Recently in Health Reform Category

Shakopee Valley News

Zyprexa, as well as the other atypical antipsychotics, are being prescribed for children, even though this is an unapproved, off-label use. Eli Lilly has been charged in allegedly pushing the drug for children in more than one state.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!

This is nothing more than lazy parents and teachers looking for the easier, softer way to deal with children.

Children are naturally hyper. Children are naturally loud. Children have a tendency to be mean and cruel to each other. Name calling, anger, temper; it is all par for the course with children. They become overwhelmed with their own growing energy. They have short attention spans. They do not need medication.

An ADHD diagnosis should not be made by a primary physician at the local clinic. Nor a child put on any type of antipsychotics, or any mood-altering chemicals, unless they have been thoroughly evaluated by competent, trained and experienced psychiatrists.

All any child really needs is patience, tolerance, and love; with firm, consistent, and continuous boundaries (which requires constant effort by parents to think about more than themselves) that will teach them proper social behavior. And finally, parental realization that they will not see instantaneous results.

I swear, some days it seems our society is one big addict; always wanting what it wants when it wants it and wanting it Right-God-Damn-Now!

startribune.com

DULUTH, MINN. - Administrators at SMDC Health System saw them as virulent, insidious and cause for an all-out eradication campaign in its four hospitals and 17 clinics throughout northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Germs?

No, pens and note pads.

Nexavar pens. Combivir note pads. Vioxx mouse pads. Advair and Levitra clipboards A disembodied stuffed nose from Allegra that exclaims, "That's snot funny!"

As part of a new policy that experts say is one of the toughest in the nation blocking pharmaceutical companies from influencing doctors, the Duluth-based health system recently got rid of nearly every freebie with a drug company name on it.

'Bout damn time. I hope this moves into television, radio, internet, and print advertising as well. Since the ban on advertising drugs has been lifted, drug prices have gone up, not down, as was first promised.

Alternet

The gutting of public mental health services began with Reagan, first in California where he closed state-funded mental health facilities. As president he cut aid for federally-funded community-run mental health programs. The result: thousands of more homeless people in California and nationwide and a spike in the prison population. The New York Times recently reported that despite a rapid rise in the suicide rate in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the city has half of its psychiatrists, social workers and mental health care workers.

I remember when the policies of Ronald Reagan began impacting Minnesota. I had just sobered up during the final stages of shuttering the Minnesota State Hospital system. The people I knew who worked in government jobs, mainly social workers, and the counselors in the addiction field, complained loudly that the services for the people they helped were suddenly, and unceremoniously, cut.

Throughout my career as a chemical dependency counselor I have watched helplessly as people were thrown in jail and prison for behaviors associated with their mental illness and addiction. These people were not criminals. If they were treated for their mental illness, or their addictions, they would not commit the crimes that put them in jail. And usually, the amount of services, and time spent in the facilities now closed down, were shorter, and of less cost then the time, and costs, of jail.

Today, instead of the reduced costs of treatment and housing in the State Hospital systems, they are housed, and not treated, in a far more expensive prison system. So, after being "rehabilitated" in prison, they are released into a society they are not capable of navigating, resort to their old behaviors, and are returned to jail or prison. As a result, they are a more costly economic strain on society.

The Morning in America, described as bright and prosperous by Reagan in 1984 has become a dismal afternoon for the poor and powerless.

He must have developed an immunity to the kool-aid.

Washington Post

The spectacle Tuesday of 151 House Republicans voting in lock step with the White House against expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was one of the more remarkable sights of the year. Rarely do you see so many politicians putting their careers in jeopardy.

[snip]

But Bush insists that SCHIP is "an incremental step toward the goal of government-run health care for every American" -- an eventuality he is determined to prevent.

Bush's adamant stand may be peculiar to him, but the willingness of Republican legislators to line up with him is more significant. Bush does not have to face the voters again, but these men and women will be on the ballot in just over a year -- and their Democratic opponents will undoubtedly remind them of their votes.

Two of their smartest colleagues -- Heather Wilson of New Mexico and Ray LaHood of Illinois -- tried to steer House Republicans away from this political self-immolation, but they had minimal success. The combined influence of White House and congressional leadership -- and what I would have to call herd instinct -- prevailed.

[snip]

In his new book, former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan wrote that his fellow Republicans deserved to lose their congressional majority in 2006 because they let spending run out of control and turned a blind eye toward misbehavior by their own members. Now, those Republicans have given voters a fresh reason to question their priorities -- or their common sense.

[snip]

This promised veto is a real poison pill for the GOP.

Okay. Who the hell wrote this, and what did they do with David S. Broder?

Stolen from Batux the Snarky Penguin:

	RomneyHillaryCare	Medicare For All
Enrollment method	Requires individuals to purchase health insurance either from current insurance programs or from a new government-run insurance program	Automatic -- all individuals residing in America are automatically covered by Medicare For All.
Method of Funding	Billing of individuals by insurance companies, combined the existing Medicaid tax for subsidizing lower-income insurance purchasers	Already-existing Medicare payroll deduction, increased to cover full cost of program and with employer matching of the employee portion, combined with a deduction from Social Security recipients' Social Security checks
Enforcement costs	Requires significant enforcement costs, up to and including imprisonment, in order to obtain compliance with the mandatory insurance purchase requirement. Enforcement is against 120,000,000 households, rather than 10,000,000 businesses.	No additional enforcement costs -- current already-existing Medicare tax enforcement against the 10,000,000 businesses in America suffices, which is much less expensive than enforcing a new mandate against 120,000,000 individual households.
Additional government bureaucracies created	5 - a new government-provided health plan distinct from Medicare with its own bureaucracies for enrollments, billing, and payments, a new government bureaucracy to handle computing and distributing health insurance subsidies to lower-income Americans, and a new enforcement bureaucracy to enforce the purchase of insurance	-2 - eliminates current Medicare enrollment and billing bureaucracies (everybody is automatically enrolled thus no need for a new enrollment bureaucracy, and the funding method eliminates the need to bill anybody unlike Medicare which is required to bill people who are receiving Medicare but not Social Security because they're still working)
Savings in insurance marketing costs	Increases marketing costs, since now marketing must be directed at 120,000,000 households rather than 10,000,000 businesses	100 percent savings. No marketing costs -- everybody is automatically enrolled
Savings in billing costs	Increases billing costs, since now 120,000,000 individuals must be billed rather than 10,000,000 businesses.	Over 100% savings -- total cost of plan piggy-backs on already-existing Medicare payroll tax already taken out of your paycheck and eliminates the current Medicare billing bureaucracy (for working Medicare recipients not yet receiving Social Security)
Savings in insurance claims processing costs	slight increase, due to new government bureaucracy	Drastic decrease -- dealing with only one program (Medicare For All) rather than with thousands of plans provided by hundreds of insurance companies will result in at least 15% average reduction in costs for the typical physician practice, and probably more.
Savings to businesses	100 percent -- now individuals, not businesses, pay for health insurance.	Increases costs for businesses that currently do not provide health insurance because the amount taken out of paycheck as Medicare tax is matched by the employer in the same way as the current Social Security tax. Decreases by at least 50% costs for employers who currently provide health insurance.
Savings in individual insurance premiums	Most people will see higher premiums than under their old employer-provided plans, due to higher billing and marketing costs. Inability to enforce the insurance mandate means little savings due to no longer having to bear cost of care for uninsured.	Dependent on income, if you count the Medicare payroll tax as a premium. Lower income people will see a drastic savings, upper income people will see a drastic increase, most will pay less than today because total cost of the program is less.
Coverage for pre-existing conditions	Mandated	Everybody in America is automatically covered
Percentage of individuals uninsured	Roughly 10%, consisting of people who do not file income tax statements (and thus are not tracked by RomneyHillaryCare), are here illegally and thus do not qualify for subsidies for low-income households, or simply cannot afford health insurance even with the subsidies provided under RomneyHillaryCare for low-income households.	None -- everybody in America will be automatically covered, regardless of income status or immigration status.
Overall savings	Increases overall costs of health care in America, due to the cost of the additional federal bureaucracies and cost of billing and enforcement	Decreases overall costs of health care in America by at least 25% due to elimination of all billing, marketing, and sales costs and drastic reduction of claims processing costs due to economies of scale.
Consumer choice of physician	Limited As is currently the case, you will be required to "choose" a physician who is part of your particular PPO or HMO.	Drastically improved. With Medicare for All, you can go to any physician, anywhere, and receive care.
Consumer choice of health care coverage	Moderate increase in consumer choice. Right now you are limited to what your employer provides. You will be able to choose any plan you can afford under RomneyHillaryCare.	Moderate increase in consumer choice. While everybody's base level of health care coverage will be the same, you can choose to purchase MediGap insurance from private providers at extra cost to provide additional coverages beyond those provided by Medicare under Medicare For All.
Ability of states to create their own health plans different and distinct from the national plan	Eliminated.	Eliminated

I have to admit, Hillary's health care reform does not seem to really address the problem of health care. All it does is continue to feed the insurance industry while failing to give adequate, affordable health coverage.

Submitted without comment.

Yea, I know, I'm surprised too.

The New Republic

Of course, the Democrats have not threatened to take many incremental steps that would pose any real political risks to themselves. One, for example, would be to hold real hearings on whether there is any way to avoid reinstatement of the draft and maintain our national security if we continue an indefinite presence in Iraq, so that the American people begin to connect voting Republican with realistic anxiety about the lives and well-being of their teenage children. (The question Democrats have never asked Republicans since the war began is the only one that really matters: Would you send your own child to die in Iraq? And if so, have you done everything you can to convince your children that, if this is truly the war you say it is--for our freedom, for our very way of life, to keep the terrorists "over there" so that we don't fight them "over here"--they should drop their lucrative investment banking careers and be all they can be in Baghdad? Surely, with American freedom at stake, Jenna Bush could wait a few months to don her wedding gown and spend some time in army fatigues.) And while we're on our children, as Congress considers yet another supplemental appropriations bill for the war, the least Democrats can do this time around for our children, grandchildren, and generations yet unborn is to stop taxing them for this war (which is what deficit-spending for a war is), and to require that Bush and the Republicans put their money where their mouth is: Tell us whose taxes they're going to raise to pay not only for the next hundred billion dollars but for the half a trillion they have already spent from the piggy-banks of the innocent.

Paul Krugman has a good op-ed about the Democratic party health care/insurance reform plan. But that's really not the point of this post. What caught my eye was this statement at the end of the article:

David Brooks is off today.

And this is different from any other day...., how?