Cure This - Recent Comments

thanks for the insight...

los anjalis — Wed, 07 May 2008 06:09:45 GMT

...into the organizing behind the action! I knew there was something more to what was going on. Maybe it was just me, but it seemed so -- spontaneous -- from the presentation in the news. Like thousands of people just gathered in the streets on their own accord. That would be great, but it's even more amazing that there was a well-coordinated, organized effort behind the protests/direct action.

Just beautiful. The National Movement for the Right to Health. Ah, I see the link with the communique you provided, on the Peoples Health Movement website.

thanks again laura...

1000 Ways to Dump Your User

Owinurame — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:02:10 GMT

Not as funny, but just as outrageous - is a collection of files I came across on the internet at a portal server for Claims Adjusters working for Medica and United Health:

http://provider.medica.com/C13...

Among the 'tools' for these Insur-Animals are form letters for rejecting insured client services, denial letters, byzantine 'explanations' of appeals processes and an easy-to-use list of (no joking) 1300 REASONS FOR DENYING PAYMENT:

http://provider.medica.com/C13...

You can see that this excel file is set up to run with an automated letter writer - choose a code and it will insert the denial language!

You will have to download it to read it but its only half a megabyte. Believe me, it will leave you more than just a bit angry.

Please share,

Owinurame

Local response to Unnatural Causes

Owinurame — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:28:59 GMT

New Mexico has been taking some steps forward on these issues. The NM Public Health Association has a webpage with 9 NM studies regarding income inequality and health outcomes: http://www.nmpha.org/Social_De...
There is an excel database on income inequality and several studies on health disparities and environmental health outcomes in Albuquerque.

Also, here is the Environmental Justice report recently submitted to the Alb-Bern Co Air Quality Control Board, which approaches some of the same issues. There will be a hearing on this on Wednesday April 23, 5 pm at the City Council Chambers:
http://www.bernco.gov//upload/...

mixed feelings

baddecisionmaker — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 05:41:09 GMT

I have mixed feelings about this...

I am a (non-trans) woman and I have been sexually harassed on trains many times, and it has always been a men doing the harassing. It pisses me off, and I'm pretty sick of it. It would be great to be able to get home from work without having to get pissed or upset or have my sense of my sexuality negatively impacted or have to be constantly on guard because some guy is including me in his sex act without my desire or consent.

However... is separate gendered buses the best way to fix that?

What about trans and other gender non-conforming people (who often face plenty of sexual harassment and violence/invasion of boundaries)? Would this create further divisions, and provide less protection/safety rather than more for some people?

Also... I'm sure you and most of your readers know this, and I don't think you meant to imply otherwise, but... this definitely happens in the U.S. too, not just in Mexico or Kenya or Tanzania or India. I don't have any experience with those places, so I don't know, maybe it's worse there because busses are more overcrowded? But it certainly happens here in the U.S. too. I have been groped on a crowded train a couple times, and have noticed a guy jerking off while clearly staring/making eyes at me, talking to me, or touching me at least 5 or 6 times that I've noticed.

re: Demanding Vaccines and Blocking Highways

Laura — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:46:24 GMT

The communities in the area were able to respond so quickly to the yellow fever outbreak and the government's poor response because they are already organized as part of the Movimiento Nacional por el Derecho a la Salud (National Movement for the Right to Health) that has been working since 1994. They in turn are part of a national network Paraguay Sin Excusas Contra la Pobreza (Paraguay Against Poverty Without Excuses). The article you site is interesting because according to the MNDS, there were deaths.

Below is the communique (translated) they sent out about the situation:

The National Movement for the Right to Health joins with the indignation and protest of the population of Laurelty for the complete dysfunction and ineptitude with which the National Authorities have managed the situation since the outbreak of yellow fever was unleashed in our country.
We hold responsible the President of the Republic and the Health Ministry for the deaths and illness from yellow fever that have happened and that can continue due to the lack of foresight, disinformation and irresponsibility in the face of this grave public health threat since information on the outbreak in Brazil was received.
The dysfunction of the Health ministry is shameful in that having the information of the Brazil outbreak before there was any suspicion of of the disease in ours, they did not take even the minimum steps, such as vaccination, to prevent the spread of the disease into the zones at risk.
We consider it a major insult that the same Health Ministry has given a false diagnosis to the first death from yellow fever in Laurelty and has lied to the people promising an immediate block (quarantine?) in the zone when eight days later it has still done nothing.
We consider it inhuman and unscrupulous what the population of Laurelty has denounced - that the few vaccines brought on February 13th were destined for the houses of Colorado political party operatives who prioritize the vaccination for party members.
We energetically condemn the abandonment of the citizenry by the authorities, leaving them on the edge of collapse without even the respect to listen to them and assume their responsibilities.
The population of Laurelty has given us a lesson on dignity and citizenship by going out into the streets to demand the right to public health for all without exclusions.
We exhort citizens to follow the example of Laurelty and demand that our authorities comply with their constitutional mandate to provide health for all the inhabitants of this country, without shirking from our commitment as citizens to redouble out efforts to eliminate all possible breeding grounds for mosquitoes in our houses and neighborhoods.
Today more than ever we reclaim the need for a true revolution in public health that makes the life of each citizen the highest value and justly defended.
Health is a right. It is not bought. It is not sold. It is not begged for. Health is the responsibility of the state.
Asunción, February 13, 2008

Bush's lackeys strike again...

dougmurray27 — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:16:47 GMT

Pope Bush and his 'ethics?' police are protecting us from
dangwus infomachion (sic) We'll here's my take on it...
I'm a Libertarian and I don't need some 'stepdaddy uncle sam' getting in the way of my 1st amendment rights. My theory is if you don't like some tv program, use the remote to change the channel. Don't impede MY constitutional rights
cause you don't want to watch something. JUST DONT WATCH IT! if you don't want to see it. ....pretty simple eh?

very interesting but...

diannah — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:22:53 GMT

Suppose the woman, being uninsured, could not afford the orthopedic surgeon? I know I don't have that kind of money in the bank or that kind of credit.

Does she go back to the Emergency and wait?

And why does she only get Ibuprofen?

I remember the "good old days" when if you broke something they gave you something to really kill the pain, at least for a while.
I remember when my parents didn't need insurance and they could pay for my Dr's visits without going into debt.

And I wouldn't mind a clinic like the one mentioned.
But the price of medication these days is out of control.

cheers
diannah

thank you, thank you

make_a_difference — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:18:34 GMT

thanks so much for this uplifiting post. nearly made we weep. gave me hope for this country as a whole.

thanks again....

~MAD

excellent diary....and practice laws....

make_a_difference — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:26:25 GMT

there's no question that laws would have to change.

that's what legislators get THEIR excellent health care and salaries for.

there's also very little question that there would be an improvement in the lot of folks who have no insurance and no care....

and although I have health insurance (for the moment) the latter is pretty much ALL I care about.

the huge queues in NG's scenario (which I am in agreement will probably more or less happen no matter what) will partially be dealt with by increasing med school graduates, and changing practice laws. there may also need to be some tort reform and protections for practitioners, who knows. an expansion of skilled nursing care, etc.

it's time for this country to get creative and put our noses to the grindstone about this. if we don't there is going to be a LOT more people dying (from lack of affordable, efficient health care, no two ways about it...)

pardon my doomsday motif...but the picture is not pretty....

My good insurance at the job I just left

make_a_difference — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:09:08 GMT

(and I'm not knocking it, I know I was damn lucky to have any coverage at all in what passes for a system in this country) covered 8 visits period with a mental health practitioner.

so, either you're fixed in two months of weekly therapy, or you're on your own...

luckily I was very, very very lucky enough to get the therapy I badly badly needed through a grant-funded program...

the purpose of a co-pay is to increase the friggin' profits of insurance companies, as far as I know.... (back to the original question.)

dark days indeed....

Such a complcated subject matter!

NG — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:05:54 GMT

A Universal Health Care System would have to have an integrated solution to this mess. Medical school loan forgiveness for Primary Care physicians. Increased numbers of nurse practioners and physician assistants. A second level of emergency care - urgent, unscheduled care.

Nice job with this diary. I got to tell you that starting up a universal system now with the restrictive scope of practice laws now in place in most states and controlled for the most part by the professions themselves (fox guarding the henhouse) will create huge queues. I wonder how that will be dealt with?? The number of physician providers and especially dentists now is totally inadequate to deal with all the people even now that have no access. With the soon to be retiring
of baby boomer providers coupled with population growth and increase demand for care (for many reasons), just getting access to care no matter how well insured you are may well become the biggest system problem real soon!

thanks for posting this, JD

nalin — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:27:18 GMT

you've now been "brided" :)
this is an exceptional diary. I saw it first on dKos and I'm glad it's made it to the front page here. I hope to read more from you.

Welcome to Cure This.

I'm not sure what the conventions are here

jdwolverton — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 04:42:28 GMT

I just saw that this is a rescued diary on dkos. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride so to speak.

I hope you enjoy this.

JDWolverton

And another piece on cost-sharing

los anjalis — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 09:15:43 GMT

Continuing the nerdy note, there's a new study showing that cost-sharing (sharing the cost of medicines/procedures between insurance companies and the "consumer") reduced asthma medication use in children.

The article is entitled, "Effect of Cost Sharing on Use of Asthma Medication in Children" and was published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, Feb 2008. The link goes to the abstract of the study.

I didn't think we needed the evidence to back up the idea that cost-sharing is a terrible idea for many health-related issues, but hey, it's great to have the evidence.

cost-sharing

los anjalis — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:52:51 GMT

Yes, I saw that article too, in the New England Journal of Medicine. I have not yet read through the full study, but the conclusion that small co-payments for necessary procedures like mammograms deterred women from getting them, is powerful.

If you've read the whole article, minesh, perhaps you could write a diary summarizing the article and talking about its implications?

thanks for the "more nerdy note" :>

Ha!

Minesh — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:42:57 GMT

I'm half expecting a woman wearing pasties to jump out of a box and sing a song!

On a more nerdy note, the Jan 24 issue of NEJM has an interesting article showing how even modest cost-sharing significantly reduces the use of mammography. No real surprise, but it's nice to have good data proving that consumer-driven healthcare has scary costs...

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/co...

It seems Americans want to do good works...

nightowl724 — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 02:21:46 GMT

...but from as far away as possible!

We don't want to risk getting our hands dirty or "catching" anything like disease, poverty, or natural disasters.

I read in the UK's Guardian (I think) that this commercialized giving and charities- as-businesses only goes on in the US. The reason? Because we have so "few" government social programs, thus we "need" so many charities and the profiteers seize every opportunity to make money. I lost the link to the article somehow and couldn't find it again, so I couldn't include this concept in my diary.

Enlighten, empower, act! I like it, los anjalis.

common themes...

los anjalis — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 01:50:54 GMT

...and a common response: screw the middleman!

whether it's "pharmacy benefit managers" or "VISA healthcare giftcards" or this, private companies are wedging themselves into the market everywhere. this needs to stop. we need to feel more empowered to investigate this information (thanks nightowl for following the money!) and saying NO, we don't want your plastic (or in this case, your paper card that we can maybe print out from a website).

HO HO HO!

nightowl724 — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 17:50:53 GMT

Happy holidays!

Update #1!

los anjalis — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 05:03:02 GMT

Got this from the Katrina Information Network:

Thanks to our efforts, the demonstrations in different parts of the country, the marches and acts of civil disobedience in New Orleans, and legal efforts, the New Orleans Housing Authority agreed not to demolish the C.J. Peete, Lafitte or St. Bernard public housing developments unless the New Orleans City Council approves permits for the work.
Senator Vitter and the New Orleans City Council still needs to hear from more of us. They need to know that residents need to have more access to the decision making process and that a 1:1 replacement of public housing is a necessity. Please forward this information widely and visit www.katrinaaction.org for more updates.

Victory number 1! more updates to follow...