An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings
Archive for Health Care
Personal Vent
I have come to the conclusion, once again, people are idiots!
I got a call this morning to come right in for an MRI. Knee issues, horrible drug side effects….I’ve run the gambit this past week or so. Of course, it was POURING down rain. What is it with me, hospitals, and rain anyway?
Is there a rule written somewhere, that if it’s raining, you no longer have to observe STOP signs? 3 times I almost got hit cuz some jackass didn’t have the good sense to actually STOP….or even slow down! Criminy!
I rush over……and wait! Shocker! I’m there, they’re there, what’s the problem? Well, evidently the little twit who does the MRI is behind schedule. Not a problem, I took a book with me. Now, I’ve had two surgeries on this same knee, and I’ve had two MRIs. Evidently, I’m an idiot, because when I finally got into the overly cold room, I asked him if this was an old machine. NO, state of the art. Really? Cuz the last two I had, were limb specific, at a sports medicine type place. He told me there was no such thing. Uh….right. That’s why I was actually sitting comfortably the last two times, instead of laying on an extremely HARD, NO CUSHION surface. Nope, according to him, my previous two MRIs were….NOT. Uh….then they seriously over charged my insurance, cuz that’s what I paid for!
Now, if you’ve ever had one of these things, you know, that the person doing the test will occasionally ask if you’re ok. Not this bozo! I was in extreme agony, and not ONCE, did this SFB ask me if I was doing ok.
I don’t care how far behind schedule you are, the patient welfare comes FIRST!
Ok, rant over. But if you need an MRI, do NOT go to Hardin County Medical Center! Sheesh! NOW, I need drugs!
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I’d Rather Lick Glue
The Mr knows, if there is one thing that will contort my face into expressions that most faces aren’t meant to make, it’s having to lick an envelope to seal it. Ever had to drink Barocat? If you have, you’ll understand why I’d rather lick glue.
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Another Learning Experience
If Medicaid and/or Medicare is suppose to help out poor folks who have no health insurance, why is when I was at the doctor’s today and they were making an appointment for some tests at the hospital, the girl said, “No, she’s on private insurance, and self pay, not Medicare.” Pause…. To me: “Can you go in Thursday?” “Yes, Thursday is fine.” Again to me: “Good thing you’re not on Medicaid. You’d have to wait a couple of weeks.”
Now, I have issues with this! Yes, I am lucky enough to have personal health care, and can pay for whatever they don’t cover. Seems to me, it shouldn’t matter whether or not I’m on Medicaid, or Medicare. I was under the impression this great liberal idea for health care for the poor was suppose make everyone equal?
Guess not. Once again, the socialistic “feel good” idealism does more harm than good. I have had to use Medicaid at a couple of times during my life. I’m wondering how often I was put off for a needed procedure or appointment, or whatever because of Medicaid?
Somehow, something just doesn’t seem right.
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Granola State
Employers ponder tough tactics to halt smoking
Weyers, owner of a health care benefits administrator in Lansing, Mich., gave his 200 employees an ultimatum in 2004: Quit smoking in 15 months or lose your job. He refused to hire smokers. Ultimately, he extended his smoking ban to employees’ spouses and monitored compliance through mandatory random blood testing.
Uh….I beg your pardon? I don’t remember hearing about the POS extending his gestapo tactics to spouses. And the state let him get away with this? Isn’t that a major invasion of privacy, not to mention a violation of one’s civil rights? But then, hey, what do I know. I’m just a wingnut, right?
California, on both the state and local levels, has been at the forefront of anti-smoking efforts with laws to ban smoking in public places. A law went into effect in January that prohibits drivers from smoking when children are in the car. Still, smoking costs the state an estimated $8.6 billion in direct medical costs and $7.3 billion in lost productivity a year, according to the California division of the American Cancer Society.
And I’d bet ya dollars to donuts, just about everyone of those “you better live the way we tell you to live types” are VERY so called pro-choice. It’s ok to murder babies, but when you’re adult making decisions for yourself? Hey, that’s a big no-no!
In addition to lost work hours, employers have a vested interest in getting their workforce to kick the habit, given that they pay a large portion of health care costs and are the main source of health insurance for more than half the population.
Hey! Here’s a novel idea! Get the hell out of the health care industry, and you just might see the costs decreasing. For a bunch of yahoos who have created a major problem to begin with, they are all fired excited about creating new ones, and controlling your lives t’boot! Ain’t that just like ‘em. sigh…
Safeway prefers to influence its smokers through incentives rather than penalties, said Larree Renda, an executive vice president with the grocery chain. “Our focus right now has been one of being supportive and trying to help people quit smoking,” she said.
Excuse me, but what if said person actually enjoys smoking, on his own time, and is in pretty good health? Are companies going to force people to quite drinking too? How many are in poor health due to drinking? How ’bout those morons who get behind the wheel of a car and drive while under the influence? Better thought….enforce some NO DRIVING rules. There are a lot of health care costs involved in drunk driving accidents. Wait a minute…..even better…..NO THINKING ALLOWED. You are no longer allowed to think for yourself. You might make a stupid decision, and cost someone an extra dime or two in the process.
I find it absolutely amazing that those who whine the loudest are the ones who want to control my life, in all aspects. Here’s an idea: How ’bout you run YOUR life, and I’ll take care of mine, eh?
The instrusion of personal life the left wants, the more they complain about the direction things are going. Damn. They get what they want, and decide it’s not enough. Are all these people so unhappy with their own lives, they want to make ours miserable too? It’s not just the smoking police, it’s every damn thing that comes along. It’s getting freaking old. They bitch about Bush destroy the Constitution, yet at every turn, they are doing just that.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering a law that would ban the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products in the city’s drugstores.
Oh, it’s a right to spread HIV/AIDS, but it’s not ok to sell a legal product? It’s ok to push a destructive agenda on society, but not ok grown ups to make their own choices when it comes to smoking? Drugs are ok (marijuana, clean needles, etc.), as long as it’s not nicotine?
I know the whole state of California is full of libtards, so how did it come to this? When did the rational become outnumbered by the irrational?
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Question!
Why is a doctor will prescribe a drug for you that causes side effects that you are already taking another prescription to prevent?
Does that make any sense? 
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Killing Us Slowly
U.S. Identifies Tainted Heparin in 11 Countries
A contaminated blood thinner from China has been found in drug supplies in 11 countries, and federal officials said Monday they had discovered a clear link between the contaminant and severe reactions now associated with 81 deaths in the United States.
The Chinese seem to be trying to kill us. First it was children, with their lead based paint on toys, then they wanted to kill our pets, now people who need blood thinners? Will someone please explain to me why we keep importing ANYTHING from them!
But a Chinese official disputed the assertion that the contaminant found in the drug, heparin, caused any deaths and insisted that his country’s inspectors be allowed to inspect the American plant where the finished heparin vials were made. He said any future agreement to allow American inspections of Chinese firms should be reciprocal.
I wouldn’t think he’d say, “Oh yes, we poison people. Dead Americans, good for business.”
Mr. Chen said that illnesses associated with contaminated heparin had occurred only in the United States, which he said suggested that the problem arose in this country.
I suppose that’s possible. We don’t seem to be as alert as to who we hire anymore, but I’d still stop all imports from China. Dang! Wal Mart would be empty! Oh well.
Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s drug center, said that German regulators uncovered a cluster of illnesses among dialysis patients who took contaminated heparin. She said Chinese officials had conceded that heparin produced in their country contained a contaminant, though they say it was not connected to the illnesses.
The Chinese admitting ANYTHING would be a new twist.
The dispute is a sign of growing tensions between China and the United States over the safety of Chinese imports. China has in recent years exported poisonous toothpaste, lead-painted toys, toxic pet food, tainted fish and now, contaminated medicine.
I’ve never been impressed by much of anything produced in China. It’s definitely time to examine what we buy in stores, and check for the “Made in the USA” label. Sadly, those items are few and far between. Thanks unions. (massive sarcasm)
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Bloomberg’s First Steps Toward the “One World”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg And New Democrat Coalition Offer Roadmap Forward On Health IT
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and members of the New Democrat Coalition today urged Congress to take action on measures that would encourage rapid nationwide implementation of health information technology. At a press conference with the Mayor, the New Dems unveiled a roadmap that will guide their efforts to achieve a fully interoperable health IT exchange by 2018 with adoption by at least 75% of providers. The New Dems made their announcement shortly after meeting with Mayor Bloomberg to discuss the successful transition that New York City is making from paper records to safe, secure electronic health records.
“Nationwide, we’re paying – heavily – for a system that’s geared toward caring for us once we’re sick,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “We’d be better served by a system that’s designed to keep us healthy, which is what we are doing in New York City. Electronic medical records are key to putting the focus on prevention rather than treatment, and we’re very grateful for the opportunity to share what we’re doing in New York to shape a national program.”
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Health Care NOT a “Right”
Debate: Is Health Care a Right?
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA., March 31, 2008–On Wednesday, April 9 at 7:00 PM, the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, in partnership with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, will hold the fourth event of its National Discussion and Debate Series. At Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall, four participants will argue the proposed resolution: “Americans have a fundamental right to health care and it is the obligation of government to secure that right.”
Susan Dentzer, Health Correspondent for PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, will moderate. Download Press Release [PDF]
Supporting the resolution:
- JudyAnn Bigby, MD, Secretary of Health and Human Services for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
- Regina Herzlinger, Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration Chair, Harvard Business School
Opposing:
- Richard K. Armey, Chairman, FreedomWorks, and former U.S. House Majority Leader (1995-2003)
- Richard A. Epstein, James Parker Hall Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
Background:
This white paper lays out the major issues of the debate over health care as a right. Its authors are Arthur Garson, Jr., Executive Vice President and Provost of the University of Virginia and former Dean of the U.Va. School of Medicine, and Carolyn L. Engelhard, Assistant Professor of medical education and health policy analyst at U.Va.’s School of Medicine.
Garson and Engelhard looked at the goals, realities, and frustrations of the issue in an excellent Miller Center Forum on March 10. Download transcript [PDF]
More information, including biographies of the debaters, research, lesson plans, news, audio, and video, is available online at www.millercenter.org/debates.
The debate, the fourth in a series of five taking place during the 2007-08 academic year, will be webcast live and archived, along with the transcript, on the Miller Center’s web site (www.millercenter.org). It will be broadcast on PBS analog and digital channels nationwide (check local listings for details). The conversation has already started online, via interactive group pages on YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Google, and Yahoo.
The National Discussion and Debate Series, the Miller Center’s newest initiative, is addressing major issues facing the United States. It aims to examine these issues in depth, and to contribute to the national conversation with a genuine, thoughtful give-and-take that will both enlighten people and provoke dialogue.
Read the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s take on our March 6 religion debate.
The first debate, on keeping American troops in Iraq, took place on Sept. 18 in the historic Dome Room of the University of Virginia’s Rotunda in Charlottesville, Va. The second, on privacy and national security, occurred on Nov. 13 in Washington, D.C. The third, on religion and public life, took place on March 6 in Richmond, Va. The final debate, on immigration, will take place on May 15 in New York.
Video and transcripts are archived online:
http://www.millercenter.org
/debates/iraq http://www.millercenter.org
/debates/privacy http://www.millercenter.org
/debates/religion
A right? Where in the world did anyone get the idea that health care was a RIGHT? I’ve never seen anywhere in the Constitution of the United States that anyone has a right to health care. ACCESS to health care should be obvious. But a right? Take that crack pipe away from these yahoos, and get them into an intervention program…..ASAP!
Courtesy of Blue Collar Muse
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Warning!
I just started a new medication that is suppose to help what ails me (degenerating spine and nerve damage), but what it seems to be doing is making me loopier than normal. I feel like a lab rat on acid, without the visuals. Hopefully, it’ll only take a couple of days to actually work, and cease the ding bat nonsense. So, fair warning, if something I say (type) seems a tad disconnected, now you know why.
The Mr is having way too many chuckles over this. Hmmm……
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Box…..Rocks
1 in 4 Teen Girls Has Sexual Disease
At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group.
A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls - nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.
About half of the girls acknowledged ever having sex; among them, the rate was 40 percent. While some teens define sex as only intercourse, other types of intimate behavior including oral sex can spread some infections.
For many, the numbers likely seem “overwhelming because you’re talking about nearly half of the sexually experienced teens at any one time having evidence of an STD,” said Dr. Margaret Blythe, an adolescent medicine specialist at Indiana University School of Medicine and head of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on adolescence.
But the study highlights what many doctors who treat teens see every day, Blythe said.
Dr. John Douglas, director of the CDC’s division of STD prevention, said the results are the first to examine the combined national prevalence of common sexually transmitted diseases among adolescent girls. He said the data, from 2003-04, likely reflect current rates of infection.
“High STD rates among young women, particularly African-American young women, are clear signs that we must continue developing ways to reach those most at risk,” Douglas said.
Well, gee willakers Mr. Wizard! How can we stop young girls from getting those ol’ nasty SEXUALLY transmitted diseases? Uh…gosh Poindexter, I dunno! How ’bout we give a pill and some bananas to put balloons on!
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