Healthcare: The insurance companies have been "taxing" you for half a century and you take it in stride.

Get real, Americans! | You have been ripped off! | By Mary Pitt

12/27/07 "ICH" -- -- At long last, the age-old problem of health care for the poor and near-poor is being discussed in open forum. The problem has existed since the ethos of class differentiation was begun with the invention of wampum. In this modern age, it is only through the acivities of individual greed that it continues, despite the glaring fact that one solution is the only alternative.

Mitt Romney's Massachusetts experiment has already been exposed as a failure as will be any other program for "mandatory insurance". As with the assistance that is provided to the elderly holders of policies for Medicare Part D, recipients of the plan must be totally destitute in order to be free of the required "deductible and co-payment" muddle. Even if they have "insurance coverage" they still cannot afford the cash outlay that is necessary in order to obtain the necessary treatment.
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Half a century ago, a good businessman named Henry Kaiser joined other automobile and equipment manufacturers in ceasing the making of their former product in order to make the needed equipment that the country needed in order to effectively engage in World War II. He built huge shipyards on the West Coast and people poured in from all over the beleaguered nation to work in them. Soon it was apparent that these folks were physically devastated by the medical neglect, malnutrition, and other maladies inflicted by the Great Depression. The absenteeism troubled him until he reached one infallible conclusion: "It is less costly to keep people healthy than to get them well once they become ill."
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There are many arguments from those who oppose the Universal Health Care plans as proposed by Dennis Kucinich and others. One is that it would raise taxes. Horrors! Have you computed the amount that you pay in insurance premiums each year? The insurance companies have been "taxing" you for half a century and you take it in stride. The added taxes to cover your health care would not be likely to be more than you are paying now to the insurance company and the coverage would be better.

Another is that it would "destroy an industry". Perhaps an unfeeling industry should be brought to account for the exhorbitant profits that they have amassed as the result of denying care, requiring co-payments and deductibles to deter people from fully utilizing their benefits, and refusing coverage to "high-risk individuals". Let them go back to insuring lives and property, cars, houses, and business liabilities.

The third argument against free universal health care is that it would cost too much. This argument is the least effective when viewed in the light of realism. The insurance companies declare an annual profit of some Ten Billion Dollars! How many of the 40% of Americans without adequate health care could be kept healthy by the addition of that amount to be paid to physicians, hospitals, and pharmacists?
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... As they "cream the market", insuring only the healthy and discontinuing coverage for those with serious illnesses, those left uninsured must liquidate their homes and other assets to pay for their own medical care until they are destitute and qualify for Medicaid and welfare.

That is why our nation, which spends more for health care than any other can only rank 45th in the quality of care. Those who can afford it have access to the most modern technology and life-saving procedures where those who cannot are left with medical care that is reminiscent of the nineteenth century. This is the great shame of our vaunted democracy where we expound that "all men are created equal". The big lie is exposed when you learn that the rich get the best while the poor are shunted aside to die of neglect. When a plan is suggested that would care for the poor while costing the rich no more, we owe it to ourselves to give it serious consideration.

2002: combined profits of top 10 drug companies EXCEEDED combined profits of other 490 Fortune 500 companies

How Scientific Is Modern Medicine? | By Dana Ullman, North Atlantic Books | Posted on December 3, 2007, Printed on December 30, 2007 | http://www.alternet.org/story/68065/

The following is an excerpt from The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy, by Dana Ullman.
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In 2002, the combined profits ($35.9 billion) of the ten largest drug companies in the Fortune 500 were more than the combined profits ($33.7 billion) of the remaining 490 companies together (Angell, 2004, 11).1 The only reason these drug companies did not maintain this shocking financial advantage is that the oil companies' profits have increased considerably with the Iraq War, thus raising the 490 non-drug companies' profits slightly higher. But then again, one would assume that the profits of 490 of the largest companies in the world would be substantially more than just ten companies in one commercial field. This economic information is important, even essential, because learning how to separate the "science" of medicine from the business of medicine has never been more difficult. The combined efforts of the drug companies and the medical profession, which together may be called the "medicalindustrial complex," have been wonderfully effective in convincing consumers worldwide that modern medicine is the most scientific discipline that has ever existed. Before discussing homeopathy, it is important, if not necessary, to raise basic questions about what "scientific"medicine is -- and is not.

Physicians today rarely run drug companies. Instead, businessmen run them. It is, therefore, not surprising that Marcia Angell,MD, a Harvard professor of medicine and former editor of the famed New England Journal of Medicine , wrote:

Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical industry has moved very far from its original high purpose of discovering and producing useful new drugs. ... Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the U.S. Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself. (Levi, 2006)

There is big big money to be made in drug sales, and brilliant marketing has led too many of us to ignore or excuse this bully side of medicine.
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Sadly and strangely, physicians do not see that there is something fundamentally wrong with the present medical model. Instead, once an old drug is found to be ineffective or dangerous, doctors and drug companies simply assert the "scientifically proven" efficacy of a new drug. Despite this recurrent pattern, doctors are prescribing drugs at record-breaking rates:

• In 2005 the volume of prescription drugs sold in the U.S. was equal to 12.3 drugs for every man, woman, and child in that year alone (compared to 1994, when 7.9 prescription drugs per year were on average purchased by every American). (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006)
• According to a 2005 study, 44 percent of all Americans take at least one prescription drug and 17 percent take three or more prescription drugs (This number increased 40 percent between 1994 and 2000). ( Medscape , 2005)

The extremely high numbers listed above are considerably higher if one adds in the over-the-counter drugs that doctors recommend or that patients take on their own.
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nation’s second-largest physician group - endorsed a single-payer health-care system yesterday

Tuesday, December 4, 2007 by The Philadelphia Inquirer | American College of Physicians Endorse Single-Payer | by Stacey Burling

The Philadelphia-based American College of Physicians - the nation’s second-largest physician group - endorsed a single-payer health-care system yesterday.

But the organization stopped short of saying that a single-payer system like Medicare, in which the government would get and pay most bills, is the best way to achieve universal health coverage.
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After analyzing health care in the United States and 12 other industrialized countries, the group concluded that universal coverage had been successfully achieved elsewhere through single-payer and pluralistic systems.

Either could work here, the report said. The pluralistic system gives consumers more choice, but also leads to higher administrative costs and inequalities. Because it is what the United States already has, it is less of a political challenge. “It’s like remodeling your house to make it better for your whole family,” Dale said.

Single-payer has lower administrative costs, but is not politically popular, he said. “I’m not a political analyst. I’m just a doctor,” Dale said. “But I think there will probably be resistance to that. That’s why we don’t have it now.” He said his group added it to its proposal to “heighten the debate.” ...

FDA so underfunded, consumers are put at risk

Report: FDA so underfunded, consumers are put at risk | Updated 21h 11m ago | By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY

The Food and Drug Administration is so underfunded and understaffed that it's putting U.S. consumers at risk in terms of food and drug safety, an advisory panel to the FDA says in a report to be discussed Monday.

The report — developed in the past year by experts from academia, industry and other government agencies — delivers a scathing review of the state of the FDA, which regulates 80% of the nation's food, its drugs, vaccines and medical devices.

The report details a "plethora of inadequacies" in the agency, including:

•Inadequate inspections of manufacturers, noting that foodmakers, for example, are inspected about once every 10 years.

•A "badly broken" food-import system and food supply "that grows riskier each year." In the past 35 years, FDA inspections of the food supply have dropped 78% due to soaring numbers of products and inadequate FDA funding.
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William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner who supports the Coalition for a Stronger FDA, says the report stands out because of the "intensity of the feelings" expressed by the subcommittee.

"These people were horrified by what they found," he says. While the subcommittee was supposed to look ahead to where the FDA needs to be, Hubbard says it came away concluding that "it cannot even do its job now."

healthy people could choose not to buy insurance — then sign up for it if they developed health problems later

Mandates and Mudslinging | By PAUL KRUGMAN | Published: November 30, 2007

From the beginning, advocates of universal health care were troubled by the incompleteness of Barack Obama’s plan, which unlike those of his Democratic rivals wouldn’t cover everyone. But they were willing to cut Mr. Obama slack on the issue, assuming that in the end he would do the right thing.
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The central question is whether there should be a health insurance “mandate” — a requirement that everyone sign up for health insurance, even if they don’t think they need it. The Edwards and Clinton plans have mandates; the Obama plan has one for children, but not for adults.

Why have a mandate? The whole point of a universal health insurance system is that everyone pays in, even if they’re currently healthy, and in return everyone has insurance coverage if and when they need it.

And it’s not just a matter of principle. As a practical matter, letting people opt out if they don’t feel like buying insurance would make insurance substantially more expensive for everyone else.

Here’s why: under the Obama plan, as it now stands, healthy people could choose not to buy insurance — then sign up for it if they developed health problems later. Insurance companies couldn’t turn them away, because Mr. Obama’s plan, like those of his rivals, requires that insurers offer the same policy to everyone. ...

Trimming the salt content in processed and restaurant foods by half could save up to 150,000 lives a year ...

UPDATE 1-US FDA mulls stricter regulation of salt in food | Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:18pm EST | By Kim Dixon

COLLEGE PARK, Md., Nov 29 (Reuters) - Public health advocates on Thursday called for tighter restrictions on salt content in food, arguing that cutting the nutrient's overuse by most Americans could save thousands of lives annually.
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Trimming the salt content in processed and restaurant foods by half could save up to 150,000 lives a year by reducing heart-related disease, according to the consumer group, whose petition to the FDA prompted the public hearing.

"I am sure no one would tolerate so many deaths from airline crashes, so why tolerate it from food?" Dr. Stephen Havas, vice president for science and public health at the American Medical Association, said.

The CSPI, backed by several public health groups, wants the FDA to beef up labeling, require manufacturers to cut salt in packaged foods, and revoke salt's "generally recognized as safe" status, subjecting it to stricter regulations as a food additive. ...

27% interest on the portion of your medical bill not covered by insurance? That's what some Americans are facing ...

Medical Bills On SteroidsDECEMBER 3, 2007 | The Business Week -- News You Need to Know | Harry Mauer & Cristina Linblad

How would you like to pay 27% interest on the portion of your medical bill not covered by insurance? That's what some Americans are facing. Hospitals and other health-care providers are converting bills of uninsured and underinsured patients into consumer debts in a bid to boost payment. Finance outfits, including big banks and credit-card companies, acquire the debts for a discount, then charge double-digit rates on past due bills. Hospitals get paid quickly, but the practice can leave lower-income patients in a worse financial bind.

hardly an anomaly: Medicare pays more than double for oxygen equipment ... $8,280 vs. $3,500

Golden Opportunities | Oxygen Suppliers Fight to Keep a Medicare Boon | By CHARLES DUHIGG | Published: November 30, 2007

Millions of people with respiratory diseases have relied on oxygen equipment, delivered to their homes, to help them breathe. A basic setup, including three years of deliveries of small oxygen tanks, can be bought from pharmacies and other retailers for as little as $3,500, or about $100 a month.

Unless, that is, the buyer is Medicare, the government health care program for older Americans.

Despite enormous buying power, Medicare pays far more. Rather than buy oxygen equipment outright, Medicare rents it for 36 months before patients take ownership, and pays for a variety of services that critics say are often unnecessary.

The total cost to taxpayers and patients is as much as $8,280, or more than double what somebody might spend at a drugstore.

The high expense of oxygen equipment — which cost Medicare over $1.8 billion last year — is hardly an anomaly.

Medicare spends billions of dollars each year on products and services that are available at far lower prices from retail pharmacies and online stores, according to an analysis of federal data by The New York Times. The government agency has paid above-market costs for dozens of items, a comparison of Medicare figures with retail catalogs finds.

For example, last year Medicare spent more than $21 million on pumps to help older and disabled men attain erections, paying about $450 for the same device that is available online for as little as $108. Even for a simple walking cane, which can be purchased online for about $11, the government pays $20, according to government data.

These widespread price discrepancies, including those for oxygen services, have been noted in dozens of regulatory reports.

But when officials and politicians have tried to cut these costs, they have often encountered a powerful foe: the companies that sell these devices, who ask their elderly customers to serve, in effect, as unpaid lobbyists, calling and writing to their representatives in Congress, protesting at rallies, and even participating in political attacks against individual lawmakers who take on the issue.

the refusal of patients to die according to actuarial schedules has led the federal government to demand that hospices ... repay hundreds of millions

In Hospice Care, Longer Lives Mean Money Lost | By KEVIN SACK | Published: November 27, 2007
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Over the last eight years, the refusal of patients to die according to actuarial schedules has led the federal government to demand that hospices exceeding reimbursement limits repay hundreds of millions of dollars to Medicare.

The charges are assessed retrospectively, so in most cases the money has long since been spent on salaries, medicine and supplies. After absorbing huge assessments for several years, often by borrowing at high rates, a number of hospice providers are bracing for a new round that they fear may shut their doors.

One is Hometown Hospice, which has been providing care here since 2003 to some of the most destitute residents of Wilcox County, the poorest place in Alabama.

The locally owned, for-profit agency, which serves about 60 patients, mostly in their homes, had to repay the government $900,000, or 27 percent of its revenues, from its first two years of operation, said Tanya O. Walker-Butts, a co-owner. Its profits were wiped out in the time it took to open the demand letters, Ms. Walker-Butts said. ...
In the early days of the Medicare hospice benefit, which was designed for those with less than six months to live, nearly all patients were cancer victims, who tended to die relatively quickly and predictably once curative efforts were abandoned.

But in the last five years, hospice use has skyrocketed among patients with less predictable trajectories, like those with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Those patients now form a majority of hospice consumers, and their average stays are far longer — 86 days for Alzheimer’s patients, for instance, compared with 44 for those with lung cancer, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. ..

This is unsurprising when you consider the surge in interest in health policy among young people, one-third of whom are uninsured.

Young and uninsured turn to ... Facebook | By: Ben Adler | Nov 26, 2007 07:01 PM EST

In the year between his graduation from college and his first year in law school, Jeff Traylor, 25, worked in a restaurant and was similar to approximately 44 million Americans in this respect: He had no health insurance.

As a waiter, Traylor worked fewer than 30 hours a week and thus did not qualify for insurance as a full-time employee.

“I had to go to low-income clinics,” said Traylor, now a second-year student at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore.

“That’s $130 for a visit to get antibiotics for a sinus infection, plus the cost of the drug. I could afford it. But some people cannot.” ...
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Spurred by his own experience and by his concern for the uninsured, Traylor created a group on the social networking site Facebook to promote universal health care.

His is one of more than 20 groups on Facebook dedicated to advocating expanded government health coverage, and many of them have hundreds of members.
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This is unsurprising when you consider the surge in interest in health policy among young people, one-third of whom are uninsured. ...
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And the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan institution that researches health care in the U.S., found that 42 percent of young people are very worried about being able to afford the health services they think they need. ....

we pay hospitals and doctors more than most other countries do ... minor roles to drug costs, malpractice and aging of baby boom ...

The High Cost of Health Care | Published: November 25, 2007

The relentless, decades-long rise in the cost of health care has left many Americans struggling to pay their medical bills. Workers complain that they cannot afford high premiums for health insurance. Patients forgo recommended care rather than pay the out-of-pocket costs. Employers are cutting back or eliminating health benefits, forcing millions more people into the ranks of the uninsured. And state and federal governments strain to meet the expanding costs of public programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

Health care costs are far higher in the United States than in any other advanced nation, whether measured in total dollars spent, as a percentage of the economy, or on a per capita basis. And health costs here have been rising significantly faster than the overall economy or personal incomes for more than 40 years, a trend that cannot continue forever.

It is the worst long-term fiscal crisis facing the nation, ...
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Varied and Deep-Rooted. Contrary to popular beliefs, this is not a problem driven mainly by the aging of the baby boom generation, or the high cost of prescription drugs, or medical malpractice litigation that spawns defensive medicine. Those issues often dominate political discourse, but they have played relatively minor roles in driving up medical spending in this country and abroad ...
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This is mostly because we pay hospitals and doctors more than most other countries do. We rely more on costly specialists, who overuse advanced technologies, like CT scans and M.R.I. machines, and who resort to costly surgical or medical procedures a lot more than doctors in other countries do. Perverse insurance incentives entice doctors and patients to use expensive medical services more than is warranted. And our fragmented array of insurers and providers eats up a lot of money in administrative costs, marketing expenses and profits that do not afflict government-run systems abroad. ...
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The Solutions

Geography. Pioneering studies by researchers at Dartmouth have shown enormous disparities in expenditures on health care from one region to another with no discernible difference in health outcomes. Doctors in high-cost areas use hospitals, costly technology and platoons of consulting physicians a lot more often than doctors in low-cost areas, yet their patients, on average, fare no better.

Stick to What Works. The sad truth is that less than half of all medical care in the United States is supported by good evidence that it works, ...

Managed Care. ...

Information Technologies. The American health care system lags well behind other sectors of the economy — and behind foreign medical systems — in adopting computers, electronic health records and information-sharing technologies that can greatly boost productivity. There is little doubt that widespread computerization could greatly reduce the paperwork burden on doctors and hospitals, head off medication errors, and reduce the costly repetition of diagnostic tests as patients move from one doctor to another. ...

Prevention. ... Preventive medicine actually costs money ... and it is not clear how soon, or even whether, substantial savings will show up. ...

Disease Management. ... In some initial trials it has cut costs, in others not.

Drug Prices. Compared with the residents of other countries, Americans pay much more for brand-name prescription drugs, less for generic and over-the-counter drugs, and roughly the same prices for biologics. ...

Who Picks Up the Tab?

Pay Providers Less. ... many experts believe it should be possible to tap into the vast flow of money sluicing through hospitals, nursing homes and other health care facilities to find savings.

Emphasize Primary Care. ... could get better health results, possibly for less cost, if we changed reimbursement formulas and medical education programs to reward and produce more primary care doctors and fewer specialists inclined to proliferate high-cost services. ...

Skin in the Game. The solution favored by many conservatives is to force consumers to shell out more money when they seek medical care so that they will think harder about whether it is really necessary. ... Most health care spending is racked up by a small percentage of individuals whose bills are so high they are no longer subject to cost sharing; they will hardly be deterred from expensive care they desperately need. Moreover, few consumers have the competence or knowledge to second-guess a doctor’s recommendations.

Single Payer. ... Such a system would let the government offset the price-setting strength of the medical and pharmaceutical industries, eliminate much of the waste due to a multiplicity of private insurance plans, and greatly cut administrative costs. ... But a single-payer system is no panacea for the cost problem — witness Medicare’s own cost troubles — and the approach has limited political support. ...

[Kidney Dialysis firms] want to make patients wait longer before they can get access to the program ... charge 3x for that year ....

That’ll Cost a Kidney: How a Little-Noticed Vote in Congress Could Raise Workers’ Healthcare Costs Even Higher | By Juan Basile, AlterNet. Posted November 17, 2007.

Congress is on the verge of letting corporate lobbyists change how a critical treatment is delivered, reducing access to affordable care just so two corporations can boost their bottom line.
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Usually, patients need to be 65 years old before they qualify for Medicare. But in 1972, because the high cost of dialysis put care out of reach for all but the wealthiest patients, Congress made the historic decision to extend Medicare coverage to dialysis patients of all ages. But patients who need dialysis have to stay on private insurance for 30 months before they are eligible for Medicare. DaVita and Fresenius want to make patients wait longer-another year-before they can get access to the program.
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It's estimated that dialysis providers like DaVita and Fresenius would cash in a $2 billion windfall over the next decade if they succeed in persuading Congress to make patients wait longer for affordable care. ...
It's not hard to figure out why DaVita and Fresenius want to keep kidney patients out of Medicare. These companies can typically charge private insurers-and ultimately employers and workers-nearly three times more than they can charge Medicare for the same services. ...

insurers are unnecessary middlemen that drain nearly one third of our healthcare costs without ever laying hands on the patient ...

November 22, 2007 at 10:42:31 | Health care and the free market | by Jack Lohman | http://www.opednews.com
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First, politicians prefer “the free market” even though it is the free market that took over in 1994 that has gotten us into today’s mess. They favor “privatization” because, they argue, it “adds competition and controls costs.”

That’s pure hogwash. It doesn’t.

Politicians prefer privatization for one and only one reason: private companies can give campaign contributions and public entities cannot. Just ask those who pocket the money from the insurance and healthcare industries but never get a penny from Medicare.

Politicians know why they prefer privatization, and you should too. The free market makes them money and Medicare doesn’t.
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But in the healthcare market, insurers are unnecessary middlemen that drain nearly one third of our healthcare costs without ever laying hands on the patient. And they are protected by the politicians whose campaigns they help fund.

We don’t need mandated insurance — as Massachusetts has done and some politicians support – we need mandated health care. We must totally eliminate the 31% industry waste that is blocking this reform.
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Medicare isn’t perfect, and it clearly must reign in abuse and overuse. But the private system has even more abuse and overuse because the penalties are far less than those at the federal level. ..

Depleted Uranium: Basra, Iraq report a sevenfold increase in childhood cancer and a sevenfold increase in gross congenital abnormalities ...

Radioactive Ammunition Fired in Middle East May Claim More Lives Than Hiroshima and Nagasaki | Sherwood Ross | November 19, 2007

By firing radioactive ammunition, the U.S., U.K., and Israel may have triggered a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East that, over time, will prove deadlier than the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan.

So much ammunition containing depleted uranium(DU) has been fired, asserts nuclear authority Leuren Moret, "The genetic future of the Iraqi people for the most part, is destroyed."

"More than ten times the amount of radiation released during atmospheric testing (of nuclear bombs) has been released from depleted uranium weaponry since 1991," Moret writes, including radioactive ammunition fired by Israeli troops in Palestine.
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Moret, a Berkeley, Calif., Environmental Commissioner and past president of the Association for Women Geoscientists, says, "For every genetic defect that we can see now, in future generations there are thousands more that will be expressed."

She adds, "the (Iraq) environment now is completely radioactive."

Dr. Helen Caldicott, the prominent anti-nuclear crusader, has written: "Much of the DU is in cities such as Baghdad, where half the population of 5 million people are children who played in the burned-out tanks and on the sandy, dusty ground."

"Children are 10 to 20 times more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults," Caldicott wrote. "My pediatric colleagues in Basra, where this ordnance was used in 1991, report a sevenfold increase in childhood cancer and a sevenfold increase in gross congenital abnormalities," she wrote in her book, "Nuclear Power is not the Answer"(The New Press). ...

same company kicked out all the Medicaid patients from their Oregon last year ... now Oregon has law that prohibits such practices

Kicking out old people because they’re on Medicaid? | By: bluegal on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 2:09 PM - PST

Eleven residents of Victoria House in Port Townsend, Washington State, (some in their 90s) are being evicted from the assisted living facility with 90 days notice. Why? Because the Victoria House management company, has decided to stop accepting Medicaid, and there is no law in Washington that makes them have to stick with their agreements with tenants.

Yup. They can just kick ‘em out.

The same company kicked out all the Medicaid patients from their Oregon facilities last year. Community action got together, and now Oregon has a law, like the one in Illinois, that prohibits such practices.

The company has the Orwellian name of “Assisted Living Concepts” and their motto is “Life Just Got Easier”. No, really. And this is a deliberate business decision on the part of a company that says they are committed to eldercare. ...

"These kids don't walk in with colds and scrapes anymore," ... "They walk in with pneumonia and other communicable diseases.

Children without health insurance lose out on learning at school | By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers | Sunday, November 18, 2007

WASHINGTON — While Congress and President Bush squabble over health insurance for low-income children, school officials nationwide are scrambling each day to find affordable medical care so that sick and needy students can continue to learn.

Growing numbers of uninsured children have made it harder for educators to focus on classroom achievement without first addressing the medical needs of their students who lack health insurance or dental coverage.
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... The boy had become a behavioral problem and missed more than 50 days of school when he could no longer get the drug after his mother's insurance expired. ...

In New Prairie, Wis., school social workers got the local Lions Club to provide corrective eyewear for a nearsighted fifth-grader whose parents had no insurance. ...

And in West Palm Beach, Fla., high school principal Nathan Collins persuaded the local school board to help fund a full-time, school-based health clinic because so many of his uninsured students were missing school because they couldn't get medical care.
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Wells, who's now a school health supervisor for the Department of Health in Manchester, N.H., said she'd like Bush and lawmakers who oppose the bill to visit a school health clinic themselves.

"These kids don't walk in with colds and scrapes anymore," Wells said. "They walk in with pneumonia and other communicable diseases. It's hard to realize how difficult it is for them not to have the appropriate care. You have to see sick kids to understand what it's like." ...

Cannabis compound 'halts cancer'

Monday, 19 November 2007 | Cannabis compound 'halts cancer'

A compound found in cannabis may stop breast cancer spreading throughout the body, US scientists believe.

The California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute team are hopeful that cannabidiol or CBD could be a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy.
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Dr Joanna Owens of Cancer Research UK said: "This research is at a very early stage.

"The findings will need to be followed up with clinical trials in humans to see if the CBD is safe, and whether the beneficial effects can be replicated.

"Several cancer drugs based on plant chemicals are already used widely, such as vincristine - which is derived from a type of flower called Madagascar Periwinkle and is used to treat breast and lung cancer. It will be interesting to see whether CBD will join them." ...

‘Safe’ Uranium That Left a Town Contaminated ... use of [DU- Depleted Uranium] weapons may be a war crime.

November 18, 2007 by The Observer (UK) | ‘Safe’ Uranium That Left a Town Contaminated | by David Rose in Colonie, New York

[NOTE: THOUSANDS OF TONS were used in tank shells in IRAQ ... ed.]

They were told depleted uranium was not hazardous. Now, 23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers and residents have cancer - and experts say their suffering shows the use of such weapons may be a war crime.
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The US federal government and the firm that ran the factory, National Lead (NL) Industries, have been assuring former workers and residents around the 18-acre site for decades that, although it is true that the plant used to produce unacceptable levels of radioactive pollution, it was not a serious health hazard.

Now, in a development with potentially devastating implications not only for Colonie but also for the future use of some of the West’s most powerful weapon systems, that claim is being challenged. In a paper to be published in the next issue of the scientific journal Science of the Total Environment, a team led by Professor Randall Parrish of Leicester University reports the results of a three-year study of Colonie, funded by Britain’s Ministry of Defense.

Parrish’s team has found that DU contamination, which remains radioactive for millions of years, is in effect impossible to eradicate, not only from the environment but also from the bodies of humans. Twenty-three years after production ceased they tested the urine of five former workers. All are still contaminated with DU. So were 20 per cent of people tested who had spent at least 10 years living near the factory when it was still working, including Ciarfello.

The small sample size precludes the drawing of statistical conclusions, the journal paper says. But to find DU at all after so long a period is ’significant, since no previous study has documented evidence of DU exposure more than 20 years prior… [this] indicates that the body burden of uranium must still be significant, whether retained in lungs, lymphatic system, kidneys or bone’. The team is now testing more individuals. ...
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TV footage shot in Baghdad in 2003 shows children playing in the remains of tanks coated with thick, black DU oxide, while there have long been claims that the DU shells that destroyed Saddam Hussein’s tanks in the 1991 Gulf war were responsible for high rates of cancer in places such as Basra. ...

Democrat John Edwards: call to end health benefits for top politicians who don't approve a universal health care plan within six months of election

Edwards has new commercial in Iowa | Tue Nov 13, 7:35 AM ET

DES MOINES, Iowa - Democrat John Edwards will begin airing new campaign advertisements Tuesday focusing on his call to end health benefits for top politicians who don't approve a universal health care plan within six months of the next president taking office.

"When I'm president I'm going to say to members of Congress and members of my administration, including my Cabinet: I'm glad that you have health care coverage and your family has health care coverage," Edwards says in the new spot airing in Iowa. "But if you don't pass universal health care by July of 2009 — in six months — I'm going to use my power as president to take your health care away from you." ...

One of the state's largest health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many individual policyholders were dropped, money saved

Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders | By Lisa Girion, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer | November 9, 2007

One of the state's largest health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many individual policyholders were dropped and how much money was saved.

Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents disclosed Thursday showed.

The revelation that the health plan had cancellation goals and bonuses comes amid a storm of controversy over the industry-wide but long-hidden practice of rescinding coverage after expensive medical treatments have been authorized.

These cancellations have been the recent focus of intense scrutiny by lawmakers, state regulators and consumer advocates. Although these "rescissions" are only a small portion of the companies' overall business, they typically leave sick patients with crushing medical bills and no way to obtain needed treatment. ...
...
The documents show that in 2002, the company's goal for Barbara Fowler, Health Net's senior analyst in charge of rescission reviews, was 15 cancellations a month. She exceeded that, rescinding 275 policies that year -- a monthly average of 22.9.

More recently, her goals were expressed in financial terms. Her supervisor described 2003 as a "banner year" for Fowler because the company avoided about "$6 million in unnecessary health care expenses" through her rescission of 301 policies -- one more than her performance goal. ...

Healthcare: apologists for the status quo offer a barrage of excuses for our system’s miserable performance

Health Care Excuses | By PAUL KRUGMAN | Published: November 9, 2007

The United States spends far more on health care per person than any other nation. Yet we have lower life expectancy than most other rich countries. Furthermore, every other advanced country provides all its citizens with health insurance; only in America is a large fraction of the population uninsured or underinsured.

You might think that these facts would make the case for major reform of America’s health care system — reform that would involve, among other things, learning from other countries’ experience — irrefutable. Instead, however, apologists for the status quo offer a barrage of excuses for our system’s miserable performance. ...

Excuse No. 1: No insurance, no problem. ... “After all, you just go to an emergency room.” ...

Excuse No. 2: It’s the cheeseburgers. ... Overeating and teenage sex, not the huge overhead of America’s private health insurance companies — the United States spends almost six times as much on health care administration as other advanced countries — are the source of our problems. ... those of the McKinsey Global Institute, say that diseases that are associated with obesity and other lifestyle-related problems play, at most, a minor role in high U.S. health care costs

Excuse No. 3: 2007 is better than 1950. ... It’s as if you went to a store to buy a DVD player, and the salesman told you not to worry about the fact that his prices are twice those of his competitors — after all, the machines on offer at his store are a lot better than they were five years ago. ...

Excuse No. 4: Socialized medicine! Socialized medicine! ... Rudy Giuliani’s fake numbers on prostate cancer — which, by the way, he still refuses to admit were wrong — were the latest entry in a long, dishonorable tradition of peddling scare stories about the evils of “government run” health care. ... The reality is that the best foreign health care systems, especially those of France and Germany, do as well or better than the U.S. system on every dimension, while costing far less money. ..

As patients and businesses realize they can save up to 80 percent on pricey medical procedures, the medical travel industry is booming.

A Cut Below: Americans Look Abroad for Health Care | By MARK REPASKY | Aug. 29, 2006

As U.S. Health Care Costs Rise, More Americans Head Abroad for Treatment
...
More and more Americans are looking across the border and overseas to get their medicine. Jeff Schult, author of "Beauty from Afar," a guide to medical tourism, estimates that more than 100,000 Americans a year travel beyond the boarder for cosmetic procedures alone.

In 2005, for example, Bumrungrad Hospital in Thailand served more than 50,000 American patients, a 30 percent increase from the previous year. Thailand is just one of the countries where foreign patients have flocked. India, Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico all market themselves as medical destinations, according to Schult.
...
Traveling abroad for medical procedures isn't new. For years, people have voyaged to exotic locals for aesthetic procedures -- a little nip and tuck between some rest and relaxation. But now the number of Americans leaving the country for medically necessary procedures has taken off too.

"The medical tourism model has really been turned around as the health care crisis looms larger and larger," said Dr. Matt Fontana, the chief medical officer for GlobalChoice Healthcare, a medical tourism booking company in Albuquerque, N.M. "People are saying, 'I'll pick the procedure and then I'll pick the destination.'"

As patients and businesses realize they can save up to 80 percent on pricey medical procedures, the medical travel industry is booming. ...

lobbying juggernaut that helped kill Clinton's health plan, plans to announce today that [it is] promoting access to affordable healthcare for all

Unlikely alliance forming on healthcare | By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer | November 1, 2007

The top small business group, which helped doom a 1990s overhaul, is joining a diverse coalition in trying to forestall polarization.

WASHINGTON -- The leading small-business organization, a lobbying juggernaut that helped kill President Clinton's health plan in the 1990s, plans to announce today that it is signing up with a diverse political coalition promoting access to affordable healthcare for all.

The National Federation of Independent Business will join AARP, the Service Employees International Union and the Business Roundtable -- which represents chief executives of major companies -- in an umbrella group called Divided We Fail. The effort is aimed at ensuring that healthcare and retirement security are at the top of the presidential candidates' domestic agendas next year.
...
"Access to affordable health insurance is the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 issue for small business across the United States," said Todd Stottlemyer, president of the National Federation of Independent Business. "For us not to be at the table in any serious conversations makes no sense. There really can't be a national debate about healthcare unless small business has a seat at the table."

The NFIB and AARP were on opposite sides of the hard-fought healthcare reform debate of 1993-94. The small-business group, with about 350,000 members and representatives in practically every congressional district, proved to be one of the more formidable adversaries of the Clinton plan. Its members were particularly incensed over a proposal that would have required most employers to contribute to the cost of coverage. ...

Outstanding healthcare: The report found that the United States stands out because of its expense and people's dissatisfaction.

US healthcare comes up short in survey of 7 nations | Thu Nov 1, 2007 | By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Americans spend double what people in other industrialized countries do on health care, but have more trouble seeing doctors, are the victims of more errors and go without treatment more often, according to a report released on Thursday.

Patients in the Netherlands struggle the most with paperwork, while British and Canadian citizens wait the longest for elective surgery, the Commonwealth Fund reports in the journal Health Affairs.

The report, published on the Internet at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/26/6/w717T, provides an annual comparison from the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that supports research on health systems.
...
The report said Americans spent $6,697 per capita on healthcare in 2005, or 16 percent of gross domestic product. All the other countries spent less than half of that -- $3,128 in Australia or 9.5 percent of GDP, $3,326 in Canada or 9.8 percent of GDP, down to a low of $2,343 in New Zealand or 9 percent of GDP.
...
The report found that the United States stands out because of its expense and people's dissatisfaction.
...
"As in previous surveys, U.S. adults were most likely to have gone without care because of cost and to have high out-of-pocket costs," the report reads.

"In the U.S., nearly two of five (37 percent) of all adults and 42 percent of those with chronic conditions had skipped medications, not seen a doctor when sick, or foregone recommended care in the past year because of costs -- rates well above all other countries," it adds.

"In contrast to the U.S., patients in Canada, the Netherlands, and the U.K. rarely report having to forgo needed medical care because of costs."

Medicare drug (Part D) boosted the business of drug makers and pharmacists by 158 million prescriptions in 2006 ... reduced patient paid by 5.6%

Medicare Part D Pushed Drug Prescriptions Up 158 Million, Gov Cost by $32 Billion | Oldest, poorest spending a much greater share of their own income on premiums and health services than others |

Nov. 1, 2007 – The Medicare drug program (Part D) boosted the business of drug makers and pharmacists by 158 million prescriptions in 2006 and Medicare paid the bill of $32 billion, but a new study says the drug use and cost decrease to senior citizens was "relatively minor."

Many senior citizens already had prescription drug coverage, so the new benefit reduced the average amount paid by seniors per day of therapy by 18.4% and increased threir prescription drug use by only 13%, say researchers in a study published today in the 25th anniversary issue of the journal Health Affairs.
...
Lichtenberg and coauthor Shawn Sun, a researcher at Walgreens Health Services, found that Medicare patients paid about 66 cents per day of medication therapy in September 2004.

By December 2006 - after implementation of Medicare Part D - they paid about 53 cents per day of therapy.

However, with the subsequent increase in utilization that came after Part D, researchers found that the program reduced the total amount paid by patients by only 5.6 percent.

The program increased the amount that private insurers paid by 22.3 percent.
...

Medicare Beneficiaries at Highest Risk, Spending More Out Of Pocket On Health Care

A related study in the November/December issue shows that the oldest, frailest, and poorest Medicare beneficiaries are spending a much greater share of their own income on premiums and health services than others, and that out-of-pocket spending as a share of income has increased over time for the Medicare population.

Kaiser Family Foundation and University of California, Los Angeles, researchers found that median out-of-pocket spending on health care increased by 50 percent, from $1,667 to $2,501, between 1997 and 2003.

The oldest Medicare beneficiaries, those in poor health, beneficiaries with low incomes, and those living in nursing homes were more likely than other Medicare beneficiaries to spend a large share of their incomes on premiums and health care services, according to the study.

The top quarter of high-spending beneficiaries spent almost 30 percent of their income on health care. The top 10 percent spent nearly 60 percent of their income on health care. Four of 10 beneficiaries spent more than 20 percent of their income on health in 2003, researchers Patricia Neuman, Juliette Cubanski, Katherine Desmond, and Thomas Rice found.

The findings “raise important questions about how much of their incomes beneficiaries can reasonably be expected to spend on their health care and whether current out-of-pocket spending levels are affordable,” the researchers say.

They warn that the overall burden of paying for health care could continue to rise for beneficiaries, and, as a result, health care could become less affordable and accessible for all but the highest-income beneficiaries. ...

So Mr. Giuliani’s supposed killer statistic about the defects of “socialized medicine” is entirely false ... should be a major political scandal

November 2, 2007 by The New York Times | Prostates and Prejudices | by Paul Krugman

“My chance of surviving prostate cancer - and thank God I was cured of it - in the United States? Eighty-two percent,” says Rudy Giuliani in a new radio ad attacking Democratic plans for universal health care. “My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent, under socialized medicine.”
...
Let’s start with the facts: Mr. Giuliani’s claim is wrong on multiple levels - bogus numbers wrapped in an invalid comparison embedded in a smear.

Mr. Giuliani got his numbers from a recent article in City Journal, a publication of the conservative Manhattan Institute. The author gave no source for his numbers on five-year survival rates - the probability that someone diagnosed with prostate cancer would still be alive five years after the diagnosis. And they’re just wrong.

You see, the actual survival rate in Britain is 74.4 percent. That still looks a bit lower than the U.S. rate, but the difference turns out to be mainly a statistical illusion. The details are technical, but the bottom line is that a man’s chance of dying from prostate cancer is about the same in Britain as it is in America.

So Mr. Giuliani’s supposed killer statistic about the defects of “socialized medicine” is entirely false. In fact, there’s very little evidence that Americans get better health care than the British, which is amazing given the fact that Britain spends only 41 percent as much on health care per person as we do.
...
By rights, then, Mr. Giuliani’s false claims about prostate cancer - which he has, by the way, continued to repeat, along with some fresh false claims about breast cancer - should be a major political scandal. As far as I can tell, however, they aren’t being treated that way.

To be fair, there has been some news coverage of the prostate affair. But it’s only a tiny fraction of the coverage received by Hillary’s laugh and John Edwards’s haircut.

And much of the coverage seems weirdly diffident. Memo to editors: If a candidate says something completely false, it’s not “in dispute.” It’s not the case that “Democrats say” they’re not advocating British-style socialized medicine; they aren’t.

The fact is that the prostate affair is part of a pattern: Mr. Giuliani has a habit of saying things, on issues that range from health care to national security, that are demonstrably untrue. And the American people have a right to know that.

Twenty-one states will run out of money for children’s health insurance in the coming year, ... SCHIP vetoed by Bush

Federal Study Offers Dire Outlook on Child Insurance | By ROBERT PEAR | Published: October 31, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — Twenty-one states will run out of money for children’s health insurance in the coming year, and at least nine of those states will exhaust their allotments in March if Congress simply continues spending at current levels, a new federal study says.

The findings added urgency to bipartisan talks on Capitol Hill intended to overcome an impasse over expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
...
Their goal is to revise a bill, vetoed by President Bush, to pick up Republican support in the House and gain enough votes to override another veto threatened by the president.
...
The Senate passed the original child health bill last month, 67 to 29, with 18 Republicans voting for it. Two of those Republicans, Senators Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, helped write the bill and have been negotiating with House members of both parties to round up Republican support for a revised version of the bill. ...

What about the two to three million insurance industry employees whose sole job it is to turn down claims? ...plan for them: It’s called unemployment

Why Does Everyone Bow Down to the Health Insurance Industry? | By Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbaraehrenreich.com. Posted September 24, 2007.
...
With the courageous exception of Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic candidates have all rolled out health "reform" plans that represent total, Chamberlain-like, appeasement. Edwards and Obama propose universal health insurance plans that would in no way ease the death grip of Aetna, Unicare, MetLife, and the rest of the evil-doers. Clinton -- why are we not surprised? -- has gone even further, borrowing the Republican idea of actually feeding the private insurers by making it mandatory to buy their product. Will I be arrested if I resist paying $10,000 a year for a private policy laden with killer co-pays and deductibles?
..
I heard it from a notable liberal political scientist on a panel in August: We can’t just leap to a single payer system, he said in so many words, because it would be too disruptive, given the size of the private health insurance industry. Then I heard it yesterday from a Chicago woman who leads a nonprofit agency serving the poor: How can we go to a Canadian-style system when the private industry has gotten so “big”?

Yes, it is big. Leighton Ku, at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, gave me the figure of $776 billion in expenditures on private health insurance for this year. It’s also a big-time employer, paying what economist Paul Krugman has estimated two to three million people just turn down claims.

This in turn generates ever more employment in doctors’ offices to battle the insurance companies. Dr. Atul Gawande, a practicing physician, wrote in The New Yorker that ''a well-run office can get the insurer's rejection rate down from 30 percent to, say, 15 percent. That’s how a doctor makes money. It's a war with insurance, every step of the way.'' And that’s another thing your insurance premium has to pay for: the ongoing "war" between doctors and insurers.
...
Think of the damage. An estimated 18,000 Americans die every year because they can’t afford or can’t qualify for health insurance. That’s the 9/11 carnage multiplied by three -- every year. Not to mention all the people who are stuck in jobs they hate because they don’t dare lose their current insurance.

Saddam Hussein never killed 18,000 Americans or anything close; nor did the U.S.S.R. ...
...
And what about the two to three million insurance industry employees whose sole job it is to turn down claims? Well, I have a plan for them: It’s called unemployment. What country in its right mind would pay millions of people to deny other people health care?

China: not required to meet even minimal drug-manufacturing standards, there is little to stop them from exporting unapproved, adulterated or counterf

Chemicals Flow Unchecked From China to Drug Market | By WALT BOGDANICH | Published: October 31, 2007

At least 82 Chinese companies at a Milan trade show, none of them certified, said they made pharmaceutical ingredients.
...
MILAN — In January, Honor International Pharmtech was accused of shipping counterfeit drugs into the United States. Even so, the Chinese chemical company — whose motto is “Thinking Much of Honor” — was openly marketing its products in October to thousands of buyers here at the world’s biggest trade show for pharmaceutical ingredients.

... Also attending were two exporters owned by China’s government that had sold poison mislabeled as a drug ingredient, which killed nearly 200 people and injured countless others in Haiti and in Panama.

Yet another chemical company, Orient Pacific International, reserved an exhibition booth in Milan, but its owner, Kevin Xu, could not attend. He was in a Houston jail on charges of selling counterfeit medicine for schizophrenia, prostate cancer, blood clots and Alzheimer’s disease, among other maladies.

While these companies hardly represent all of the nearly 500 Chinese exhibitors, more than from any other country, they do point to a deeper problem: Pharmaceutical ingredients exported from China are often made by chemical companies that are neither certified nor inspected by Chinese drug regulators, The New York Times has found.

Because the chemical companies are not required to meet even minimal drug-manufacturing standards, there is little to stop them from exporting unapproved, adulterated or counterfeit ingredients. The substandard formulations made from those ingredients often end up in pharmacies in developing countries and for sale on the Internet, where more Americans are turning for cheap medicine. ...
...
At their worst, uncertified chemical companies contribute to China’s notoriety as the world’s biggest supplier of counterfeit drugs, which include unauthorized copies as well as substandard, even harmful, formulations. “Underregulated manufacturers are increasingly becoming the source of A.P.I.’s used in the production of counterfeit medicine,” R. John Theriault, until recently Pfizer’s head of global security, said in a statement to Congress. ...

one of every eight veterans under the age of 65 is uninsured ... 1.8M ... an increase of 290,000 since 2000

Study: More Veterans Are Uninsured | By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Published: October 30, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- About one of every eight veterans under the age of 65 is uninsured, a finding that contradicts the assumption many have that all vets qualify for free health care through the Veterans Affairs Department, says a new study.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School projected that about 1.8 million veterans overall lack health coverage. That's an increase of 290,000 since 2000. The researchers said most uninsured veterans are in the middle class and are ineligible for VA care because of their incomes. Still others cannot afford their copayments, or lack VA facilities in their community.

''Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people -- too poor to afford private coverage but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care,'' said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, an associate professor and a physician at the Cambridge Health Alliance. ...
...
The study notes that the VA in January 2003 ordered a halt to the enrollment of most veterans who are not poor. The move was designed to reduce the backlog of patients waiting for care.

But Peter Gaytan, who monitors veterans' issues for the American Legion, said veterans now make as little as about $24,000 a year in some regions and still do not qualify for health coverage from the VA. ...

So, insurance companies avoid people needing medical care-the Old Maids-at all costs.

Friday, October 26, 2007 by CommonDreams.org | SCHIP and the Rigged Health Insurance Game | by Eric Haas
...
There were 142 members of Congress who voted against extending health care to more poor children. Behind their rhetoric, their intentions are clear: they want to protect the health insurance market and the huge profits that go with it.

But the huge profits are killing health care. We all know that now. Profit-maximizing insurance companies are bad economics. They make money by denying care, which is a terrible way to try to keep us healthy. (The Rockridge Institute’s white paper on health care security has details.)
...
Currently, we don’t spread the risk and costs evenly. Instead, we have lots of insurance companies all competing against each other to maximize their profits. Which they have-to the tune of billions of dollars a year. But they make their billions by not getting “stuck” with the people needing expensive medical treatment-sort of like avoiding the Old Maid in the children’s card game. The more sick people an insurance company ends up with, the lower their profits. “Stuck” with too many people needing medical care at any one time and an insurance company loses some of their profits. So, insurance companies avoid people needing medical care-the Old Maids-at all costs. And we know the result: over 100 million Americans who are un- or under-insured, pushed into the health care cracks between insurance companies by the companies themselves.

And those of us with insurance have been dragged into this sick game. Those of us who have health insurance get it in a system that works by excluding some of our neighbors. With the present profit imperative of our competitive health insurance system, we have created a national Sophie’s Choice: millions of people must be denied care so that the rest of us-healthier, wealthier, or fortunate enough to have employer-based insurance-can get it. ...

“Societies should not rely on market forces to protect the environment or provide quality health care for all citizens …”

Sunday, October 21, 2007 by the Sunday Gazette-Mail (Charleston, West Virginia) | Nobel Prize Sees What Market-Fundamentalists Don’t | by Rick Wilson
...
Three Americans, Eric Maskin, Roger Myerson and Leonid Hurwicz, shared the honor for their work in mechanism design theory, which studies under what conditions markets work well or don’t. Sneak preview: They do better with private than with public goods.
...
According to this cult, the market is like an all-wise and all-good but jealous god which becomes exceedingly wrathful when interfered with by things like coal mine or workplace safety laws, minimum wage protections, or taxes that pay for health, education or other services. Its ways are not our ways, nor are its thoughts our thoughts. And if it demands an occasional human sacrifice, we just have to deal with it.
...
... Here’s the short version of a key finding: Markets work well with what economists call private goods, like refrigerators or cars, but not for public goods, such as a clean environment or public health.

According to Maskin in an article in Bloomberg.com, “There are some things we want that are never going to be attainable by markets,” he said in a telephone interview. “If we are going to get them at all we have to find alternative ways of delivering them. That’s where mechanism design comes in.”

A Reuters report on the prize noted, “Societies should not rely on market forces to protect the environment or provide quality health care for all citizens …”

In such cases, public investments and policies should promote and protect public goods.

None of this would have come as a surprise to Adam Smith, who wrote in 1776 that there was a need of government support for “public institutions and those public works, which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, and which it therefore cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain.” ...

"Use of private insurers to deliver Medicare drug coverage is driving up costs ... six times higher than administrative costs of traditional Medicare

Report criticizes of Medicare drug plan costs | By Lisa Richwine | Oct 15, 2007

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. taxpayers and Medicare patients could have saved almost $15 billion in 2007 if private health insurers had cut expenses for prescription drug coverage and negotiated bigger discounts, a report from Democratic staff of a House of Representatives panel said on Monday.

The Medicare prescription drug benefits offered by private insurers operate with "high administrative costs, sales expenses and profits," the report said.
...
"Use of private insurers to deliver Medicare drug coverage is driving up costs and producing only limited savings on drug prices," the report said.
...
The report said administrative expenses, sales costs and profits of private insurers offering Medicare drug plans are almost six times higher than the administrative costs of traditional Medicare coverage, costing almost $5 billion or about $180 per beneficiary in 2007. The insurers' profits will account for $1 billion, the report said. ...
...
The companies failed to negotiate significant rebates from drug makers, the report also said. Insurers did get discounts in the form of rebates that reduced spending by 8.1 percent in 2007. But that was less than the 26 percent the Medicaid program secured from drug manufacturers. ...

Conservatives who want to repeal the estate tax on large fortunes ... the Frosts is that they are expected to sell their investment property ...

Meanies And Hypocrites | By E. J. Dionne Jr. | Friday, October 12, 2007; Page A17

Conservatives claim to be in favor of stable families, small businesses, hard work, private schools, investment and homeownership. So why in the world are so many on the right attacking the family of Graeme Frost?

The kids were treated, thanks to SCHIP. The Frosts spoke out so the public would know that real people lie behind the acronym.

Their reward was to be trashed on right-wing blogs and talk radio as if they were multimillionaires ripping off the system. The assault on the Frosts apparently began on the Free Republic Web site and quickly spread to National Review Online, Power Line and Michelle Malkin's blog, as well as Rush Limbaugh's radio show.
...

Most conservatives favor government-supported vouchers that would help Graeme attend his private school, but here they turn around and criticize him for . . . attending a private school. Federal money for private schools but not for health insurance? What's the logic here?

Conservatives endlessly praise risk-taking by entrepreneurs and would give big tax cuts to those who are most successful. But if a small-business person is struggling, he shouldn't even think about applying for SCHIP.

Conservatives who want to repeal the estate tax on large fortunes have cited stories -- most of them don't check out -- about farmers having to sell their farms to pay inheritance taxes. But the implication of these attacks on the Frosts is that they are expected to sell their investment property to pay for health care. Why?

Oh, yes, and conservatives tell us how much they love homeownership, and then assail the Frosts for having the nerve to own a home. I suppose they should have to sell that, too.

The real issue here is whether uninsured families with earnings similar to the Frosts' need government help to buy health coverage. With the average family policy in employer-provided plans now costing more than $12,000 annually -- the price is usually higher for families trying to buy it on their own -- the answer is plainly yes. ...

Sen. John McCain health car: Is a $5,000 tax credit going to guarantee they afford and access health insurance? Of course not

They Just Don't Get It | Submitted by Bill Scher on October 11, 2007 - 7:48pm.

Sen. John McCain rolled out his health care plan today, and said:

Right now, too many of our citizens don't have an insurance policy at all, and those who do are afraid they will lose the one they have - afraid they will get too sick, afraid to stay home and not work full-time, and afraid their benefits will disappear along with their job.

I believe that everyone should get a tax credit of $2500, $5000 for families.

Let's look again at the brave yet struggling Frost family of six.

Their combined income, before taxes, is $45,000. Mrs. Frost recently priced private insurance at $14,400 a year. And they can't even get a private company to accept them because of pre-existing medical conditions.

Is a $5,000 tax credit going to guarantee they afford and access health insurance? Of course not.

Sure, McCain paid some lip service to reducing the cost of health care, but he didn't propose much specific besides "greater competition" and caps on malpractice lawsuits (which only amount to 2% of all health care spending). The only significant reform he offered was reiterating his support for importing cheaper prescription drugs.

This is very much in line with what Joe Paduda wrote last month:

The GOP programs are not 'reform'. There is no evidence that these tax breaks will significantly improve the number of people with coverage, the quality of the care they get, or reduce the cost of insurance or medical care. None. Zippo. Nada. The GOP platforms are actually tax breaks, marketed as health care reform.

That's fine, but rather disingenuous.

It's also detached from reality.

children received appropriate medical care only 46 percent of the time when they visit health professionals, faring even worse than adults ...

U.S. children often lack quality medical care | By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers | * Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2007

WASHINGTON — In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that America's children received appropriate medical care only 46 percent of the time when they visit health professionals, faring even worse than adults and raising serious questions about the quality of care delivered by the world's most expensive health system.
...
It followed the health care experiences of 1,536 children from 12 metropolitan areas over a four-year period. By interviewing the youngsters' parents, reviewing the children's medical records and comparing their treatments to established care standards, researchers found that even basic care was a hit-or-miss proposition for children who visit hospitals and pediatricians.

The study found only 19 percent of seriously ill infants with fevers had the right lab tests done, only 44 percent of youngsters with asthma were on the right medications and only 38 percent of youngsters were screened for anemia in their first two years of life.

In addition, only 31 percent of children ages 3-6 have their weight measured at annual checkups.
...
A 2006 RAND study found that adults get appropriate medical care about 55 percent of the time.
...
But the new study found that youngsters get appropriate care for acute illnesses, such as fevers, only 68 percent of the time and proper care for chronic conditions, such as attention deficit disorder, only 53 percent of the time.

Proper preventative care, the bread and butter of pediatric practice, was provided in only 41 percent of check-ups. Researchers gauged quality of treatment against 175 standards of care that cover 12 clinical areas.

"It is unconscionable that we spend $2 trillion on health care, more than any nation in the world, and get these results," said co-author Elizabeth McGlynn, an associate director of RAND Health. "We can do better, but this will not happen without serious sustained effort. This study tells us that it is time to begin." ...

they are willing to do their part to make it happen. 72% support the expansion of SCHIP, and 60% are willing to pay more in taxes ... for health insur

More Conservative Honesty Please | Submitted by Bill Scher on October 11, 2007 - 12:20pm.
...
I did overstate one point. I said Bush is proposing "less money" for SCHIP, which isn't quite right. He is proposing nominally more money, just not enough to maintain the number of kids currently in the program. It's essentially less money, but not literally.
...
Instead of thinking of ways for entrepreneurs to pursue the American Dream without having to worry about the basics in life, conservatives like Riehl are quick to make assumptions and mock them for their career choices -- at least, when the solution involves pooling our resources through our government to solve problems the private market hasn't tackled.

Apparently, entrepreneurs are only awesome when wealthy Americans are demanding tax giveaways.

Instead of helping Americans have more career choices, conservatives like Riehl would force more Americans to choose between their career and the health of their families. If millions of working class children remain at risk, so be it.
...
Because most Americans believe everyone should have health insurance and everyone should have a real opportunity to pursue the American Dream.

And they are willing to do their part to make it happen. 72% support the expansion of SCHIP, and 60% are willing to pay more in taxes so our government can guarantee health insurance for everyone.

The more honest conservatives are about their cold and callous vision for America, the easier it will be for American voters to make informed decisions about where we should go as a nation. ...

forms from our health insurance company inexplicably denying payment — or only partly paying — for something we believed was covered.

Hands to Hold When Health Care Becomes a Maze | By ALINA TUGEND | Published: October 13, 2007

I HAVE not dreaded thin envelopes so much since applying to college.

They are showing up with alarming regularity lately: forms from our health insurance company inexplicably denying payment — or only partly paying — for something we believed was covered.

We read the codes and try to figure out why we are paid $30 for a $300 visit; they may as well have been written in Latin.

And when we try calling, all too often we end up in a voice mail maze.
...
Mr. Claxton noted, for example, that the anesthesiologist assigned to your operation may be out of network and then “that’s extra money.” You can ask about getting one in your network, but it is not always clear whom to ask or if that request will be honored, he said.

Also, be sure to ask when making any appointment if the doctor is currently in the network. Just because it says so in your plan’s book or online does not mean the doctor is still in the plan. Avoid a nasty surprise when the bill comes.
...
Or, as happened to Karen Pollitz, a research professor at the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University, an insurer can process a 12-year-old’s broken elbow as a workers’ compensation claim rather than as a sports accident — and then refuse to pay for it — simply because the doctor checked accident on the insurance form. ...

US has a far higher death rate than the European average: ... one in 4800 dies vs. one in 16,400 for top 10 Euro countries

U.S. maternal death rate higher than Europe's: report | Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:03pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has a sharply higher rate of women dying during or just after pregnancy than European countries, even some relatively poor countries such as Macedonia and Bosnia, according to the first estimates in five years on maternal deaths worldwide.

The United States has a far higher death rate than the European average, the report shows, with one in 4,800 U.S. women dying from complications of pregnancy or childbirth, the same as Belarus and just slightly better than Serbia's rate of one in 4,500.

Just one out of 47,600 women in Ireland die during or just after childbirth, the report found. Bosnia had the second-lowest rate, with 1 in 29,000 women dying during pregnancy and childbirth.

"Among the ten top-ranked European and other industrialized countries, where women are guaranteed good-quality health and family planning services that minimize their lifetime risk, fewer than one in 16,400 will die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth," the United Nations, which issued the report along with the World Bank, said in a statement. ...

[Swift-boating SCHIP parents]::: "Let the parents get second jobs, let their state foot the bill or let them seek help from private charities."

Family under fire: Rush and Co. hit on healthcare | by Matthew Hay Brown

Halsey and Bonnie Frost, in front of their Butchers Hill home in Baltimore, have come under fire from conservative commentators for promoting the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor .
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But while the Frosts were helping a bipartisan majority in Congress sell a plan to expand the program, they were not prepared for comments such as this one, posted over the weekend on the conservative Web site Redstate:

"If federal funds were required [they] could die for all I care. Let the parents get second jobs, let their state foot the bill or let them seek help from private charities. ... I would hire a team of PIs and find out exactly how much their parents made and where they spent every nickel. Then I'd do everything possible to destroy their lives with that info."
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It was the news coverage of that broadcast that set off the blogo- sphere. A pseudonymous contributor to Free Republic cataloged the $20,000 cost of tuition at the Park School, the $160,000 Halsey Frost paid for his warehouse in 1999 and the $485,000 for which a neighbor sold his home in March. Links were provided to photos of the Park School's 44,000-square- foot Wyman Arts Center and the Frosts' 1992 wedding announcement in The New York Times.
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The four Frost children depend on financial aid to attend private school, the Frosts say. In addition, they say, Gemma receives money from the city for special education made necessary by her injuries.
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The Frosts say the description of their family's circumstances now circulating is misleading. Halsey, they say, is a self-employed woodworker - he has no employees - while Bonnie works part time for a medical publishing firm. Together, they say, they earn between $45,000 and $50,000 a year.
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Pelosi fired back yesterday.

"I think that the attack on this family is just breaking new ground and stooping to new lows in terms of what happens in Washington, D.C.," she told reporters. "I think it's a sad statement about how bankrupt some of these people are in their arguments against SCHIP that they attack a 12-year-old."

Most Americans may also have noticed that corporate bureaucracy and corruption .. are not preferable to government bureaucracy

Right-Wing Health Care Mythology | by Joe Conason Published: October 9, 2007

Once among the most frightening and effective epithets in American political culture, “socialized medicine” seems to have lost its juju. ...
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Most Americans may also have noticed that corporate bureaucracy and corruption, which both figure largely in the present health care system, are not preferable to government bureaucracy. The same doctors who used to wail about the dangers of Medicare have learned how unpleasant it is to deal with dozens of insurance companies, each of which is creating different rules to cut costs and deny care as often as possible. So have their patients.

This corporate model is more expensive and less efficient than the government plans that provide care in every other industrialized nation.

And most Americans may have learned by now that such systems prevail in Western countries that aren’t normally categorized as “socialist,” including the United Kingdom, Japan, Spain, Canada, Germany, France, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. All these nations manage to provide their citizens with high living standards, industrial and technological innovation, and broad political and economic freedom, even after 50 years of national health insurance in some form.

Meanwhile, the credibility of conservatives has diminished steadily.

These days they seem to have trouble achieving clarity on the meaning of their favorite clichés. For instance, the president hates federalized health care, but sponsors a Medicare prescription drug program that wastes hundreds of billions on drug companies and private insurers.

Right-wing definitions no longer seem so clear, either. When the government awards a billion dollars in sweetheart mercenary contracts to a wealthy Republican family in Michigan, that’s “private enterprise.” But when the government helps a struggling middle-class family in Maryland to send its children to the doctor, that’s creeping socialism. ..

New Medicare Drug program: 10,000's victims of deceptive sales tactics, improperly denied claims ...

Medicare Audits Show Problems in Private Plans | By ROBERT PEAR | Published: October 7, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 — Tens of thousands of Medicare recipients have been victims of deceptive sales tactics and had claims improperly denied by private insurers that run the system’s huge new drug benefit program and offer other private insurance options encouraged by the Bush administration, a review of scores of federal audits has found.
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UnitedHealth, which serves more than six million Medicare beneficiaries, did not have an “effective program” to supervise its marketing representatives, agents and brokers. In some cases, United improperly denied claims without giving any explanation to beneficiaries. ...

WellPoint, one of the nation’s largest insurers, had “a backlog of approximately 354,000 claims” at certain Medicare plans offered through its UniCare subsidiary. ...

In March, Sierra Health Services ended drug coverage for more than 2,300 Medicare beneficiaries with H.I.V./AIDS, saying they had not paid their premiums. In many cases, the premiums had been paid, and beneficiaries had canceled checks to prove it. ...

Humana, which covers more than 4.5 million people on Medicare, promised to investigate every complaint about its marketing practices, but it received so many complaints that it could not keep up. ...

The Sterling Life Insurance Company, a subsidiary of the Aon Corporation, did not pay claims correctly or handle appeals in a timely way. The company has “a demonstrated pattern of failure” to meet Medicare performance standards. ...

Two sponsors of popular Medicare drug plans, MemberHealth and Bravo Health, did not act on requests for coverage of specific drugs within 72 hours, as required by the government. ...

Either Bush didn't understand the bill he vetoed or he's just being petulant -- with the health of 4 million children at stake.

Bush's Veto Lies | By Eugene Robinson | Friday, October 5, 2007; Page A21

To say that George W. Bush spends money like a drunken sailor is to insult every gin-soaked patron of every dockside dive in every dubious port of call. If Bush gets his way, the cost of his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will soon reach a mind-blowing $600 billion. Despite turning a budget surplus into a huge deficit, the man still hasn't met a tax cut he doesn't like. ... And for him to make his stand on a measure that would have provided health insurance to needy children is a punch line that hasn't left many Republicans laughing.
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The program Congress voted to expand provides health insurance for children who fall into a perilous gap: Their families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but don't make enough to afford health insurance. The cost of covering an additional 4 million children was estimated at around $35 billion over five years. That's a lot of money. But in the context of a $13 trillion economy -- and set against Bush's history of devil-may-care, "buy the house another round" spending -- it's chump change. ...
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... Either Bush didn't understand the bill he vetoed or he's just being petulant -- with the health of 4 million children at stake.

Brain injuries from war worse than thought ..."These soldiers could have hidden injuries with long-term consequences,"

Scientists: Brain injuries from war worse than thought

Scientists trying to understand traumatic brain injury from bomb blasts are finding the wound more insidious than they once thought.

They find that even when there are no outward signs of injury from the blast, cells deep within the brain can be altered, their metabolism changed, causing them to die, says Geoff Ling, an advance-research scientist with the Pentagon.
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This cellular death leads to symptoms that may not surface for months or years, Cernak says. The symptoms can include memory deficit, headaches, vertigo, anxiety and apathy or lethargy. "These soldiers could have hidden injuries with long-term consequences," he says.
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To make matters worse, whatever damage occurred was so microscopic that it could not be found with imaging tests.
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The microscopic damage changes brain cell metabolism, Cernak says, creating a cascading effect that leads to the premature aging and death of neurons that cannot be replaced. ...

More Profit and Less Nursing at Many Homes ... serious health deficiencies ... almost 19 percent higher at homes owned by large investment companies

More Profit and Less Nursing at Many Homes | By CHARLES DUHIGG | Published: September 23, 2007

Habana Health Care Center, a 150-bed nursing home in Tampa, Fla., was struggling when a group of large private investment firms purchased it and 48 other nursing homes in 2002.

The facility’s managers quickly cut costs. Within months, the number of clinical registered nurses at the home was half what it had been a year earlier, records collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services indicate. Budgets for nursing supplies, resident activities and other services also fell, according to Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration.

The investors and operators were soon earning millions of dollars a year from their 49 homes.

Residents fared less well. Over three years, 15 at Habana died from what their families contend was negligent care in lawsuits filed in state court. Regulators repeatedly warned the home that staff levels were below mandatory minimums. When regulators visited, they found malfunctioning fire doors, unhygienic kitchens and a resident using a leg brace that was broken.

“They’ve created a hellhole,” said Vivian Hewitt, who sued Habana in 2004 when her mother died after a large bedsore became infected by feces.
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The typical nursing home acquired by a large investment company before 2006 scored worse than national rates in 12 of 14 indicators that regulators use to track ailments of long-term residents. Those ailments include bedsores and easily preventable infections, as well as the need to be restrained. Before they were acquired by private investors, many of those homes scored at or above national averages in similar measurements.
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The Byzantine structures established at homes owned by private investment firms also make it harder for regulators to know if one company is responsible for multiple centers. And the structures help managers bypass rules that require them to report when they, in effect, pay themselves from programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
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Some families of residents say those structures unjustly protect investors who profit while care declines.

When Mrs. Hewitt sued Habana over her mother’s death, for example, she found that its owners and managers had spread control of Habana among 15 companies and five layers of firms.

As a result, Mrs. Hewitt’s lawyer, like many others confronting privately owned homes, has been unable to establish definitively who was responsible for her mother’s care. ...
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But in recent years, large private investment groups have agreed to buy 6 of the nation’s 10 largest nursing home chains, containing over 141,000 beds, or 9 percent of the nation’s total. Private investment groups own at least another 60,000 beds at smaller chains and are expected to acquire many more companies as firms come under shareholder pressure to sell.

The typical large chain owned by an investment company in 2005 earned $1,700 a resident, according to reports filed by the facilities. Those homes, on average, were 41 percent more profitable than the average facility.
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The Times’s analysis of records collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reveals that at 60 percent of homes bought by large private equity groups from 2000 to 2006, managers have cut the number of clinical registered nurses, sometimes far below levels required by law. (At 19 percent of those homes, staffing has remained relatively constant, though often below national averages. At 21 percent, staffing rose significantly, though even those homes were typically below national averages.) During that period, staffing at many of the nation’s other homes has fallen much less or grown
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The typical number of serious health deficiencies cited by regulators last year was almost 19 percent higher at homes owned by large investment companies than the national average, according to analysis of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services records. ..
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September 22, 2007 | Layers of Ownership

Bush renews threat to veto children’s health legislation: SCHIP deal would raise cigarette taxes by 61 cents per pack to pay for expanded coverage

Bush renews threat to veto children’s health legislation | By Elana Schor | September 21, 2007

As negotiators closed in on a $35 billion deal to extend health insurance coverage for children, President Bush defied lawmakers with a fresh threat to veto the bipartisan bill that aggravated one senior Senate Republican.
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Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), senior Republican on the Finance Committee, had implored Bush to reconsider his veto vow. But after Bush incorrectly described the children’s health bill as providing coverage for families earning up to $80,000 a year, Grassley fired back.

“The president’s understanding of our bill is wrong,” Grassley said, his voice rising with anger. “I urge him to reconsider his veto message based on a bill we might pass, not something someone on his staff told him wrongly is in my bill.”

The SCHIP deal would raise cigarette taxes by 61 cents per pack to pay for expanded health coverage while taking aim at a Bush administration directive that would restrict states’ ability to raise income eligibility levels for the program. ...