Medicine
I live in one of the states whose governor decided to refuse cooperating with the federal government on implementing ObamaCare — in Oklahoma. I am also one of many who do not have health care but needs it. My income is not low enough to qualify for Medicaid and not high, enough to afford health care, that is — under the old system.
ObamaCare is the first time I will be able to afford health care. I will still have to pay for part of my health care but at a rate, I can afford. However, my governor, Mary Fallon, does not seem to care much about my health care or others like me. Even though I am a full-time working Oklahoman who pays state taxes, what I need and many other Oklahomans need does not seem to be of a concern to Governor Fallon. Read more
There are two groups of people I would be perfectly happy if they all just disappeared. Like, right now.
1-- Politicians
2-- Clergy/reverends/pastors/whatevers
Even the shittiests, hipsterish of musicians contributes more to positive to society than those two groups of people. Stephanie Meyer has contributed more positive to society than those two groups of people. The fictional characters on the HBO television show 'Girls' (I cant even hate watch that show) have contributed more positive to society than those two groups of people.
Politicians and 'people of god' are useless, stupid creatures that need to get real jobs and contribute to society like everyone else. Read more
Traditional Chinese medicine is highly effective and has been successfully applied worldwide. One of the most popular destinations is acupuncture (acupuncture). Its origins lie in ancient times and tested thousands of years of experience in practice.
A few words about the history of Read more
The U.S. is widely known to have the highest health care expenditures per capita in the world, and not just by a little, but by a lot. I'm not going to go into the reasons for this so much, other than to point out that how to rein in these costs has long been the proverbial political hot potato. Any attempt to limit spending or apply evidence-based guidelines to care runs into a buzz saw of criticism. Read more
It just occurred to me that, even though there was news about it, I never mentioned what's happened recently with respect to California bill AB2109. As you might recall, I wrote about this bill about four weeks ago. In brief, this bill, if passed into law, would require that California parents seeking a "personal belief" exemption for vaccines to meet with a physician and have a physician sign off on what is more or less an informed consent form stating that the parents had been informed of the risks and benefits of vaccines and, more importantly for purposes of the personal belief exemption, the risks (many) and benefits (virtually none) of not vaccinating. Read more
You may have heard about Planned Parenthood turning down Tucker Max's 500k charitable donation on the grounds his misogynistic past marred the gift.
Now PETA is asking for the donation. Read more
When the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act passed Congress and signed into law by President Obama, you would think the mandate for all Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty, was something that came from the deep bowels of Liberalism. In fact it was originally a conservative idea and has been until Obama and a Democrat-controlled congress took it up. Read more
This week, the Supreme Court is hearing a case that can only be described as historic. Any of you out there (in the U.S. anyway; I realize that my readership is international) who have paid even a passing attention to the news can't help but avoid reporting, debate, and polemics related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which is often disparagingly referred to as "Obamacare." If the law is upheld, or even if most of the law is upheld, it will radically reshape health insurance in this country. Having spent 13 years in the trenches at cancer centers that see a high percentage of uninsured patients, I've come to the view that I hope the law is given a chance to go into full effect, because what we were doing before sure wasn't working. Read more
The NYTimes reporting suggests a 5-4 split against ACA is likely:
Justice Kennedy, along with Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. all asked questions suggesting that they had a problem with the constitutionality of the mandate requiring most Americans to buy insurance. Justice Clarence Thomas, as usual, did not ask any questions, but he is widely expected to vote to overturn the mandate.
As does CNN's Toobin's analysis: Read more
In the continual spread of assaults on women's reproductive freedom in the wake of the 2010 tea party movement, another state, Idaho, is legislating women receive unnecessary and invasive medical procedures prior to obtaining abortion.
This is part of an unprecedented effort at the state level to restrict reproductive rights, and in 2011 a record number of these measures have passed. Read more
In a debate on the floor of the Georgia State house over a bill to force women to bring all pregnancies after 20 weeks to term, even in cases of dead or non-viable fetus, this Georgia representative reaches a new low. State Rep Terry England seems to be suggesting pigs and cows do it, why can't humans?
Rep. Terry England compares women to cows, pigs and chickens. from Bryan Long on Vimeo. Read more
I don't know what it is about the beginning of a year. I don't know if it's confirmation bias or real, but it sure seems that something big happens early every year in the antivaccine world. Consider. As I pointed out back in February 2009, in rapid succession Brian Deer reported that Andrew Wakefield had not only had undisclosed conflicts of interest regarding the research that he did for his now infamous 1998 Lancet paper but that he had falsified data. Read more
We've discussed it before, why are costs so much higher in US healthcare compared to other countries? The Washington Post has a pointless article which seems to answer with the tautology costs are high because healthcare in America costs more. How much more? Well, we spend nearly twice as much per capita as the next nearest country while failing to provide universal coverage:
Read more
Despite losing a vote in the Senate yesterday, congressional Republicans are doubling down on their efforts to let employers to pick and choose which health services are covered by their insurance plans under the new health care law.
TPM:
“This fight is not over,” said Senate GOP Conference Vice Chair Roy Blunt (R-MO), the author of the amendment that was tabled 51-48 on Thursday. “I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers of Congress to protect the rights that make our nation great.” Read more
