Remote Area Medical Returns to Lafayette, Tennessee, U.S.A.

B’Man: I wrote about this group visiting Tn a while back here.

I do not find this situation an odd occurence in the deep south. Most people I know don’t have any real insurance (maybe hospitalization, for full coverage cannot be afforded right now). As a matter of fact, BuelahMan’s family is going through a harrowing ordeal right now and may likely lose much (if not all) my coverage.

So, we may be on board for the next visit from RAM…

Medical Charity Helping US Poor

Stan Brock is like a 21st-Century Florence Nightingale.

He started a charity - Remote Area Medical (RAM) - more than 20 years ago to bring relief to those cut off from healthcare.

Originally it was to help poor tribes in the former British colony of Guyana, South America.

That is where he lived after leaving Preston, Lancashire, more than half a century ago - he still is a British citizen.

But now Stan spends most of his time bringing relief to the richest country in the world.

Production line

Some 60% of RAM’s work is now carried out in the United States.

On a wet, spring weekend he lands his vintage World War II aircraft - once used to drop American troops on D-Day - in Lafayette, Tennessee.

He bought the plane to parachute medics into the jungle.

Today he is unloading dentists’ chairs from the plane into a pickup truck.

By eight o’clock on Friday evening the first patients have arrived after travelling hundreds of miles.

They start queuing.

For one weekend RAM has turned a high school into a hospital.

Classrooms have become consulting rooms and the sports hall has been transformed into a production line to fill or extract painful teeth.

Volunteer nurses, doctors and dentists have flown in from all over the country to man the stations.

ike Stan, they are not getting paid.

By five o’clock on Saturday morning the line is snaking round the school.

State troopers are on standby to help.

The patients are handed numbers as they wait in the pouring rain.

‘Working poor’

Most of those I speak to seem to have jobs, but cannot afford healthcare.

For one reason or another they do not have insurance.

They call themselves the “working poor”.

And then Stan Brock arrives with a loudspeaker to call the first batch in.

Once inside there is more queuing and waiting.

The patients slowly make their way to tables with yet more volunteers, who take blood pressure and medical history.

Among the sea of faces is Donna Pollard.

She wants a mammogram to check out a lump on her breast, as well as dental work and new eye glasses.

For her, this service is nothing short of a lifeline.

Healthcare is a luxury when you are struggling to pay the bills.

Then there is Ken Barbee.

At 64, he has been working for most of his life.

But recently he had to give up his job as a truck driver to look after his sick wife.

By the time I catch up with him he has already got his new glasses - now he hopes to have his last few teeth removed.

Ken calls it “a shame” that people have to resort to charity for their healthcare in the world’s most prosperous country.

He feels let down: “We’re just pushed out there and told to do the best y’can.”

Election issue

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Some 47 million Americans have no health insurance.

Millions more are under-insured.

It is no wonder that healthcare is now such a big issue in the presidential race.

For a stoical Stan Brock, organising these clinics is both rewarding and depressing.

Come Sunday when it is time to pack up, he will be turning people away.

He watches over the whole operation wearing a neatly pressed khaki uniform, carrying a clipboard and pen, looking like a figure from the old British empire.

He has given his life to all this.

He takes no salary, and lives in an old school building in Kentucky from where he plans RAM’s expeditions.

As for his views on America’s healthcare, Stan says:

“We need to fix it… fall into line with Britain and France.

“Here in this country if you’re poor - you don’t have much of a shot.”

In this one short weekend, RAM treated 550 people - 416 teeth were extracted, more than 200 pairs of glasses handed out.

The estimated value of this free treatment was nearly $1m (£500,000).

So Stan Brock will continue flying in healthcare to rural Appalachia as well as the developing world.

He is also seriously thinking of returning to Britain - with a team of RAM volunteers.

He has heard his old country has a shortage of NHS dentists.

“I am sure we’ll get just as large a crowd as we’re getting here in the US,” he says.

© 2008 BBC News

Stand Tall for America | Senator Ron Wyden | Stand Tall for Health Care Reform

from www.standtallforamer posted with vodpod

 

Watch and sign up. This is what America needs for its healthcare solution.

Big Meds and Big Insurance Spend $17 MILLION a Day to Influence Congress

B’Man: When the corrupt Congresspeople get their biggest contributions from Big Health (to a tune of $17,000,000/Day), you should not expect any changes to our healthcare fiasco we are dealing with.

$17 Million a Day to Influence Congress

Health interests dole out the dough to get their way

By Trudy Lieberman
Wed 16 Apr 2008 01:22 PM

On Bill Moyers Journal Friday night, David Beckmann, who heads the hunger advocacy group Bread for the World, recalled his visit with Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. Reid told Beckmann, “Look, I’ve been here thirty-five years. I think the two best organized interests in the United States are the insurance companies and the commodity groups,” meaning the people who produce corn, soybeans, etc. Reid said the obvious—that these special interests have very powerful friends on both sides of the aisle and it would be difficult to make changes in the commodity system that Beckmann was hoping for. Reid might well have added that it is also going to be really hard to change the American way of health care, a fact of life that the press is yet to truly illuminate.

A glance at what health insurers spent in the past year to get their way with lawmakers—mostly on one key issue—shows why. That issue may not be as sexy as the latest candidate gaffe, but it’s far more important. It is the question of continuing overpayments to insurance companies for their role in private Medicare Advantage plans.

A quick refresher: Medicare recipients can get their benefits from either traditional Medicare or from private Medicare Advantage plans, which in turn are paid by the government to provide the benefits. Last year the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPac), a neutral outfit that advises Congress, said that Medicare was paying sellers of these plans on average 12 percent more than it cost to provide the same benefits under traditional Medicare; it paid sellers of a special type of plan called private-fee-for-service plans 19 percent more. So a middleman—the insurance company—is getting a large cut. And for what, really? This year MedPac says the overpayments are 13 percent and 17 percent. And what is worse: the commission says these overpayments contribute to Medicare’s worsening long-term financial problem.

The insurance companies, of course, think the system is just fine, and they spent heavily to keep the status quo. Health Plan Week, an insurance industry trade pub, took a hard look, revealing that overall health insurance payments to lobbyists soared last year and are likely to grow again in the next couple of years as health reform becomes the biggest issue. A large percentage of that money, the magazine found, was focused on the Medicare Advantage issue, which was front and center last year. Analyzing disclosure forms from the Senate’s public records office, Health Plan Week found that fifteen health plans paid lobbyists more than $22 million in 2007, up from $18 million in 2006, a hefty chunk of change by any measure. WellCare Health Plans, a big seller of Medicare Advantage products that has gotten in trouble with regulators for its questionable sales practices, quadrupled its spending to $320,000 and paid half of that amount to the Washington law firm to plead its case on Medicare issues. Health Net and Tufts Health Plan more than doubled their spending, while insurance biggies like CIGNA and UnitedHealth Group substantially increased their lobbying budgets. Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans spent nearly $10 million.

The Health Plan Week story is instructive. It shows what money can buy. Given the millions that insurers spent, it’s hardly surprising that attempts last year to get rid of the overpayments failed. Meanwhile, predictions of even greater spending this year and next should prompt journalists to closely watch the Medicare Advantage story.

A press release just issued by the Center for Responsive Politics further reinforces the money and health care story. Its message: Special interests spent $17 million for every day Congress was in session, and the drug industry spent most of all, paying lobbyists 25 percent more than they did last year. Did Harry Reid forget to mention them? Drug companies spent some $227 million on lobbying activities. The insurance industry was right behind with $138 million, and not far down was the hospital and nursing home industry, which spent some $91 million. When the Center pulled apart spending by organization, Pharma, the American Medical Association, and the American Hospital Association ranked three, four, and five on its list of top spenders. It’s too bad that the Center’s latest numbers haven’t gotten more press. For they, too show, the rocky path ahead for health reform.

It’s easy for reporters and editors to dismiss yet another press release about gobs of money thrown at politicians and lobbyists. We’ve seen that before, they say; what else is new? And it’s easy to cop out and blame readers for stumbling over the big numbers anyway. But the big numbers tell a big story. It’s crucial to remind the public of the intersection of money, lobbyists, Congress, and the presidential candidates. “It’s a constitutional right to petition your government, but the average citizen is not doing this petitioning,” says Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics. “The average person’s lobbyist is the elected official sent to Washington.” But, he adds, “Those officials are listening to the outsiders who are doing the petitioning.” The Constitution may guarantee lobbying, but it doesn’t say Congress has to listen to big money. The press needs to shine a light on just who is listening to whom.

B’Man: Oh, but then the media would have to stop its complicity in ravaging of Americans. Good luck with that.

There is but one clear answer and that is to cut the head off the middle man that serves no real purpose and is ONLY set up to make profits off the backs of Americans… the Insurance Companies. $.31 of every dollar spent on health related expenses is for the insurance companies’ operating expenditures (which are far higher than Medicare/Medicaid’s costs), profits and huge bonuses.

We need, no REQUIRE, a single payer, NOT-FOR-PROFIT healthcare system… just like most of the 36 better healthcare systems above us.

America #37!

 

Big Meds’ Extra Profit… America’s Extra Loss

Humana’s Net Rises 13% On Sizable Claims Drop

By DONNA KARDOS
April 28, 2008 7:10 a.m.

Humana Inc. posted a 13% rise in first-quarter net income amid a sizable claims drop as the company’s Medicare prescription-drug operations continued to struggle.

The health insurer also raised its full-year earnings outlook by a dime and issued a second-quarter outlook above analysts’ expectations

Humana reported net income of $80.2 million, or 47 cents a share, up from $71.2 million, or 42 cents a share, a year earlier.

Last month, Humana nearly halved its forecast to 44 cents to 46 cents a share on higher Medicare drug costs stemming from a cut in co-payments, which the company said was due to miscalculations in designing its Medicare prescription-drug plan. Humana said Monday earnings topped last month’s warning because of a lower-than-expected effective tax rate, which will also help full-year profits.

Revenue climbed 12% to $6.96 billion from $6.20 billion, driven by higher average Medicare Advantage membership. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 45 cents a share on $6.94 billion in revenue…

…Looking forward, Humana raised its 2008 earnings projection to $4.10 to $4.35 a share, compared with analysts’ latest mean estimate was $4.19 a share. The company also said it expects second-quarter earnings of $1.15 to $1.20 a share. Analysts projected $1.12.

B’Man: Better than expected profits and I am spending even more this year than last. So, who is paying the bill for the extra money I spend? Me, of course and they are doing even BETTER than expected.

THIS is a prime example of why we need a Single Payer, NOT-FOR-PROFIT healthcare system so these assholes will stop getting richer as we get sicker and poorer.

Amy Goodman Addresses Single Payer Health Care

The Single-Payer Solution

By Amy Goodman

As the media coverage of the Democratic presidential race continues to focus on lapel pins and pastors, America is ailing. As I travel around the country, I find people are angry and motivated. Like Dr. Rocky White, a physician from a conservative, evangelical background who practices in rural Alamosa, Colo. A tall, gray-haired Westerner in black jeans, a crisp white shirt and a bolo tie, Dr. White is a leading advocate for single-payer health care. He wasn’t always.

He told me in a recent interview: “Here I am, a Republican, thinking about nationalizing health care. It just went against the grain of everything that I stood for. But you have to remember: I didn’t come to those conclusions with lofty ideals of social justice.”

In the early 1990s, his medical group started falling apart. White, a keen student of economics and the business of medicine, determined that it wasn’t just his practice but the system that was broken.

“You’re seeing an ever-increasing number of people starting to support a national health program. In fact, 59 percent of practicing physicians today believe that we need to have a national health program. I mean, that’s unheard of, even 10 years ago. It’s amazing to see a new generation of physicians coming up who are disgusted with our current health-care system. You know, we’re trained to be advocates of patients, we’re trained to save lives, we’re trained to practice medicine. And instead, what we’re doing is we’re practicing Wall Street economics.”

Single-payer is not to be confused with universal coverage, which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both support. In fact, in a recent debate, when Clinton raised the issue of single-payer, the audience interrupted with applause. She immediately countered, “I know a lot of people favor [it], but for many reasons [it] is difficult to achieve.”

Why? One of the most powerful industries in the country opposes it—the insurance industry. Under universal coverage, insurance profits are preserved. Under single-payer, they are not. Dr. Rocky White, who now sits on the board of the nonprofit Health Care for All Colorado, has switched his political affiliation. He also has updated and reissued Dr. Robert LeBow’s book on single-payer called “Health Care Meltdown: Confronting the Myths and Fixing Our Failing System.”

He described possible solutions: “There are a lot of different types of single-payer systems—you could have purely socialized medicine. That’s kind of like what England has. The government owns the hospitals, the government owns the clinics, the government finances all the health care, and all the doctors work for the government. That is truly socialized medicine, as opposed to the Canadian system, where the financing comes through their Medicare program, but all the doctors are in private practice.”

The economics are complex, but this plain-spoken country doctor explains it clearly:

“You know, this industry is a $2-trillion industry, and the profits in the for-profit insurance industry are so huge and it’s so deeply entrenched into Wall Street … but until we move to a single-payer system and get rid of the profit motive in financing of health care, we will not be able to fix the problems that we have.”

What would it take? Dr. White has spent his life dealing with the high winds on the high plains, from Nebraska to Colorado, and describes the challenge the country faces in familiar terms:

“I think that our current presidential candidates understand that ideally single-payer would be the best, but they don’t have the political will to move that forward. Their job is to feel which way the wind is blowing. Our job is to turn that wind.”

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 650 stations in North America.

 

Posted on Apr 23, 2008

Frontline: Sick Around the World

Frontline: Sick Around the World

Health Insurance is ruining me. The biggest problem as a business owner and individual that I have. Literally going to break me if something doesn’t change soon.

I saw this program from Frontline last week and it does EXACTLY what I have called for on many occasions: look at all the best health plans in the world and come up with the very best, selecting from the cream of the crop.

There is but one reason why it isn’t happening here and that is because Big Money rule everything. If all my congresspeople receive most of their money from insurance, then why would they vote against their interests? They won’t.

And neither should all you rednecks who keep voting these people in. You should not vote for another person who will not insist on taking profit out of healthcare.

This video is excellent and goes through 5 different industrialized systems in the world and compares them to ours. The USA spends 16% of its GDP on health, where Taiwan has 6%, Japan 8% and ALL others in the world much less than us.

In Switzerland administrative costs for “insurance” is 5.5% (in the USA it is 22%… including massive bonuses, etc) and the other countries have far less than us.

Preventative medicine is key in Great Britain and even tho many services are considered slow compared to here, try living in the rural south and say that. They are improving their systems all the time.

In all of these systems, no one has ever gone bankrupt from some medical expenses… but it is estimated in the USA that some 700,000/year go bankrupt for that reason.

Also note that these countries (and all the others which list ABOVE the number 37 the USA has, in spite of spending MORE money than any other country) have longer life expectancies, lower infant mortality and a much better quality of health and life.

In other words, we pay a shit load of money to Fat Cat Insurance Companies who control our healthcare and make huge profit windfalls from our health and live shorter, less quality lives (if we make it at all) than all those 36 above us who pay a FRACTION of the money (sometimes less than 1/2).

For Profit Insurance is killing Americans and making some dick head rich.

This video is excellent.

Having Health Insurance has Proven to be a Matter of Life and Death

From Facing South:

Health insurance: a matter of life and death

Families USA recently released a report, Dying for Coverage, from all 50 states on the number of uninsured and the estimated number of deaths directly related to lack of health insurance.

Commenting on the report, Executive Director of Families USA Ron Pollack said:

Our report highlights how our inadequate system of health coverage condemns a great number of people to an early death simply because they don’t have the same access to health care as their insured neighbors. The conclusions are sadly clear — lack of health coverage is a matter of life and death for many people.

A study by the Institute of Medicine, tha basis for the Family USA report, found that uninsured adults are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than adults with private health insurance. Another academic study found that lack of health insurance is the third leading cause of death, following heart disease and cancer, for uninsured adults between the ages of 55 and 64.

While the percentage of uninsured, working age (25-64) people in the South reported by Families USA in 2006 (20.5%) is similar to overall U.S. percentage of uninsured in the same age group reported by the U.S. Census (19.9%), several Southern states have a significantly higher percentage of uninsured.

For example, the Families USA report found that Louisiana had the highest rate of uninsured among working people at 26.2%. Florida (25.3%), Arkansas (23.2%), and Mississippi (22.1%) also exceeded the regional and national rates. Virginia (15.1%) and West Virginia (16.5%) are well below the regional and national rates.

Other state reports from around the South on the percentage of uninsured working age people include Alabama (20.1%), Georgia (19.7%), Kentucky (19.0%), North Carolina (21.1%), South Carolina (19.7%), and Tennessee (18.3%).

The U.S. Census report shows that the South has the highest percentage of uninsured overall, 19.0%, as compared to 11.4% in the Midwest, 12.3% in the Northeast, and 17.9% in the West.

When you add it all up, there are nearly 8.5 million working age people in the South without health insurance. Even more disturbing, the Families USA report attributes nearly 52,000 premature deaths to lack of health insurance in these states between 2000 and 2006.

The National Coalition on Health Care, an influential, bi-partisan alliance working to improve America’s health care, has published a fact sheet about health insurance coverage in the U.S. It explains who the uninsured are, why there are so many, and some of the consequences:

• Lack of insurance compromises the health of the uninsured because they receive less preventive care, are diagnosed at more advanced disease stages, and once diagnosed, tend to receive less therapeutic care and have higher mortality rates than insured individuals.

• Regardless of age, race, ethnicity, income or health status, uninsured children were much less likely to have received a well-child checkup within the past year. One study shows that nearly 50 percent of uninsured children did not receive a checkup in 2003, almost twice the rate (26 percent) for insured children.

• Studies estimate that the number of excess deaths among uninsured adults age 25-64 is in the range of 18,000 a year. This mortality figure is more than the number of deaths from diabetes (17,500) within the same age group

Their report concludes:

The impacts of going uninsured are clear and severe. Many uninsured individuals postpone needed medical care which results in increased mortality and billions of dollars lost in productivity and increased expenses to the health care system. There also exists a significant sense of vulnerability to the potential loss of health insurance which is shared by tens of millions of other Americans who have managed to retain coverage.

Every American should have health care coverage, participation should be mandatory, and everyone should have basic benefits.

The state of health care in the United States is a national disgrace. And it’s only going to get worse. Even more so in the South, where the fastest growing region in America continues to struggle with poverty and unemployment which contribute to the higher rates of uninsured.

The upcoming elections could and should be a referendum on the problem. Unfortunately, none of the three leading Presidential candidates has a comprehensive plan to solve it. All they offer are band-aids that patch up various failing components of our broken system.

But that’s largely irrelevant, because the President doesn’t have the power to fix it alone. Congress will have to act to effect fundamental change.

HR676, which would open up Medicare to everyone and eliminate private and employer provided health insurance, is a radical idea. But it’s a good place to start a serious discussion about solving a serious problem. And complex, serious problems sometimes require radical solutions.

Report: Lack of health insurance takes toll on Tenn

From the Nashville Business Journal:

Nearly 13 Tennesseans die every week due to lack of health insurance, according to a report published this week by Families USA.

That number means about 676 Tennesseans died in 2006 for the same reason, the national organization for health-care consumers says. And between 2000 and 2006, the Washington, D.C.-based organization estimates more than 3,600 Georgians between the ages of 25 and 64 died because they did not have health insurance.

Nationally, about 22,000 Americans without health insurance died between 2000 and 2006.

Families USA says uninsured adults are more likely to be diagnosed with a disease, such as cancer, in an advanced stage, which greatly reduces their chance of survival.

“Our report highlights how our inadequate system of health coverage condemns a great number of people to an early death, simply because they don’t have the same access to health care as their insured neighbors,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. “The conclusions are sadly clear — a lack of health coverage is a matter of life and death for many people.”

The report says in 2006 about 18 percent of those 25-64 living in Tennessee were uninsured.

18% Uninsured, but I wonder what the number is for “under”insured (like I will find myself after an upcoming surgery). I make a bit more money than most people in the SE, but much of my “extra” money goes to health insurance and their lack of coverage (to the tune of $25,000 out of pocket last year).

This is but one harrowing scenario of devastation for Americans and it is evident that the SE is taking a huge hit.

Redneck Healthcare: A Buelah-Poll

How do you feel about healthcare and your personal health insurance (even if provided through work or the government)? I know how I feel and could (will) write about my family’s ongoing horror story in the near future.

Of course, if you visit here, you know that I bitch about it. And perhaps, if you are a ReTHUGlican redneck, you may blame me for my problems and suggest I desire “welfare queen” status, requiring the government to take care of me and my family. I would also bet that if you think that, you pay little or nothing for your insurance or you are the rare breed of “rich redneck”.

Wanna bet?

At the first of this year, the AFL-CIO and Working America sponsored an online survey of over 26,000 people that had various opinions and horror stories to tell. You can download or read the findings in a pdf report here. Most participants were currently insured and employed college graduates.

Most are concerned with health care costs:

One-third of respondents to the online survey, sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Working America, report skipping medical care because of cost, and a quarter had serious problems paying for the care they needed.

Ninety-five percent say they are somewhat or very concerned about being able to afford health insurance in the coming years.

Almost half overall (48 percent) and 60 percent of Latinos say they or a family member has stayed in a job to keep health care benefits when they would have preferred changing jobs.

Ninety-five percent of respondents say America’s health care system needs fundamental change or to be completely rebuilt.

Seventy-nine percent say health care is a very important voting issue, and 97 percent say they plan to vote in the November elections.

Simply having coverage is not enough and the future is looking bleak:

Ninety-six percent of people with insurance say they are somewhat or very concerned about affording coverage in the next few years.

Seventy-one percent of the insured worry about losing coverage because they may lose or change jobs.

Almost two-thirds (61 percent) who have employer-provided coverage say their costs have gotten worse.

Ninety-five percent of people with insurance are dissatisfied with health care costs, and 62 percent of them are dissatisfied with health care quality.

Ninety-four percent of the insured say the health care system needs fundamental change or to be rebuilt.

Not having insurance is devastating and getting scarier for Americans:

In the past year, 76 percent of people who lack insurance themselves and 71 percent of people with uninsured children say someone in their family did not visit a doctor when sick because of cost.

Sixty-seven percent of the uninsured and 66 percent of those whose children are uninsured report skipping medical treatment or follow-up care recommended by a doctor.

Fifty-seven percent of the uninsured and 61 percent of people with uninsured children had to choose between paying for medical care or prescriptions and other essential needs (such as the rent or mortgage and utilities).

Those of us who buy our own insurance are more likely than those whose employers pay for their health care report that critical needs are not covered or affordable.

Fifty-two percent of people who buy private coverage say prescription drugs are not covered or are unaffordable, compared with 44 percent who have employer-provided coverage.

Forty-one percent who buy private insurance say preventive care and checkups are not covered or affordable, versus 36 percent overall.

It doesn’t matter who you are, either:

A third of college graduates say they or a family member skipped recommended medical care because of cost.

Half of people in insured families say their coverage does not cover all the care they need at a price they can afford.

People of color, including 75 percent of African Americans and 76 percent of Latinos, are especially likely to voice dissatisfaction with health care quality.

Large majorities in all age groups—from 74 percent among 18- to 29-year-olds to 80 percent among 50- to 64-year-olds—consider health care a very important voting issue for the 2008 elections.

70% are employed and 20% are retired. 77% are in insured families. 51% have completed college or postgraduate school, and another 29% have attended some college.

Even so, most of them say they are barely getting by or are actually falling behind. 84% believe that the next generation will face a worse standard of living than we have today.

So, rednecks, how is your healthcare? Is it like Cheney-care? Or more like Buelah-care? For those are the very two extremes.

Universal Healthcare: It Will Cause Doctors to Quit or Move To Another Country

In my travels throughout the SE USA, I call on people that are generally somewhere around middle-class (engineers, etc) or upper middle class (owners of those companies). In almost every conversation I have, one of the biggest rationales by these against Universal Healthcare is that the good doctors will leave America or find something else to do.They fall for the meme that we have “the best healthcare in the world” and I can swear as a personal testimony that this is just a downright lie. My daughter has a sore throat and was forced to wait three days to see a doctor.

But, back to my point, I have done enough investigation to understand that by and large, this is an untrue statement (when comparing to other countries that have a similar system). Even with England (who, according to some, has a horrible system), the doctors aren’t really all that unhappy or underpaid.

But, I have asked three of my personal doctors (including an eye man) how they felt. In all three cases (and I intend to ask as many personally as I meet) they have explained that they WANT it. They understand that many of their patients wait for and/or totally go without help that could have truly benefited early on.

They understand that the problem is Insurance Companies and their stranglehold on our politicians. But now someone other than this redneck has done a poll and what does it say?

From CommonDreams:

Doctors Support Universal Health Care: Survey

WASHINGTON - More than half of U.S. doctors now favor switching to a national health care plan and fewer than a third oppose the idea, according to a survey published on Monday.The survey suggests that opinions have changed substantially since the last survey in 2002 and as the country debates serious changes to the health care system.

Of more than 2,000 doctors surveyed, 59 percent said they support legislation to establish a national health insurance program, while 32 percent said they opposed it, researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

The 2002 survey found that 49 percent of physicians supported national health insurance and 40 percent opposed it.

“Many claim to speak for physicians and represent their views. We asked doctors directly and found that, contrary to conventional wisdom, most doctors support national health insurance,” said Dr. Aaron Carroll of the Indiana University School of Medicine, who led the study.

“As doctors, we find that our patients suffer because of increasing deductibles, co-payments, and restrictions on patient care,” said Dr. Ronald Ackermann, who worked on the study with Carroll. “More and more, physicians are turning to national health insurance as a solution to this problem.”

PATCHWORK

The United States has no single organized health care system. Instead it relies on a patchwork of insurance provided by the federal and state governments to the elderly, poor, disabled and to some children, along with private insurance and employer-sponsored plans.

Many other countries have national plans, including Britain, France and Canada, and several studies have shown the United States spends more per capita on health care, without achieving better results for patients.

An estimated 47 million people have no insurance coverage at all, meaning they must pay out of their pockets for health care or skip it.

Contenders in the election for president in November all have proposed various changes, but none of the major party candidates has called for a fully national health plan.

Insurance companies, retailers and other employers have joined forces with unions and other interest groups to propose their own plans.

“Across the board, more physicians feel that our fragmented and for-profit insurance system is obstructing good patient care, and a majority now support national insurance as the remedy,” Ackermann said in a statement.

The Indiana survey found that 83 percent of psychiatrists, 69 percent of emergency medicine specialists, 65 percent of pediatricians, 64 percent of internists, 60 percent of family physicians and 55 percent of general surgeons favor a national health insurance plan.

The researchers said they believe the survey was representative of the 800,000 U.S. medical doctors.

Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Will Dunham and Xavier Briand

© 2008 Reuters

The “Have’s” and the “Have Not’s”

B’Man: If there were ever a sound reason to go to a single payer, not-for-profit healthcare, this is it.

Published on Sunday, March 23, 2008 by The New York Times

Gap in Life Expectancy Widens for the Nation

By Robert Pear

WASHINGTON - New government research has found “large and growing” disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades.

Life expectancy for the nation as a whole has increased, the researchers said, but affluent people have experienced greater gains, and this, in turn, has caused a widening gap. One of the researchers, Gopal K. Singh, a demographer at the Department of Health and Human Services, said “the growing inequalities in life expectancy” mirrored trends in infant mortality and in death from heart disease and certain cancers.

The gaps have been increasing despite efforts by the federal government to reduce them. One of the top goals of “Healthy People 2010,” an official statement of national health objectives issued in 2000, is to “eliminate health disparities among different segments of the population,” including higher- and lower-income groups and people of different racial and ethnic background.

Dr. Singh said last week that federal officials had found “widening socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy” at birth and at every age level.

He and another researcher, Mohammad Siahpush, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, developed an index to measure social and economic conditions in every county, using census data on education, income, poverty, housing and other factors. Counties were then classified into 10 groups of equal population size.

In 1980-82, Dr. Singh said, people in the most affluent group could expect to live 2.8 years longer than people in the most deprived group (75.8 versus 73 years). By 1998-2000, the difference in life expectancy had increased to 4.5 years (79.2 versus 74.7 years), and it continues to grow, he said.

After 20 years, the lowest socioeconomic group lagged further behind the most affluent, Dr. Singh said, noting that “life expectancy was higher for the most affluent in 1980 than for the most deprived group in 2000.”

“If you look at the extremes in 2000,” Dr. Singh said, “men in the most deprived counties had 10 years’ shorter life expectancy than women in the most affluent counties (71.5 years versus 81.3 years).” The difference between poor black men and affluent white women was more than 14 years (66.9 years vs. 81.1 years).

B’Man: If you are poor and a black man, you can figure that that little old Right Wing crazy Bushie lady is going to live 14 years longer than you. Equality, you ask?

The Democratic candidates for president, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have championed legislation to reduce such disparities, as have some Republicans, like Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi.

Peter R. Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, said: “We have heard a lot about growing income inequality. There has been much less attention paid to growing inequality in life expectancy, which is really quite dramatic.”

Life expectancy is the average number of years of life remaining for people who have attained a given age.

While researchers do not agree on an explanation for the widening gap, they have suggested many reasons, including these:

¶Doctors can detect and treat many forms of cancer and heart disease because of advances in medical science and technology. People who are affluent and better educated are more likely to take advantage of these discoveries.

¶Smoking has declined more rapidly among people with greater education and income.

¶Lower-income people are more likely to live in unsafe neighborhoods, to engage in risky or unhealthy behavior and to eat unhealthy food.

¶Lower-income people are less likely to have health insurance, so they are less likely to receive checkups, screenings, diagnostic tests, prescription drugs and other types of care.

B’Man: Highlighted for effect. I believe that the lack of healthcare is the biggest factor, but there is one factor that is not mentioned: lower class workers tend to work far more hours and get little time to visit a doctor, with no sick leave or compsensation for when they miss, they cannot “afford” to get healed. 

Even among people who have insurance, many studies have documented racial disparities.

In a recent report, the Department of Veterans Affairs found that black patients “tend to receive less aggressive medical care than whites” at its hospitals and clinics, in part because doctors provide them with less information and see them as “less appropriate candidates” for some types of surgery.

Some health economists contend that the disparities between rich and poor inevitably widen as doctors make gains in treating the major causes of death.

Nancy Krieger, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, rejected that idea. Professor Krieger investigated changes in the rate of premature mortality (dying before the age of 65) and infant death from 1960 to 2002. She found that inequities shrank from 1966 to 1980, but then widened.

“The recent trend of growing disparities in health status is not inevitable,” she said. “From 1966 to 1980, socioeconomic disparities declined in tandem with a decline in mortality rates.”

The creation of Medicaid and Medicare, community health centers, the “war on poverty” and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 all probably contributed to the earlier narrowing of health disparities, Professor Krieger said.

Robert E. Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said one reason for the growing disparities might be “a very significant gap in health literacy” - what people know about diet, exercise and healthy lifestyles. Middle-class and upper-income people have greater access to the huge amounts of health information on the Internet, Mr. Moffit said.

Thomas P. Miller, a health economist at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed.

“People with more education tend to have a longer time horizon,” Mr. Miller said. “They are more likely to look at the long-term consequences of their health behavior. They are more assertive in seeking out treatments and more likely to adhere to treatment advice from physicians.”

A recent study by Ellen R. Meara, a health economist at Harvard Medical School, found that in the 1980s and 1990s, “virtually all gains in life expectancy occurred among highly educated groups.”

Trends in smoking explain a large part of the widening gap, she said in an article this month in the journal Health Affairs.

Under federal law, officials must publish an annual report tracking health disparities. In the fifth annual report, issued this month, the Bush administration said, “Over all, disparities in quality and access for minority groups and poor populations have not been reduced” since the first report, in 2003.

The rate of new AIDS cases is still 10 times as high among blacks as among whites, it said, and the proportion of black children hospitalized for asthma is almost four times the rate for white children.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month that heart attack survivors with higher levels of education and income were much more likely to receive cardiac rehabilitation care, which lowers the risk of future heart problems. Likewise, it said, the odds of receiving tests for colon cancer increase with a person’s education and income.

© 2008 The New York Times

Dear Mr. Thompson

Finally, hope for those who suffer from mental health issues

House Passes Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act

March 5th, 2008 by Jesse Lee

The House has just passed H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act by a vote of 268-148. This bipartisan legislation will end discrimination against patients seeking treatment for mental illnesses by prohibiting insurers and group health plans from imposing treatment or financial limitations when they offer mental health benefits that are more restrictive from those applied to medical and surgical services.

Some consider me mentally deficient and be that as it may, I do live daily with mental illness. The problem is that simply using those words can instill fear and misunderstanding, certain stigmas associated with the words that do not help the situation, at all. More and more progress is made in all sorts of areas (the mental illnesses are varied and at times, interrelated), especially medicines (no matter what that freak Tom Cruise says).

In my case a family member is Bi-Polar (manic-depressive). Her life can be amazingly rewarding and fun… or super-depressing and scary. In her case, she is a rare type called a “rapid cycler” which means she can go from one extreme to the next daily, or even several times in a day. Most manic-depressives do not cycle that fast and it is devastating when they do cycle (no matter the frequency). If they cycle fast, the ups and downs happen so quickly, they can’t adjust and end up living a roller coaster ride of emotions.

They tend to “feel” more than normal people, in that, every emotion is overbearing… causing one to make decisions that can be rash and dangerous… or, may make them take the opposite tact and never make a decision, at all, in fear of messing up. Many times, anger or fear can be like “the first time” they ever experience it, as if it is groundhog day over and over, never learning from what happened the day before.

One of the worst things is to see them be depressed and have a manic phase at the same time. Being mentally forced to do something when that “something” depresses you. And not being able to control yourself. Having to clean the kitchen, while crying your eyes out and not being able to stop either. Nothing is routine and holding a regular job is most difficult (although certainly achievable).

Very few people know about my situation and how it affects the loved ones (I’m not bitching or asking for sympathy) who live with it. Like everything else in life, you just make do with the situation and try to improve it. In my case, I end up taking up a lot of the slack and “walk on eggshells” most of my life (I cook most meals, earn the living, help with our daughter as much as possible, juggling work). Since I travel with work, this makes juggling even harder and I rely on her taking her meds correctly (which is one of the biggest obstacles for a Bi-polar person, imo) and my parents-in-law (who are both in their 60’s and 70’s).

One of the issues is the stigma that insurance companies have been able to put on this illness. If you try to buy insurance or lose your insurance at work, there is absolutely no chance, whatsoever, to have an insurance company sign you because of the pre-existing condition. No evaluation… just NO. Since I am self-employed, I pay for my own insurance and basically, due to her illness (for my daughter and I combined are less than half of my wife’s premium) I pay almost $1,200/month in premiums. There is no real reason for this, except the stigma and the fact that health insurance companies rule our healthcare in America. For the last three years straight, I have had to spend $20K-$30K out of my pocket (and it is breaking us, believe me).

By and large, this is because of her “condition”, that if medicated as she religiously does, there is no real issue that warrants such extra costs. So, this is a start by congress (if it gets to Bush, it may be vetoed, since he is such a stupid prick), but the real answer is to dump the for profit system we have and build the very best single payer, not-for-profit system in the world, where EVERY American is covered and the fat cat assholes in insurance stop making millions in profit off of our sicknesses and accidents.

Best healthcare in the world? Only if you are a mindless, idiotic, sycophantic, Bushie Fool.