simple fact that our CURRENT health care system is already doing its best to kill my son

The Raw Story � TX Rep. jeered, applauded for saying public option would have killed a baby

...

Olin retorts:

I will call this woman and raise her the simple fact that our CURRENT health care system is already doing its best to kill my son. He's 44, and going on three weeks now in intensive care because of DPD Enzyme Deficiency. This came following successful tonsil cancer surgery. Tonsil cancer has a cure rate of above 90 percent, but his doctors decided on a short term of chemo and radiation just to be sure. Google DPD Enzyme Deficiency yourself and read the gory details of this affliction, directly caused by the 5FU chemo that was administered to my son.

It's a known side effect, and there's a test to determine if a cancer patient has the enzyme deficiency that leads to it, BUT insurance won't pay for it and i costs five thousand bucks. The deficiency is pretty rare, affecting maybe 8 percent of the folks in need of chemo, but the doctor NEVER gave my son, his wife or anybody else in the family either the name of this drug so WE could research it ourselves OR informed anyone of this particular possibility. They simply assumed we would not pay for the test, and while we might not have, it would have been nice to have a say in whether the dice were gonna be rolled with a vibrant young man's life.

If this is the system opponents of health care reform are defending, OR if President Obama's plan would preclude this test based on the odds, I would only say that I desperately hope you get what you want, and I might add, so richly deserve.

Frankly, I don't know if the Obama plan is the answer, but I do know this system is broken and people, young and old, are dying because of it. If not now, please tell me when? If not this plan, please offer up something other than the same old tired excuses that have been uttered since Truman tried a few reforms of the system.

Myths and falsehoods about health care reform | Media Matters for America

Myths and falsehoods about health care reform | Media Matters for America

MYTH 1: There is no health care crisis

MYTH 2: Health care reform will impose rationing

MYTH 3: Health care reform provides for euthanasia, "death panel"

MYTH 4: Health care reform legislation will cover undocumented immigrants

MYTH 5: Health care reform will raise your taxes

MYTH 6: Health care reform would tax all small businesses

MYTH 7: Health care reform would add $1 trillion-plus to deficit

MYTH 8: House bill would ban private individual insurance

MYTH 9: Obama said he didn't read House bill

MYTH 10: Co-ops are an adequate substitute for a public option

MYTH 11: Obama is pushing a system like the U.K. and Canada

MYTH 12: Obama, Dems pushing "socialized medicine"

MYTH 13: Prominent opponents of health care reform are credible

MYTH 14: Government can't run a health care program

marmar's Journal - Chris Hedges: This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery

marmar's Journal - Chris Hedges: This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery | Posted on Aug 23, 2009 | By Chris Hedges

Percentage change since 2002 in average premiums paid to large US health-insurance companies: +87%

Percentage change in the profits of the top ten insurance companies: +428%

Chances that an American bankrupted by medical bills has health insurance: 7 in 10

—Harper’s Index, September 2009

Capitalists, as my friend Father Michael Doyle says, should never be allowed near a health care system. They hold sick children hostage as they force parents to bankrupt themselves in the desperate scramble to pay for medical care. The sick do not have a choice. Medical care is not a consumable good. We can choose to buy a used car or a new car, shop at a boutique or a thrift store, but there is no choice between illness and health. And any debate about health care must acknowledge that the for-profit health care industry is the problem and must be destroyed. This is an industry that hires doctors and analysts to deny care to patients in order to increase profits. It is an industry that causes half of all bankruptcies. And the 20,000 Americans who died last year because they did not receive adequate care condemn these corporations as complicit in murder. ...

"Who's Paying to Kill Health Reform?"

LobbyBlog
...
"Who's Paying to Kill Health Reform?"

It's a tangled web, with big lobbying firms, industry groups, and Astroturf organizers all linked to townhall meetings. Reflecting a widely-held view among progressives, the big kahuna behind it all is the health insurance industry, via trade group America's Health Insurance Plans.

Click here to see a larger version of the chart.

"They're playing a sophisticated game at the front of the pack," said Campaign for America's Future's Roger Hickey in an interview with the Huffington Post. "They're trying to pretend that they're in favor of reform and they're spending some money on advertising that looks like
it's pro-reform. And at the same time they're working pretty hard to make sure the public plan is not in the final version. They're primarily using their political contributions and their lobbying
efforts to do that."

As the chart shows, AHIP is encouraging the employees of its members to attend town hall meetings. The chart also has AHIP pumping money into big PR firms, something unproved that AHIP denies -- though reform advocates suspect it's true.

"'Launder' is a strong word, but that's essentially what happens," said Wendell Potter, a former CIGNA executive turned reform advocate. "They pay money to big PR firms and set up front groups and use connections with members of Congress. These are their shills."

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community | Proud to Rank Last | by BooMan | Fri Aug 21st, 2009 at 04:31:03 PM EST | Proud to be an American:

Amenable mortality measures “deaths from certain causes before age 75 that are potentially preventable with timely and effective health care,” such as treatable cancers, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. According to the Commonwealth Fund, the United States ranked last in comparison to 19 industrialized countries with a rate of 109.7 deaths per 100,000 in 2002–03. In the leading countries, mortality rates per 100,000 people were 64.8 in France, 71.2 in Japan, and 71.3 in Australia.

Expensive without the results: Health care in the U.S. costs the most, not the best in the world

Expensive without the results: Health care in the U.S. costs the most, not the best in the world | BY Michael Saul | DAILY NEWS POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT|

Sunday, August 23rd 2009, 4:35 AM

What nation offers the best health care on the globe? Answer: Not the United States.

The U.S. health care delivery system is by far the costliest on the planet, but comparison studies consistently show Americans get second-rate results by nearly every benchmark.

"We're twice as expensive as most other industrialized countries," said Gerard Anderson, professor of health policy and management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

"But we have outcomes that are typically about average, and we're not improving as quickly as other countries are improving," he said.

Last year, a study comparing preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries placed the U.S. dead last. France was first, followed by Japan and Australia.

In the U.S., one in three chronically ill patients says the health care system needs to be rebuilt completely. Only one in 10 feels the same way in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Foes of President Obama's push for universal coverage are quick to find fault with foreign systems, and some complaints are legitimate. In Canada, for example, a typical patient seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment had to wait 18.3 weeks in 2007, an all-time high, one study showed.

But nonpartisan, scholarly studies show that for the most part, universal systems work well. And the key numbers, from infant mortality to life expectancy, show those countries are doing something right.

...

Of the 30 industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only Mexico, Turkey and the United States fail to achieve universal coverage

"There's a solidarity that operates in these other countries in terms of social values, a sense that people are entitled to health care," Osborn said. "In these countries, the idea of someone going bankrupt because of medical bills, it just does not exist." ...

Raw Story � Without reform, health insurance rates to nearly double in 11 years

Raw Story � Without reform, health insurance rates to nearly double in 11 years

Insurance rates will rise 94 percent by 2020 if cost-saving reforms to the US health care system aren’t enacted, a new study from the Commonwealth Institute finds.

The 90-year-old non-profit health care charity released an analysis of health care costs and forecasts that says employer-sponsored family plans will rise from an average cost of $12,298 in 2008 to $23,842 in 2020.

By contrast, the same coverage would have cost around $9,200 in 2003. ...

... “These findings are merely the shocking state of premiums, not even including a concurrent jump in out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, co-pays, and other fees,” said Deborah Burger, co-president of the nurses’ group. “It’s no wonder that medical bills now are the leading factor in 62 percent of bankruptcies, and half of American families are rationing medical care because they can’t afford it.” ...

nfortunate reality is that I will become too costly to employ. ... only be a matter of time before they would find a reason to let me go

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan | 18 Aug 2009 11:35 am

The View From Your Sickbed

I have opted, instead, to purchase very costly insurance through the State of Illinois for persons who have the financial means, but are uninsurable. My monthly premiums are $730.00. Many people don’t understand why I would voluntarily pay $8,760.00 in health insurance premiums a year when better coverage is offered free by my employer. The fact is, if I were covered under my employer’s group plan, I would astronomically raise his rates because we are a very small office. From my personal experience and the experience of my HIV+ friends, insurance companies all but reveal to employers the identity of the employees that have a big affect on premiums. While the insurance carrier may not name names, in a small office such as mine it is easy for the boss to identify the “45 year-old male Caucasian non-smoking employee” referenced by the insurance agent. The implied message is, “get rid of that employee, your rates will become more affordable and we won’t have to insure someone so costly.”

...

If I were to go on my employer’s health coverage, the unfortunate reality is that I will become too costly to employ. With small businesses looking for ways to cut costs, it would only be a matter of time before they would find a reason to let me go. I know it is illegal, I am an attorney, but people who do not believe such things happen in America are delusional. Good employees are routinely let go for bogus reasons simply because they jack up the employer’s monthly health insurance premium due to a chronic illness.

The truth is, I’d rather spend $15,000.00 a year and keep my job, rather than go on my employer’s group plan and be looking for work in 3 months.

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan | 07 Aug 2009 02:21 pm

The View From Your Sickbed

We decided to use COBRA for me so I could continue to see my doctors of choice. My severance ran out the day my son was born prematurely, with complications from having the umbilical cord around his neck during birth.

The first bill for his expenses came as I was leaving the hospital without my son. When a claim was denied because they said my son had a preexisting condition, that was the final straw.

Nothing like getting on the phone with an insurance company and getting straight that preexisting conditions do not apply before a child is actually born. I ended up a heap on the floor, exhausted from giving birth, taking care of my child, and the fear that we would go bankrupt from the bills. My husband said "Whatever it costs, we'll pay it, I just want them to take care of our son."

The bills were still coming 18 months later, when our tiny baby was a happy, healthy boy. It was around $20K total, even with insurance. When I hear people afraid of "health care rationing," I want to throttle them. May they never have to deal with an insurance company who wouldn't pay a $6,000 claim because they said your newborn son has a preexisting condition.

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan | 17 Aug 2009 08:45 pm

The Views From Your Sickbeds: A Round Up

Many readers have asked for all the sickbed stories to be put in one place. Here are links to the posts from week one in mostly chronological order:

Can You Give Me A Ride?: I Can't Afford The Ambulance

The Baby Isn't Insured

Watching My Costs Skyrocket

Seizures In Public Places: Avoiding The Ambulance

Your Newborn Son Has A Preexisting Condition

My Insurance Company Got A 96% Discount!

Working For A National Insurance Company: The Payment Process

The $10,000 Cyst

Gold-Plated Insurance: Denying Vaccination To Premature Babies

... and more ...

Brutal truth about US healthcare - Health, News - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Brutal truth about US healthcare - Health, News - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk
...
They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury.

Some of these Americans had walked miles simply to have their blood pressure checked, some had slept in their cars in the hope of getting an eye-test or a mammogram, others had brought their children for immunisations that could end up saving their life.

In the week that Britain's National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an "evil and Orwellian" example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California yesterday provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system.

The LA Forum, the arena that once hosted sell-out Madonna concerts, has been transformed – for eight days only – into a vast field hospital. In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted.

...

"I had a gastric bypass in 2002, but it went wrong, and stomach acid began rotting my teeth. I've had several jobs since, but none with medical insurance, so I've not been able to see a dentist to get it fixed," she told The Independent. "I've not been able to chew food for as long as I can remember. I've been living on soup, and noodles, and blending meals in a food mixer. I'm in constant pain. Normally, it would cost $5,000 to fix it. So if I have to wait a week to get treated for free, I'll do it. This will change my life."

...

"You'd think, with the money in this country, that we'd be able to look after people's health properly," she said. "But the truth is that the rich, and the insurance firms, just don't realise what we are going through, or simply don't care. Look around this room and tell me that America's healthcare don't need fixing."

...

For years, she has been crossing over the Mexican border to get her teeth done on the cheap in Tijuana. But recently, the US started requiring citizens returning home from Mexico to produce a passport (previously all you needed was a driver's license), and so that route is now closed. Today she has two abscesses and is in so much pain she can barely sleep. "I don't have a passport, and I can't afford one. So my husband and I slept in the car to make sure we got seen by a dentist. It sounds pathetic, but I really am that desperate."

Op-Ed Contributors - 10 Steps to Better Health Care - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributors - 10 Steps to Better Health Care - NYTimes.com

... We have really discussed only two options: raising taxes or rationing care. The public is understandably alarmed.

There is a far more desirable alternative: to change how care is delivered so that it is both less expensive and more effective. But there is widespread skepticism about whether that is possible.

Yes, many European health systems have done it, but we are not Europe. And evidence that places like the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or the Cleveland Clinic are doing it is likewise dismissed because their unique structures (for example, their physicians work on salary rather than being paid for each service) make them seem as far from Middle America as Sweden is.

Yet in studying communities all over America, not just a few unusual corners, we have found evidence that more effective, lower-cost care is possible.

... If the rest of America could achieve the performances of regions like these, our health care cost crisis would be over. Their quality scores are well above average. Yet they spend more than $1,500 (16 percent) less per Medicare patient than the national average and have a slower real annual growth rate (3 percent versus 3.5 percent nationwide).

... So how do they do that? Some have followed the Mayo model, with salaried doctors employed by a unified local system focused on quality of care: these include Temple, where the Scott and White clinic dominates the market, and Sayre, where the Guthrie Clinic does. Other regions, including Richmond and Everett, look more like most American communities, with several medical groups whose physicians are paid on a traditional fee-for-service basis. But they, too, have found ways to protect patients against the damaging incentives of a system that encourages fragmentation of care and the pursuit of revenues over patient needs.

The physicians and hospital leaders from Cedar Rapids told us how they have adopted electronic systems to improve communication among physicians and quality of care. Last year, they decided to investigate the overuse of CAT scans. They examined the data and found that in just one year 52,000 scans were done in a community of 300,000 people. A large portion of them were almost certainly unnecessary, not to mention possibly harmful, as CAT scans have about 1,000 times as much radiation exposure as a chest X-ray.

“I was embarrassed for us,” said Jim Levett, a cardiac surgeon and the head of a large physician group. ...

...

The team from Portland told us of a collaboration of doctors, state officials, insurers and community leaders to improve care. For more than four years, physicians have been tracking some 60 measures of quality, like medication error rates for their patients, and meeting voluntary cost-reduction goals.

Asheville, after gaining state support to avoid antitrust concerns, merged two underutilized hospitals. In Sacramento, a decade of fierce competition among four rival health systems brought about elimination of unneeded beds, adoption of new electronic systems for patient data and a race to raise quality. Sacramento also went from being one of America’s high-cost areas for health care to being among the low-cost elite.

In their own ways, each of these successful communities tells the same simple story: better, safer, lower-cost care is within reach. Many high-cost regions are just a few hours’ drive from a lower-cost, higher-quality region. And in the more efficient areas, neither the physicians nor the citizens reported feeling that care is “rationed.” Indeed, it’s rational. ...

three large insurers rescinded almost 20,000 policies over five years, saving $300 million in medical claims.

Daily Dose - HHS: Insurance Companies Encourage Employees to "Revoke Sick People's Health Coverage"
..
... here’s something else to worry about: They can take away the coverage you thought you had when actually need it, the government says.

The Department of Health and Human Services put a spotlight on that practice Tuesday in its continuing campaign to build support for an overhaul of health insurance.

“When a person is diagnosed with an expensive condition such as cancer, some insurance companies review his/her initial health status questionnaire,” the HHS said in a posting at HealthReform.Gov. In most states, insurance companies can retroactively cancel individuals' policies if any condition was not disclosed when the policy was obtained, "even if the medical condition is unrelated, and even if the person was not aware of the condition at the time.”

“Coverage can also be revoked for all members of a family, even if only one family member failed to disclose a medical condition,” HHS said.

The department cited recent research by the staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which found that three large insurers rescinded almost 20,000 policies over five years, saving $300 million in medical claims.

At least one insurer included such savings in an employee performance evaluation.

“Simply put, these insurance company employees are encouraged to revoke sick people’s health coverage," HHS said ...

Health care's six money-wasting problems - Aug. 10, 2009

Health care's six money-wasting problems - Aug. 10, 2009

Down the drain: $1.2 trillion.

That's half of the $2.2 trillion the United States spends on health care each year, according to the most recent data from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute.

...

Too many tests

Doctors ordering tests or procedures not based on need but concern over liability or increasing their income is the biggest waste of health care dollars, costing the system at least $210 billion a year, according to the report. The problem is called "defensive medicine."

"Sometimes the motivation is to avoid malpractice suits, or to make more money because they are compensated more for doing more," said Dr. Arthur Garson, provost of the University of Virginia and former dean of its medical school. "Many are also convinced that doing more tests is the right thing to do."

...

Those annoying claim forms

Inefficient claims processing is the second-biggest area of wasteful expenditure, costing as much as $210 billion annually, the PricewaterhouseCoopers report said. ... "Some practices spend 40% of their revenue filling out paperwork that has nothing to do with patient care. So much of this could be automated."

Using the ER as a clinic

More insured and uninsured consumers are getting their primary care in emergency rooms, wasting $14 billion every year in health care spending. ... "Going to the doctor for strep throat would cost $65-$70. In the ER, it's $600 to $800," he said.

Medical "Oops"

Medical errors are costing the industry $17 billion a year in wasted expenses, something that makes patient advocacy groups irate.

... Going back to the hospital

"This happens a lot with elderly patients who are discharged prematurely because of insurance, bed unavailability or ageism," she said.

How the White House’s Deal With Big Pharma Undermines Democracy: called extortion

How the White House’s Deal With Big Pharma Undermines Democracy | By Robert Reich|Aug 9, 2009, 5:30 PM|Author's Website

I’m a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I’m appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry’s lobbying arm to buy their support.

Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. That’s basically the same deal George W. Bush struck in getting the Medicare drug benefit, and it’s proven a bonanza for the drug industry. A continuation will be an even larger bonanza, given all the Boomers who will be enrolling in Medicare over the next decade. And it will be a gold mine if the deal extends to Medicaid, which will be expanded under most versions of the healthcare bills now emerging from Congress, and to any public option that might be included. (We don’t know how far the deal extends beyond Medicare because its details haven’t been made public.)

Let me remind you: Any bonanza for the drug industry means higher health-care costs for the rest of us, which is one reason why critics of the emerging healthcare plans, including the Congressional Budget Office, are so worried about their failure to adequately stem future healthcare costs. ...
...
But I also care about democracy, and the deal between Big Pharma and the White House frankly worries me. It’s bad enough when industry lobbyists extract concessions from members of Congress, which happens all the time. But when an industry gets secret concessions out of the White House in return for a promise to lend the industry’s support to a key piece of legislation, we’re in big trouble. That’s called extortion: An industry is using its capacity to threaten or prevent legislation as a means of altering that legislation for its own benefit. And it’s doing so at the highest reaches of our government, in the office of the President. ...

LobbyBlog: Six lobbyists for every lawmaker on healthcare

LobbyBlog: "Six lobbyists for every lawmaker

No fewer 3,300 lobbyists have signed up to influence health care reform, Bloomberg reports.

That's six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate, according to Senate records, and three times the number of people registered to lobby on defense. More than 1,500 organizations have health-care lobbyists, and about three more are signing up each day. Every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is involved in an effort that could affect 17 percent of the U.S. economy.

'The sheer quantity of money that's sloshed around Washington is drowning out the voices of citizens and the groups that speak up for them,' said Larry McNeely of U.S. Public Interest Research Group."

Commentary: This country needs an outburst of common sense | McClatchy

Commentary: This country needs an outburst of common sense | McClatchy
...

If ever there were a time for comprehensive health care reform, it's now, and yet the forces of darkness are lining up against this urgent need, buttressed by lies, mobs inflamed by those lies and millions of dollars changing hands and changing votes in Washington, D.C.

The idea that doing nothing and going on without changing the way this country's health care is delivered works to the benefit only of the insurance companies, the giant health care providers and the big pharmaceutical companies.

That industry is now pouring $1.4 million A DAY into lobbying — read that buying or renting members of Congress — to water down or delay or preferably kill health care reform and hope it goes away for another 20 years or so. ...

US economic myths bite the dust | not small business leader, poor income mobility, no vacations, broken healthcare ...

US economic myths bite the dust | Mark Weisbrot | guardian.co.uk

The Great Recession is allowing some widely held beliefs about the US economy – which were the source of much evangelism over the last few decades – to run up against a reality check. This is to be expected, since the United States has been theepicentre of the storm of policy blunders that caused the world recession.

This month my CEPR colleagues John Schmitt and Nathan Lane showed that the United States is not the nation of small businesses that it is regularly dressed up to be for electoral campaign speeches and editorials. If we look at what percentage of our overall labour force is self-employed, or what percentage of manufacturing workers or high-tech workers are employed in small businesses – well, the US ranks at or near the bottom among high-income countries.

As economist Paul Krugman noted after reading the study: "One more American myth bites the dust." Indeed it has. And as both the authors of the paper and Krugman note, there is a plausible explanation for the US's low score in the small business contest: our lack of national health insurance. There are enough risks associated with choosing to start a business over being an employee, but the Europeans don't have to worry that they will go bankrupt for lack of health insurance.

A number of other alleged advantages of America's "economic dynamism" are also mythical. Most people think that there is more economic mobility in America than in Europe. Guess again. We're also near the bottom of rich countries in this category, for example as measured by the percentage of low-income households that escape from this status each year.

The idea that the US is more "internationally competitive" has been without economic foundation for decades, as measured by the most obvious indicator: our trade deficit, which peaked at 6% of GDP in 2006. (It has fallen sharply from its peak during this recession but will rebound strongly when the economy recovers).

And of course the idea that our less regulated, more "market-friendly" financial system was more innovative and efficient – widely held by our leading experts and policy-makers such as Alan Greenspan, until recently – collapsed along with our $8tn housing bubble.

On the other hand, most Americans pay a high price for the institutional arrangements that bring us these mythical successes. We have the dubious honour of being the only "no-vacation nation", ie no legally required paid time off and of course some weeks fewer actual days off per year than our European counterparts enjoy. We have a broken healthcare system that costs about twice as much per capita as that of our peer nations and delivers worse outcomes, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality. We are near the top in terms of inequality among high-income countries and at the bottom for parental leave policies and paid sick days. The list is a long one.

...

The major media in both Europe and the United States have played an important role, for decades, in helping politicians capitalise on economic mythology to push policy in economic and socially destructive directions on both sides of the Atlantic. It remains to be seen how much the Great Recession will influence the thinking and reporting of these influential institutions.

...

A Public Health Insurance Plan Option Is Centrist Reform | OurFuture.org

A Public Health Insurance Plan Option Is Centrist Reform | OurFuture.org

...

The problem is the for-profit insurance company takeover of our health care. Handing the private insurance companies 50 million more lives to cover with no benchmark on cost or quality, no ability to stop them from wrongly delaying and denying care, in short, giving them a monopoly over our health insurance coverage for working people is not reform.

Only giving people the choice of a robust national public health insurance option provides a tenable solution to our health care crisis.

...

Without a public health insurance option there is no cost or quality benchmark.

Because public and private are competing side-by-side people with Medicare have a guaranteed back-up plan when their private insurance company decides to pull out of the program or merge with another company or their doctor drops out of their plan’s network.

Without a public health insurance option there is no guaranteed backup.

Because Medicare has such a large membership, it has leverage over large provider conglomerates to get better rates.

Without a public health insurance option there is no negotiating with the large provider conglomerates. ...

Thank heaven for the NHS | Michele Hanson | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Thank heaven for the NHS | Michele Hanson | | guardian.co.uk

The American Republicans opposed to Barack Obama's introduction of healthcare reforms have been bad-mouthing our NHS. How dare they? The NHS is one of my main reasons for thanking heaven I was born here, where I know that whatever my income, our free health system will look after me.

It's not perfect, no organisation of that size could be, it's bound to make some mistakes, but I don't know where I'd be without it. Probably dead. I have a thyroid condition, and every day for the last 30 years I've had free medication, like thousands of others with ongoing conditions: diabetes, epilepsy, cancer and many others. What happens to the 43 million people in the US who can't afford to pay for such things? Must they live a miserable, painful, debilitated life and die early?

My mother was cared for until 98, free, through pneumonia, stroke, angina, arthritis and a broken back. All but one of the dozens of doctors, nurses and medical staff who treated her were kind, patient and verging on saintly. She was even fitted with new false teeth at 97 by a lovely young dentist who came to our house to treat her, even though we all knew that the Grim Reaper was nearly at the door.

By that age, my mother often longed to be allowed to fade away, but our hospital seemed to pull out all the stops to keep her going. So those Republican claims that our elderly cannot receive certain treatments are fibs, or at least grossly exaggerated. The over-59s are not refused heart surgery. One of my friends, aged 70, has recently had a stent fitted; another, also 70, is about to have a valve replacement. And last year, aged 66, I had two cataracts removed.

LobbyBlog

LobbyBlog

...

August 14, 2009

Six lobbyists for every lawmaker

No fewer 3,300 lobbyists have signed up to influence health care reform, Bloomberg reports.

That's six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate, according to Senate records, and three times the number of people registered to lobby on defense. More than 1,500 organizations have health-care lobbyists, and about three more are signing up each day. Every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is involved in an effort that could affect 17 percent of the U.S. economy.

"The sheer quantity of money that's sloshed around Washington is drowning out the voices of citizens and the groups that speak up for them," said Larry McNeely of U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Health-Reform Rhetoric Gets Personal for Britons - "jaw-droppingly untruthful attacks" by some American critics.

Health-Reform Rhetoric Gets Personal for Britons - washingtonpost.com

Hamish Meldrum, the chairman of the British Medical Association, said in a statement Wednesday that he has been dismayed by the "jaw-droppingly untruthful attacks" by some American critics.

One of the most surprising of these was the rumor -- given an airing by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) -- that Kennedy, 77, would not receive treatment for his brain tumor if he were in England because he is too old.

"That's just wrong," a British Health Department spokesman said. "The NHS in England provides health services on the basis of clinical need, irrespective of age or ability to pay."

Zack Cooper, a researcher in health policy at the London School of Economics, agreed that the Kennedy claim was "nonsense," ...

And You Thought a Prescription Was Private - NYTimes.com

And You Thought a Prescription Was Private - NYTimes.com
...
Like many other people, Ms. Krinsk thought that her prescription information was private. But in fact, prescriptions, and all the information on them — including not only the name and dosage of the drug and the name and address of the doctor, but also the patient’s address and Social Security number — are a commodity bought and sold in a murky marketplace, often without the patients’ knowledge or permission.

That may change if some little-noted protections from the Obama administration are strictly enforced. The federal stimulus law enacted in February prohibits in most cases the sale of personal health information, with a few exceptions for research and public health measures like tracking flu epidemics. It also tightens rules for telling patients when hackers or health care workers have stolen their Social Security numbers or medical information, as happened to Britney Spears, Maria Shriver and Farrah Fawcett before she died in June.

“The new rules will plug some gaping holes in our federal health privacy laws,” said Deven McGraw, a health privacy expert at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington. “For the first time, pharmacy benefit managers that handle most prescriptions and banks and contractors that process millions of medical claims will be held accountable for complying with federal privacy and security rules.”

The law won’t shut down the medical data mining industry, but there will be more restrictions on using private information without patients’ consent and penalties for civil violations will be increased. Government agencies are still writing new regulations called for in the law. ...

Drug from Japan -- costs $500 / year in UK ... $2,314 in US [preliminary investigation ... ed.]

The Gout Dugout. Issue #016.Febuxostat available in the U.S., but expensive; vitamin C for gout.: "

Taking a longer view, if you need febuxostat for just about a year (4 purchases of Uloric 90 tablets, 80 mg daily for 360 days supply) that will set you back US$2134.56."

http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/index.jsp?action=article&o=40696
2.3 The proposed recommended dose of febuxostat is 80 mg once daily. If the serum uric acid concentration is above 6 mg/100 ml (360 µmol/l) after 2-4 weeks, febuxostat 120 mg once daily may be considered. The price for febuxostat 80 mg and 120 mg is £0.87. Annual treatment costs will be approximately £318. Costs may vary in different settings because of negotiated procurement discounts.

South Florida doctors paid thousands by Eli Lilly - South Florida - MiamiHerald.com

South Florida doctors paid thousands by Eli Lilly - South Florida - MiamiHerald.com

While policymakers question whether drug makers are hurting healthcare reform by paying doctors fees, Eli Lilly revealed that it paid 10 South Florida providers more than $10,000 each during the first quarter.

In the first revelation about how much drug makers are paying doctors, Eli Lilly has created an online registry detailing payments to 3,400 healthcare providers -- including more than two dozen in South Florida in the first three months of this year.

Top on the South Florida list -- and No. 3 in the nation -- was internist Manuel Suarez-Barcelo, who told The Miami Herald that he earned $65,000 by traveling through 11 states, making 41 presentations, mostly to nursing home staff, about the advantages of the Lilly drug Forteo, used to treat osteoporosis.

Seven others in South Florida pulled in more than $10,000 each, including Broward obstetrician-gynecologist Jay S. Cohen, who received $38,000.

The payments are not illegal, but Washington policymakers question whether they raise the potential for conflicts of interest. ... [what the average layman calls BRIBERY. ed.]

Unions Receive Increasingly Scary Threats Of Violence For Town Hall Participation - Democratic Underground

Unions Receive Increasingly Scary Threats Of Violence For Town Hall Participation - Democratic Underground:

"Union officials continued to receive a barrage of threats on Friday evening and into Saturday punctuated by warnings that if organizers were sent to counter-demonstrate at health care town halls they would be met with violence.

An official with the AFL-CIO, a federation of labor organizations, passed on what he described as a 'pretty direct threat' to those union hands who were showing up to balance out anti-Obama demonstrations being waged at local Democratic forums.

'I will be going to a local town hall this weekend, all you union members BEWARE!' an emailer wrote at 9:40 Saturday morning. 'We will be waiting for you. better make sure you have arrangements with your local ER. today is the day when the goon meets the gun. see you there.'"

Drug Industry to Run Ads Favoring White House Plan - [Deal with the devil?? ed.]

Drug Industry to Run Ads Favoring White House Plan - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — The drug industry has authorized its lobbyists to spend as much as $150 million on television commercials supporting President Obama’s health care overhaul, beginning over the August Congressional recess, people briefed on the plans said Saturday.

The unusually large scale of the industry’s commitment to the cause helps explain some of a contentious back-and-forth playing out in recent days between the odd-couple allies over a deal that the White House struck with the industry in June to secure its support. The terms of the deal were not fully disclosed. Both sides had announced that the drug industry would contribute $80 billion over 10 years to the cost of the health care overhaul without spelling out the details. ...

Johann Hari: The hidden truth behind drug company profits - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent

Johann Hari: The hidden truth behind drug company profits - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent

This is the story of one of the great unspoken scandals of our times. Today, the people across the world who most need life-saving medicine are being prevented from producing it. Here's the latest example: factories across the poor world are desperate to start producing their own cheaper Tamiflu to protect their populations – but they are being sternly told not to. Why? So rich drug companies can protect their patents – and profits. There is an alternative to this sick system, but we are choosing to ignore it.

...

Our governments have chosen, over decades, to allow a strange system for developing medicines to build up. Most of the work carried out by scientists to bring a drug to your local pharmacist – and into your lungs, or stomach, or bowels – is done in government-funded university labs, paid for by your taxes.

Drug companies usually come in late in the process of development, and pay for part of the expensive, but largely uncreative final stages, like buying some of the chemicals and trials that are needed. In return, then they own the exclusive rights to manufacture and profit from the resulting medicine for years. Nobody else can make it.

The argument in defence of this system offered by Big Pharma is simple, and sounds reasonable at first: we need to charge large sums for "our" drugs so we can develop more life-saving medicines. We want to develop as many treatments as we can, and we can only do that if we have revenue. A lot of the research we back doesn't result in a marketable drug, so it's an expensive process.

But a detailed study by Dr Marcia Angell, the former editor of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, says that only 14 per cent of their budgets go on developing drugs – usually at the uncreative final part of the drug-trail. The rest goes on marketing and profits. And even with that puny 14 per cent, drug companies squander a fortune developing "me-too" drugs – medicines that do exactly the same job as a drug that already exists, but has one molecule different, so they can take out a new patent, and receive another avalanche of profits.

As a result, the US Government Accountability Office says that far from being a font of innovation, the drug market has become "stagnant". They spend virtually nothing on the diseases that kill the most human beings, like malaria, because the victims are poor, so there's hardly any profit to be sucked out.

We all suffer as a result of this patent dysfunction. The European Union's competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, recently concluded that Europeans pay 40 per cent more for their medicines than they should because of this "rotten" system – money that could be saving many lives if it was redirected towards real health care.

Why would we keep this system, if it is so bad? The drug companies have spent more than $3bn on lobbyists and political "contributions" over the past decade in the US alone. They have paid politicians to make the system work in their interests. If you doubt how deeply this influence goes, listen to a Republican congressman, Walter Burton, who admitted of the last big health care legislation passed in the US in 2003: "The pharmaceutical lobbyists wrote the bill."

There is a far better way to develop medicines, if only we will take it. It was first proposed by Joseph Stiglitz, the recent Nobel Prize winner for economics. He says: "Research needs money, but the current system results in limited funds being spent in the wrong way."

Stiglitz's plan is simple. The governments of the Western world should establish a multi-billion dollar prize fund that will give payments to scientists who develop cures or vaccines for diseases. The highest prizes would go to cures for diseases that kill millions of people, like malaria. Once the pay-out is made, the rights to use the treatment will be in the public domain. Anybody, anywhere in the world, could manufacture the drug and use it to save lives.

The financial incentive in this system for scientists remains exactly the same – but all humanity reaps the benefits, not a tiny private monopoly and those lucky few who can afford to pay their bloated prices. The irrationalities of the current system – spending a fortune on me-too drugs, and preventing sick people from making the medicines that would save them – would end.

It isn't cheap – it would cost 0.6 per cent of GDP – but in the medium-term it would save us all a fortune because our health care systems would no longer have to pay huge premiums to drug companies. Meanwhile, the cost of medicine would come crashing down for the poor – and tens of millions would be able to afford it for the first time. ...

...

The idea of ring-fencing life-saving medical knowledge so a few people can profit from it is one of the great grotesqueries of our age. We have to tear down this sick system – so the sick can live. Only then we can globalise the spirit of Jonas Salk, the great scientist who invented the polio vaccine, but refused to patent it, saying simply: "It would be like patenting the sun."

Op-Ed Columnist - The Town Hall Mob - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - The Town Hall Mob - NYTimes.com

...

Some commentators have tried to play down the mob aspect of these scenes, likening the campaign against health reform to the campaign against Social Security privatization back in 2005. But there’s no comparison. I’ve gone through many news reports from 2005, and while anti-privatization activists were sometimes raucous and rude, I can’t find any examples of congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds.

And I can’t find any counterpart to the death threats at least one congressman has received.

...

There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands. ...

Healthcare Efficiency: Business Roundtable

Healthcare Efficiency: Business Roundtable
...
In discussing this study, John Iglehart, at Health Affairs blog, cites another study by McKinsey Global Institute that reaches many of the same conclusions. Interesting tidbits from this latter study:

1. We spend twice as much on healthcare as we do on food.
2. We spend more on healthcare than the Chinese spend on everything.
3. We spend more than could be expected, based on per capita GDP.
4. Healthcare spending has grown faster than the GDP almost forever.
5. Outpatient care is the fastest growing component. (7.5% vs 6.0% for inpatient care.)
6. Specialists comprise 64% of U.S. physicians vs 66% in OECD countries.
7. U.S. specialists earn 6.5 time per capita GDP vs the 3.9 % OECD average.
8. Healthcare spending in Japan may double in the next two decades, driven by technology, wealth, and demographics.
   

The bottom line picture you come away with is that healthcare expenses in the U.S. are higher than any other country, and the reasons are everywhere. We get more healthcare, pay more for every aspect of care, and lack any control on costs--either from a top down government ownership or market competition. And this situation may well sink our economy unless we correct it soon.

Spinal Fracture: Cement No Better Than Sham

Spinal Fracture: Cement No Better Than Sham
By Salynn Boyles | WebMD Health News | Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Aug. 5, 2009 -- A popular treatment for painful spinal compression fractures works no better than sham therapy in patients with osteoporosis, according to two new studies published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

... “It is possible that there was a treatment effect (with the cement treatment) that we were just unable to measure,” Kallmes says. “I don’t think we should give up on this procedure. I think it needs to be studied in more detail.”

White House Confirms: Deal With Big Pharma Bars Price Negotiations

White House Confirms: Deal With Big Pharma Bars Price Negotiations

In closed-door negotiations with President Obama and his top aides throughout the spring, Big Pharma offered its support for comprehensive health care reform and pledged to cut $80 billion in costs over the next ten years. Just exactly what Obama promised in return wasn't made public and was the subject of intense debate on Capitol Hill Thursday, as senators wondered aloud if the White House had tied their legislative hands.

Earlier in the week, there were reports that Obama had promised to oppose any congressional attempt to exact further money from the massive pharmaceutical industry, which would include allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prices or import cheaper drugs from Canada -- two major priorities for congressional Democrats.

In a Thursday meeting with Senate Democrats, some of those present thought the White House backed off that deal. The administration has now stepped in to clear up its position: Congress can vote to do those things -- just not as part of the health-care overhaul legislation. ...

Health-Care Firms Have Supported Lawmakers Debating Reform

Health-Care Firms Have Supported Lawmakers Debating Reform - washingtonpost.com

By Dan Eggen | Tuesday, July 21, 2009 | Washington Post Staff Writer

As liberal protesters marched outside, Sen. Max Baucus sat down inside a San Francisco mansion for a dinner of chicken cordon bleu and a discussion of landmark health-care legislation under consideration by his Senate Finance Committee.

At the table on May 26 were about 20 donors willing to fork over $10,000 or more to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, including executives of major insurance companies, hospitals and other health-care firms. ...