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Health Care Tag

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 25, 2017 15 Comments
Appearing this morning on Meet the Press, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) defended the Senate health care bill. Pushing back against the premise that the Senate bill will destroy Medicaid and leave those who qualify for it under ObamaCare out in the cold, Toomey explained that the Senate bill "will codify and make permanent the Medicaid expansion." CBS News reports:
Following the release of Senate Republicans' draft of the House GOP-passed health care bill, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, said the focus remains on Medicaid expansion while noting there are indeed challenges that remain. "It's going to be a challenge, but I have to strongly disagree with the characterization that we are somehow ending the Medicaid expansion. In fact, quite the contrary. The Senate bill will codify and make permanent the Medicaid expansion, and in fact we'll have the federal government pay the lion share of the cost," said Toomey.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 24, 2017 11 Comments
I recently reported that California Senate Bill 562, which would establish a single payer healthcare system within the state, had recently cleared a major hurdle by passing through a state legislative committee. However, the measure died upon entering the California Assembly.
A high-profile effort to establish a single-payer healthcare system in California sputtered Friday when Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) decided to shelve the proposal.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 23, 2017 22 Comments

Among the trending news items this week is the tale of a freak accident that took the life of a French model and aspiring social media star.

From the Daily Mail:
A French fitness blogger has been killed by an exploding whipped cream dispenser which hit her in the chest, giving her a heart attack. Rebecca Burger's family announced her death on social media, where she has amassed a following of more than 200,000 with her fitness focused posts.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 04, 2017 31 Comments
Having sustained truly historic losses over the course of Obama's presidency and into President Trump's first term, the Democrats need a winning platform plank, and they think they've found it in single-payer health care. With surprising Democrat base support for socialist Senator Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) in the 2016 Democrat primaries and with California taking the lead with its ludicrously expensive single-payer health care scheme, Democrats are lunging left on health care.  So much so, that they may be on their way to rebranding as "the single-payer party."

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 15, 2017 25 Comments
Oh boy. Another controversy over conservative comments at Miss USA. Remember in 2009 when Miss California Carrie Prejean said she believes that marriage is between a man and a woman? The left tore her apart over her answer. Now they have a new target. Last night, Miss District of Columbia Kara McCullough, a scientist, told the audience and judges that she rejects modern day feminism and believes health care is a privilege, not a right.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 29, 2017 21 Comments
A measles outbreak in Minnesota is widening as the state's public health and emergency preparedness officials scramble to stop the spread.
As of Thursday afternoon, April 27, the Minnesota Department of Health had confirmed 28 cases in Hennepin County and one in Stearns County. All were among children under age 5, most of them unvaccinated. "Measles is very contagious and can spread very quickly," said Denise Kragenbring, public health supervisor with Kandiyohi County Public Health.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 26, 2017 34 Comments
In honor of the recent "March for Science", I have decided to review a scientific assertion that is completely settled. Salt is bad for you because it raises blood pressure. A sample of this consensus is on the website for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, focused on salt safety:
Most Americans Should Consume Less Sodium Most of the sodium we consume is in the form of salt, and the vast majority of sodium we consume is in processed and restaurant foods. Your body needs a small amount of sodium to work properly, but too much sodium is bad for your health. Excess sodium can increase your blood pressure and your risk for a heart disease and stroke. Together, heart disease and stroke kill more Americans each year than any other cause.

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 18, 2017 9 Comments
As the nation's opioid crisis continues to grow, some cities are taking dramatic steps to deal with its associated problems. Las Vegas has actually introduced vending machines which dispense clean syringes for free. The Daily Caller reports:
Syringe Vending Machines Hit Las Vegas Amid Heroin Crisis Las Vegas will get the nation’s first vending machine for drug syringes to combat spiking heroin deaths in the state and reduce the transmission of HIV.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 06, 2017 3 Comments
As the weather gets warmer, public health officials are bracing for more outbreaks of Zika virus infections in this country. Cooler weather temporarily stemmed the spread of the virus, which hit over 5100 Americans in 2016. However, in the interim since my last report on this topic in November, researchers have made a troubling discovery. Based on reports from South America, the pathogen is believed to cause a wide array of neurological birth defects when women become infected when pregnant. Now, reports from women in this country who have given birth after infection confirm the potential health impact.

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 29, 2017 5 Comments
Elizabeth Warren's opinion on healthcare and the single payer option seems to shift with political convenience. It's hard to believe, isn't it? Back in 2012, when being a good Democrat meant defending Obamacare at all costs, she abandoned her prior support for a single payer plan. She got caught in an interview with liberal Boston radio host Jim Braude. Here's a transcript of their conversation via the Weekly Standard:
Elizabeth Warren Supported Single-Payer Before She Opposed It HOST: If you were the tsarina, something like single-payer, government run health care, far lower administrative costs, that sort of thing, would be the Senator Warren prescription, would it not? ELIZABETH WARREN: I think right now what we have to do--I’m serious about this--I think you’ve got to stay with what’s possible. And I think what we’re doing–and look at the dust-up around this–we really need to consolidate our gains around what we’ve got on the table.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 25, 2017 8 Comments
Last year, I noted that once vanquished diseases were emerging across America, in part because of the steady stream of infected immigrants crossing the border. These included the tuberculosis, the historic killer that once once responsive to the antibiotics our medical professionals prepared. However, the influx of refugees with resistant strains of this pathogen is now threatening the quality of our nation's health.
The rise of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) threatens to derail decades of progress in the fight against the disease, experts warn in a new report published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. TB kills more people worldwide every year than any other infectious disease, including HIV/AIDS. In 2015 alone, researchers estimate TB killed 1.8 million people.
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