Lies of Junk Insurance

by: jdwolverton

Sat Sep 13, 2008 at 16:43:34 PM PDT

It's another lie that John McCain fully promotes.

Junk Insurance costs almost as much as the "Cadillac" plans. Junk Insurance has high deductibles and copays. Junk Insurance excludes and limits health care services. Employers decrease the coverage of their plans every year to stay within their budgets, which is pushing most of us from the comprehensive health insurance plans of 5 years ago into Junk Insurance today.

Doing the Right Thing - Lab Tests for Everybody

by: jdwolverton

Fri Dec 10, 2010 at 06:15:27 AM PST

BushCo's Left Over's

by: jdwolverton

Fri Nov 28, 2008 at 13:19:57 PM PST

We dodged a bullet with John McCain and his health care initiatives. Some here might say John McCain's health care plan never had a chance of passing even if he were elected. Some say the same about Obama now. Well, it looks like part of what McCain wanted is actually happening. People are losing their ESI's or are going onto the private market or going bare where they will not fare well.

This is BushCo's health care legacy. His inability to understand, let along manage the market, his inability to see how managing stock prices is not the same as managing business operations is bearing some ugly fruit - equal numbers of unemployed and uninsured. Bush's bass ackward approach to economics is pushing our unsustainable health care system over the cliff.

Great hope lies ahead; Kennedy brings people together

by: los anjalis

Sat Oct 25, 2008 at 00:12:01 AM PDT

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has been organizing and overseeing meetings with members of both parties to draft health care legislation to present to the new president and Congress next year that would extend health insurance to all U.S. residents, the Washington Times reports.

The talks have included 14 roundtable meetings attended by Kennedy aides and staffers for both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate Budget Committee, Senate Finance Committee and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, chaired by Kennedy. Kennedy has monitored the talks, which started in June, through telephone updates from his staff.

The talks also were attended by representatives from a broad array of groups with an interest in health care, including the:

   * AARP;
   * AFL-CIO;
   * American Medical Association;
   * America's Health Insurance Plans;
   * Business Roundtable;
   * Consumers Union,
   * Families USA;
   * Federation of American Hospitals;
   * National Federation of Independent Business; and
   * National Retail Federation.

In addition, Kennedy aides have started meeting regularly with consumers and small groups of people representing each area of the health care industry.

The Times reports that the conversations are "extraordinary" because they are bipartisan and have "managed to put in the same room interests that rarely meet -- let alone agree with one another."

Bold emphasis is mine.  It truly is the beginning of a new era.  I'm going to try to be less cynical too :>

From California Health Line, October 24, 2008.

Future Primary Care Shortage

by: jdwolverton

Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 18:23:58 PM PDT

Retail clinics work. They are quick, have long hours and have reasonable quality as long as you don't have anything too exotic and the ARNP knows when they have an inappropriate patient. The only issue is that there's no long term patient/doctor relationship. Then again, there doesn't seem to be a patient/doctor relationship in traditional medical settings anymore either, but that's my point.

These clinics are here to stay

You wanna see rational and efficient? I'll show you rational and efficient

by: los anjalis

Mon Jul 07, 2008 at 23:11:43 PM PDT

Some state officials have said that New Jersey needs this period of consolidation -- that there were too many hospitals, and that some needed to close to make the system more rational and efficient.

But many of the closing hospitals have been in urban areas and towns with large concentrations of minority and poor residents. Two hospitals in Newark -- St. James and Columbus Hospital -- closed this year, angering local officials. Mayor Cory Booker (D) said he was "angry and anguished and frustrated" by the closings.

"The hospitals that close are generally in urban areas with minority people living there, and they don't count politically," said the Rev. James Colvin, who has also been active in trying to save Muhlenberg or find a new buyer.

"From a 'survival of the fittest' standpoint, it makes sense. We're saying it smacks of the final solution for urban centers. Someone else called it 'genocide lite.' "

I'd like to have a friendly conversation with some of those state officials who seem to think this is a "rational and efficient" way to consolidate health care resources.  Friendly.  Just sayin'.

YOYO v WITT : McCain v Obama in Song with Poll

by: nightowl724

Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 07:00:24 AM PDT

You're on Your Own (YOYO)
(sung by McCain to the tune of To Each His Own)

So, to those who disdain and won't vote for McCain:
BushCo's lovely promise has come true.
You're on your own.  You're on your own.
And, we now own you.

We're in This Together (WITT)
(sung by Obama to the tune of So Happy Together)

Imagine me and you.  I do.
We'll stick together day and night.  It's only right,
To care about the world we love, yo use our might.
We're in this together.

Complete songs below the fold...

Healthcare: Got No Heart (Young at Heart movie/song parody)

by: nightowl724

Fri May 30, 2008 at 22:18:58 PM PDT

I created a contemporary version of this story. The Tones, a musician and a housewife, have no health insurance. Barney and Laurie are wildly happy until Barney is in a terrible car accident. He almost dies because the hospital demands cash before treating him. He survives, but the Tones lose everything. In a bad economy, they must work as live-ins for room and board and get second jobs to pay the medical bills. Barney becomes a bar entertainer and Laurie becomes a prostitute.

Scary tales can come true. It can happen to you,
'Cuz they've got no heart.

Oh no! Things don't look good for Old Blue Eyes and Clara Bixby...

Usually High Customary Fees

by: jdwolverton

Sun Mar 16, 2008 at 13:42:48 PM PDT

That isn't our only problem. Unfair Pricing is a serious issue made worse with cost shifting; which is defined as:

A dynamic relationship between reductions in payment rates to a hospital by a public payer (i.e. Medicare & Medicaid), and increases in rates to patients with private insurance and those who are uninsured.

Cost shifting attempts to recapture the profits denied by public insurers's limiting charges. The results are artificially high "retail" fees. Insurance company's combat these tactics by capping the maxaimum they will pay for any service by saying the provider's fee exceeds their Usual and Customary Rate or UCR. Anyone without the protection of an insurer capping fees by using limiting charges has to pay the sticker price or suffer, or suffer and die.

The Death of Primary Care

by: jdwolverton

Tue Feb 19, 2008 at 20:21:16 PM PST

1. Uninsured,

2. Don't have a regular physician,

3. Have an acute condition that really shouldn't wait the 2-3 weeks to get a new patient appointment at a doctor's office.

4. Have a regular physician, but their acute condition really shouldn't wait the 6 days to 2 weeks to get an established patient appointment at their doctor's office.

5. Need care, but can't wait for the doctor's office to open.

It's a good thing. These people are more comfortable while they wait for care, but from another perspective it's just another band aid on the gaping wound created by our broken health care system.