isn't. ...Elmira Warren a Gainesville resident said, "I am concerned, I think it's important for us to be in touch with our bodies and if we have any type of symptoms that may be similar to that we should see our physicians."
And Arizona reports its first confirmed case, but many other cases are awaiting the results of testing to determine of they are related to infection with this pathogen.

Posted by Amy Miller on October 15, 2014 11 Comments
Tech giants Facebook and Apple have come up with a plan to keep their female employees happy and on the job---subsidized egg freezing. Both companies have a reputation for offering posh work environments and cadillac health care plans, but the new program seeks to invest up to $20,000 in benefits to help their employees pay for fertility treatments, sperm donation, and most controversially, egg freezing. Reactions have been mixed, and there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus as to is on board with egg freezing as an option for young professional women: Via AP's Big Story:
"Anything that gives women more control over the timing of fertility is going to be helpful to professional women," said Shelley Correll, a sociology professor and director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. "It potentially addresses the conflicts between the biological clock and the clockwork of women's careers: The time that's most important in work, for getting your career established, often coincides with normal fertility time for women. This can potentially help resolve that by pushing women's fertility into the future." ... As more women wait longer to have their first child, the number of women choosing to freeze their eggs has grown "exponentially," said Dr. Alan Copperman, a fertility specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital. They are also doing it at a younger age, which means healthier and more viable eggs.
Interviews conducted by the Daily Mail tell a different story, and raise concerns about the message this could be sending to women who want both a career and a family:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 28, 2014 11 Comments
I have been following the outbreak of Enterovirus 68 closely. An awful trait of pathogens is that the more rapidly they spread, the nastier their health effects can become. It appears Enterovirus 68 may be following this pattern. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is checking into reports that limb weakness and paralysis in nine children may be related to the far-reaching outbreak of the respiratory disease.
The CDC released a statement today saying nine children in Denver had reported a neurologic illness that led to some limb weakness or paralyzation. All of the children had reported having a kind of respiratory virus before showing symptoms of limb weakness. Six of the eight children tested were found to be positive for a rhinovirus or enterovirus and four of those cases were found to be the Enterovirus 68. The other two cases were still pending. Dr. Larry Wolk, the chief medical officer and executive director for Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said that the children affected range in age from 1 to 18, with an average age of 10. "It is a spectrum of arm or leg weakness that can be as mild weakness or as severe as paralysis," Wolk said. "What ties them all together though are findings of spots or lesions in the grey matter of the spinal cord on MRI scans."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 24, 2014 16 Comments
Remember when the worst infection Americans had to worry about was a bad flu? As I reported last week, Enterovirus 68 with its potentially devastating respiratory symptoms is still spreading among American children. An outbreak has now been reported in San Diego county:
California’s first cases of a virus that has been spreading across the country were confirmed Thursday by the state’s chief health official. Four cases of enterovirus D68 have been confirmed, all in Southern California. One was in Ventura County; three others were in San Diego County. The patients ages ranged from 2 to 13 years old. More instances of the disease were expected as results from lab tests come back, the California Department of Public Health said in announcing the cases.
So far, 175 cases have been formally reported, with newly documented occurrences in West Virgina. Meanwhile, there has been a troubling infectious disease development in a Texas hospital involving newborns:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 17, 2014 17 Comments
Last week, there were dozens of stories about American children flooding emergency rooms in 10 states; they were infected with a cold-like virus that devastated their respiratory systems. This week, the list of states reporting cases of the virus, now classified as Enterovirus D68, has risen to 12:
Since mid-August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed more than 100 cases of Enterovirus D68 in 12 states: Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, New York and Oklahoma.

Yet the real number of severe respiratory illnesses caused by this virus is probably even higher, the CDC says.

Enterovirus D68 is related to the common cold virus. However, children who have asthma face potentially life-threatening symptoms without the proper treatment. Additionally, there are indications that the virus is already impacting other states beyond the 12 formally recorded.
The respiratory virus that’s been sweeping the nation and sending asthmatic children to the hospital may have only been officially reported in 97 children, but experts say that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Dr. Claudia Hoyen said the virus, called enterovirus D68, probably affected thousands of children -- and that’s just in Cleveland, where she works. The virus has been reported in 21 states, according to state health departments. At UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, about 20 children normally go to the intensive care unit each month with respiratory symptoms, said Hoyen, who heads the hospital’s pediatric infection control program. But for the last two months, the hospital’s intensive care unit has treated 80 children per month, she said. The rare enterovirus starts out like the common cold but can quickly turn more serious -- especially in children with asthma. Enteroviruses often appear in the summer and fall, but an outbreak like this hasn’t occurred since the 1960s, Hoyen said.

Posted by Prudence Paine on September 10, 2014 21 Comments
Last week, Planned Parenthood announced its opposition to Republican proposals to make contraceptives available as over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. Let me paraphrase Planned Parenthood's three points of opposition:

1) The expanded access to birth control is being offered by Republicans. Republicans hate women. Ergo, vote for Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO).

Planned Parenthood claims that GOP efforts to expand birth control access is "an empty gesture," because (get ready for non sequiturs) Republicans want to repeal Obamacare and support the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom. The Washington Examiner notes that "A number of Republican Senate candidates have backed over-the-counter birth control in races this year, including Cory Gardner in Colorado, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Ed Gillespie in Virginia, Mike McFadden in Minnesota." What the leading abortion provider's press release does not mention is that OTC contraceptives would free many women from having to go to (and pay) its offices to get a prescription for the drugs. If birth control pills were easy to get over-the-counter, Planned Parenthood would lose a tremendous revenue stream. It benefits when the government forces women to go to its prescription-writing centers. It benefits by restricting a woman's access to birth control. By Planned Parenthood's own 2012 statistics, 34 percent of its revenue comes from "contraception" services, 37.9 percent of which are "oral" contraceptives. That's 13 percent of its annual take that could vanish if birth control pills were sold next to aspirin and antacids. Its 2013 annual report shows Planned Parenthood took in $1.2 billion dollars, so it stands to lose $156 million a year if GOP proposals gain ground.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 22, 2014 9 Comments
Lack of funding is not the problem at the Veterans Administration.  It's the government healthcare system, stupid. In a story published today, Dennis Wagner of Arizona Central reported new details about the Phoenix VA:
Phoenix VA officials knew of false data for 2 years Department of Veterans Affairs administrators knew two years ago that employees throughout the Southwest were manipulating data on doctor appointments and failed to stop the practice despite a national directive, according to records obtained by The Arizona Republic through a Freedom of Information Act request. A 2012 audit by the VA's Southwest Health Care Network found that facilities in Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas chronically violated department policy and created inaccurate data on patient wait times via a host of tactics. The practice allowed VA employees to reap bonus pay that was based in part on inaccurate data showing goals had been met to reduce delays in patient care, according to the VA Office of Inspector General. At the Phoenix medical center alone, reward checks totaled $10 million over the past three years.
Clearly, there are problems in the VA system which need to be addressed but is more spending the best solution? Congress seems to think so. Chris Edwards writes at the CATO Institute:

Posted by David Gerstman on June 12, 2014 17 Comments
As Bryan Jacoutot documented here three months ago, Maryland's health exchange was a complete failure. In private industry or nearly any other field of endeavor, an employee who is responsible for such a visible failure would be subject to demotion or firing. But this is politics. And this is Maryland. So the Washington Post recommended that the employee responsible for this fiasco ... should be promoted. In its endorsement ahead of the June 24 primary the paper with the largest circulation in Maryland endorsed (Lieutenant Governor) Anthony Brown for Maryland governor. The key paragraph in the endorsement is here:
No doubt, Mr. Brown, who is Gov. Martin O’Malley’s anointed successor, is a mainstay of the Democratic establishment and a paragon of the status quo. That status quo includes the state’s blatant failure to build a functioning online market for private health insurance — a failure over which Mr. Brown presided, or was supposed to preside. It also includes substantive accomplishments, including making the state more welcoming to gays and immigrants and replenishing the transportation fund in support of public transit.
So let's see if I get this. Despite the fact that Brown messed up his most significant assignment as Lieutenant Governor - concrete failure - that should be balance out by the fact that he made Maryland more welcoming - an ephemeral accomplishment at the best? As far as the transportation fund, taxing people is what government does best. Had he (and his boss, Governor O'Malley) replenished the fund while limiting the growth of government, that would have a real accomplishment. But taxing and spending is hardly a defining skill for an executive. Then there's the previous paragraph that's also kind of baffling.

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 18, 2014 16 Comments
The Obama administration and some state exchanges have rolled out a number of curious advertising campaigns intended to sell the Affordable Care Act to the American people. Last fall we got a series of ads about 'Brosurance' featuring photos of college guys doing keg stands, then in December we were introduced to Pajama Boy. More recently, we were lectured to by Big Mother. Now, the White House has pulled out all the stops and is featuring animated GIFs you would expect to see in a BuzzFeed post about TV shows from the 1990s but not on the official White House website. The images are part of an interactive contest that encourages readers to vote for their favorite reason to get covered...
As millions of Americans scramble to fill out their March Madness brackets, we've got another big milestone coming up: the March 31st deadline to sign up for health insurance. If you need affordable coverage, head over to HealthCare.gov and #GetCoveredNow. If you've got insurance, help spread the word by voting for your favorite reason to get covered.
I can't help but wonder what Vladimir Putin and his associates in Moscow must think of all this. Read on to see examples of the ridiculous images which are actually posted on the website for the United States White House.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 25, 2013 20 Comments
The Washington Post article below documents one doctor's experience with federally mandated electronic health care records. The story is familiar, as I've heard it myself from doctors. Doctors always had to spend time filling out insurance forms, but now it is so much worse. To comply with federal Medicaid and Medicare regulations (plus new Obamacare regs) not only means having the staff to comply (hence, doctors moving to larger practice groups or hospital-affiliated groups), but also more and more time spent trying to comply with electronic medical records requirements. Read the full tale below. It's how we are destroying medicine one form at a time. Here's the punch line:
When I get back to the office, I turn on the computer to write a progress note in Mr. Edgars’s electronic health record, or EHR. In addition to recording the details of our visit, I must try to meet the new federal criteria for “meaningful use,” [explanation here] criteria that have been adopted by my office with threats that I won’t get paid for my work if I don’t.... I spent more time checking boxes than talking to patients and their families. I could see twice as many patients if I could write their notes at the bedside while visiting with them. I would happily do this on paper or using an EHR that created a logical note within the same amount of time. But that is not an option.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on December 01, 2013 12 Comments
The personal information of approximately 90,000 patients of Harborview Medical Center and University of Washington Medical Center, which are part of UW Medicine, has reportedly been compromised as the result of a malware attack that affected a facility computer that stored patient data. From KOMO News:
Early last month, a UW Medicine employee opened an email attachment that contained malicious software. The malware took control of the computer, which happened to be storing personal information from approximately 90,000 UW Medicine and Harborview Medical Center patients, according to a UW Medicine news release. The compromised patient data included names, phone numbers, addresses, medical record numbers and Social Security numbers, among other information. UW Medicine is now reaching out to the affected patients and has also set up a call center to work with victims.
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