In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Kennedy-Dodd committee proposal released) Health news (Is Tylenol (acetaminophen) safe to take every day?) Aging (Doctors lack training in care of the elderly) Pop culture (Michael Jackson and Diprivan (propofol), Jackson’s weight, Jackson’s doctor) Health care reform The Senate health committee proposal on health care has been released. Turns… Read more
Tag Archives: health care
Health insurance industry to consumers: You’re financially responsible for your behavior
Source: Courier Times Online Scott Harrington is a professor at Wharton and “adjunct scholar” at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Two weeks ago he wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that gave the standard Republican argument against a public option: It will inevitably lead to a single-payer system. “Private health plans have a strong… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #13
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Use of language to oppose health care reform; Goozner on media and the uninformed electorate; Doctor blames patients; Doctor importunes Obama and Congress; Doctors salaries doubled in Iran; Another Atul Gawande interview; Political scandals and evangelicals) Health care reform There’s an interesting article in the Washington Post on the… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #12
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Bipartisan support looks unlikely; Public option) Health news Medical research grants) Health care reform As members of Congress headed home for a week-long Fourth of July recess, the consensus on health care reform legislation is that it will not be bi-partisan, as Obama and Democrats had hoped. Republicans are… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #11
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Insurance industry practices; Maggie Mahar on insurance; Analysis of the public option’s status) Health news Mid-life migraines update) The Medical profession More on Dr. Arash Hejazi) Foodborne illness Health care reform Ezra Klein has a column in the Washington Post on Wendell Potter’s testimony before Rockefeller’s Commerce Committee (see… Read more
A health insurance executive changes sides
Source: Center for Media and Democracy Wendell Potter is a former executive at health insurance giant Cigna. In testimony before Congress today, he provided an insider’s view of the insurance industry. On his blog he’s posted a moving description of his decision to leave his 20-year career, which had been lucrative and successful, and play… Read more
Health insurance insider speaks out
Source: Cheap health insurance services in India Wendell Potter, a former executive at health insurance giant Cigna, was one of three health care specialists who testified today before the Senate Commerce Committee. You can read the entire transcript of his testimony at The New Republic. Potter began by identifying himself as an insider who had… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #9
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Robert Reich on the public option) Health news (Migraines, Nipple piercing and breast feeding) Obesity politics (TB and the thrifty gene) Medical journalism (Drug company ties to journalists) Health care reform Be sure to see today’s two posts on Wendell Potter, the former health insurance executive who testified today… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #8
Health care reform Wyden-Bennett plan, Fundamental Democrat/Republican differences, Gawande on building from what we have) The Medical profession (Stress vs. balance for doctors, Doctors’ Diaries on NOVA) Health care reform Last week’s figures on cost and coverage from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shifted attention to those health care reform initiatives that are less costly.… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #7
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Public health insurance option, Congressional Budget Office, Optimism in the White House, Doctors and reform, Doctors pay) The Medical profession (What doctors earn) Health care reform Paul Krugman, in the New York Times, writes about health care today with his usual intelligence and trenchant prose. His argument: Democrats who… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #6
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Congressionional Budget Office numbers; Why Maggie Mahar isn’t worried; Kevin MD, Daniel Callahan) Foodborne illness (Cookie dough) Industrialized agriculture (Food Inc.) The risk society (Jodi Picoult novels) Health care reform A recent Ezra Klein Klein column in the Washington Post discussed the bad news this week from the Congressional… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #5
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Health care reform won’t make us healthier) The medical profession (Does the AMA represent doctors?; Does the public trust doctors?) Obesity politics (The cost of healthy eating) The doctor/patient relationship (The effects of malpractice on doctors) Graphic art (Anatomically correct shoes) Video (Sanjay Gupta) Health care reform Ezra Klein… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #4
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Public option; Gawande’s article) Health news (Parkinson’s and pesticide) Sleep (Sleep and mental illness) Social networking technology (The digital brain and higher education) Health care reform The Washington Post reports that there is no ‘public option’ in the Senate’s health care draft. The absence of a “public option” marks… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #3
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Gawande radio interview; Public option) Health news (Bayer and prostate cancer) Obesity politics (Michelle Obama) Social networking technology (Doctors on Twitter and email) Health care reform National Public Radio has an interview with Atul Gawande about his recent New Yorker article. It’s 30 minutes and covers much the same… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #2
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Robert Reich; Blaming doctors; Lobbying Congress; Individual mandate) Foodborne illness (FDA and food safety) Health care reform Lobbyists who oppose the “public option” component of health care reform are spending big bucks. Robert Reich’s latest blog post on health care documents the dollar amounts: $9.8 million from the AMA… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #1advertising, alcohol, doctors, FDA, health care, health news, Obama, pharmaceuticals, tobacco
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Obama’s AMA speech; Underlying issues; David Brooks on Obama; Robert Samuelson’s take; WSJ fiction) Health news (Benefits of alcohol?; Ritalin and unexplained deaths) Tobacco (Litigating over free speech; Is the FDA demoralized) Health care reform The American Medical Association (AMA) came out last week against any government sponsored insurance… Read more
Health care reform: Navigating the maze
Source: Marty Nemko If you need help keeping track of current Congressional efforts to reform health care, check out this website: Side-by-Side Comparison of Major Health Care Reform Proposals. The content is provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent, highly respected organization that studies major health care issues and provides information to policymakers, the… Read more
The imminent collapse of Social Security and Medicare: Truth or propaganda?
Robert Reich, center, with President Obama Source: Zimbio Predictions of the imminent collapse of Social Security and Medicare are so common that the messengers risk being seen as boys who cry wolf. Evidently the media doesn’t worry about this, since they proceed to raise our collective anxiety level on this issue at every opportunity. On… Read more
Gupta vs. Sicko: Are there socially acceptable mistakes?
Among those opposing Obama’s choice of Sanjay Gupta as the next Surgeon General is Adrian Campbell, a Michigan woman who appeared in Michael Moore’s film Sicko. Gupta told his television audience: In Canada, you can be waiting for a long time. A survey of six industrialized nations found that only Canada was worse than the… Read more
Sanjay Gupta a victim of obesity myths?
One group that opposes the nomination of Sanjay Gupta as the next surgeon general is the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), an organization that promotes the interests of the restaurant and food industries. Anyone who suggests eating less can expect criticism from an industry that wants us to eat more. Gupta took on the topic… Read more
Sanjay Gupta, George Lundberg, and Obama’s Enneagram type
Back in November, following a two-hour meeting in Chicago, president-elect Obama offered Sanjay Gupta the position of Surgeon General. (This from a presumably reliable source: Gupta’s mother, Damayanti.) Gupta has been prudently tight-lipped about the appointment ever since the Washington Post broke the story in early January. Gupta, the chief medical correspondent for CNN, discussed… Read more
Science, engineering, and the recession
It was the UK’s Bryan Appleyard who started me thinking about health and the recession. In an article on what to expect in 2009, he interviewed Chris Ruhm, who stands by his 1996 findings that recessions are good for your health. “People get physically healthier and mortality rates fall during bad economic times,” he tells… Read more
Body awareness and the health culture
OK. So the economic downturn is really, really bad. We’re worried about being laid off. We may have already lost our jobs. Even if we’re still employed we have financial worries. And hearing about it all the time on the news gets us down. We start to have physical symptoms of poor health: headaches, muscle… Read more
"Screw You Yahoo"
Losing your job is a powerful stressor that can have a long-term impact on health. A 2006 study by Sullivan and Wachter found that, in the 20 years following the loss of a job, your chances of dying increase by 15 to 20 percent. This makes a lot more sense to me than Chris Ruhm’s… Read more
The economy, stress, and health
In October the American Psychological Association (APA) released its Annual Stress in America Survey. Compared to 2007, the 2008 survey found an increase in stress related to money, the economy, job stability, housing costs, and family health problems. Stress-related symptoms also increased: fatigue, feeling irritable or angry, lying awake at night, lack of motivation, feeling… Read more
An upside to the downturn?
Foreclosures. Layoffs. Retirement savings down the tube. One scary or embarrassing financial disaster after another. Such is life in the Great Recession of 2009. What if anything does this mean for our health? It makes intuitive sense that health would suffer. But some research shows we’re actually ‘healthier’ in economic hard times and that death… Read more
The need for health and the right to health
“We’ve let Reaganistic ‘screw you, I’ve got mine’ thought run us for close to 30 years and we now have a near-depression. Let’s try something new. Let’s give a damn about each other.” Read more
Economic recovery and healthcare reform
Many of the ideas in Clinton’s plan were too complex to be communicated efficiently and effectively. This made political positioning, always difficult, even more delicate. Read more
Death be not visible
“Death is the real inspiring genius or muse of philosophy and for this reason Socrates defined philosophy as thanatoi meletos (rehearsal for death). Indeed without death, there would hardly have been any philosophizing.” Arthur Schopenhauer Read more
Why are US health care costs so high?
“Drugmakers, device makers, and insurers decide which products to develop based not on what patients need, but on what their marketers tell them will sell – and produce the highest profit.” Read more