Category: Health Care

Welcome to this week’s Health and Fitness. This is an Open Thread.

(Reuters) – Easter eggs may be good for you, but only if you eat small ones made from cocoa-rich dark chocolate, according to the latest in a string of scientific studies to show potential health benefits of chocolate.

German researchers studied more than 19,300 people over a decade and found those who ate the most chocolate — an average of 7.5 grams a day — had lower blood pressure and a 39 percent lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke than those who ate the least amount of chocolate — an average of 1.7 grams a day.

But, the difference between the two groups was just under six grams (6g) of chocolate a day, less than one small square of an average 100g bar, they wrote in a study in the European Heart Journal to be published on Wednesday.

Chocolate contains flavanols, anti-oxidant flavanoids, that are found in coco, wine and vegetables. Flavanols aid the release of nitrous oxide from the cells that line the blood vessels, Nitrous oxide is a smooth muscle relaxant that once in the blood stream, causes the blood vessels to relax and widen thus reducing blood pressure. Dark chocolate containing 70% coco has also been linked to  reducing stress. Along with a healthy diet, exercise and changes in lifestyle, 100 gm of Dark chocolate a day keeps the doctor away. One word of caution, there are 500 calories in 100 gm of chocolate. Happy Easter

As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.  

New Health Care Law a Republican Plan That Should Make Insurance Companies Proud

By: Jon Walker Tuesday March 30, 2010 2:22 pm

This new law at its heart is a pro-private health insurance, pro-big business Republican bill. It is not liberal or progressive, and it would be hard to justify even calling the law “centrist” because it lacks very popular elements like a public option and drug re-importation-reforms wanted by the broad “center” of the country.

It is nearly identical to previous Republican bills and laws. It is strikingly similar to a plan from the Heritage Foundation. It almost exactly follows the same proposal put forward over a year ago by the health insurance industry itself. After it passed, the drug companies spent big on ads thanking Democrats for passing this massive giveaway to their industry.

The law is a completely wasteful and poorly designed piece of corporate welfare. It is nothing for progressives to be proud of. If you want to argue that we should have supported it because the rampant corruption in our Congress and the fact that a huge number of senators are wholly owned by the health care industry means that this wasteful, pro-corporate bill was the only way to get some help to some people in need, I can at least accept the honesty of that argument. But let’s all stop pretending this was some great victory over the health care industry and for progressive policy.

Mr. President, if I had wanted to see the corporate-friendly policies of Mitt Romney enacted, I would have voted for the guy.

“When you actually look at the bill itself, it incorporates all sorts of Republican ideas. I mean a lot of commentators have said this is sort of similar to the bill that Mitt Romney, the Republican Governor and now presidential candidate, passed in Massachusetts.

   “A lot of the ideas in terms of the exchange, just being able to pool and improve the purchasing power of individuals in the insurance market, that originated from the Heritage Foundation…”

And judging from the tepid polling (PDF) response the new HIR law has received, it appears I’m not alone.

16. Which of the following statements best describes your views about the health care bill that Congress passed this week: (ROTATE) Mar. 25-28 2010

15% You approve of the bill becoming law and have no reservations about it

27% You approve of the bill becoming law but you think it did not go far enough

31% You disapprove of the bill becoming law but you support a few of its proposals

25% You disapprove of the bill becoming law and oppose all of its proposals

  1% No opinion

A lot of rationalizing tealeaf reading over at Big O right now about what these less than stellar polling results actually mean.  After all, when your party finally manages to pass health care legislation after decades of futility, you would hope that considerably more than a measly 15% of the public would be wholeheartedly cheering your historic achievement.

mcjoan cites the 27% ‘did not go far enough’ number to argue that Dems need to start making fixes to the bill if they want to close the ‘intensity gap’.

One way that Dems could keep closing that intensity gap among voters would be to try to deliver more. They could keep taking on the insurance companies, on providing coverage to sick kids, on the anti-trust exemption, etc.–the elements even Republicans had a hard time arguing against.

mcjoan’s basically right of course; those changes would probably have some marginally positive effect on the Dem base’s enthusiasm. (She might have also mentioned that the easiest way to move the HIR poll numbers in a positive direction would be to turf the mandate, but unfortunately over at GOS that’s still considered crazytalk).



Yet whatever added Dem enthusiasm might be generated by tweaks to HIR before November (don’t get your hopes up), these fixes can’t possibly make up for the wet blanket President Obama throws over his base every time he brags about how Republicans wrote his healthcare plan.

But at its core, if you look at the basic proposal that we’ve put forward: it has an exchange so that businesses and the self-employed can buy into a pool and can get bargaining power the same way big companies do; the insurance reforms that I’ve already discussed, making sure that there’s choice and competition for those who don’t have health insurance. The component parts of this thing are pretty similar to what Howard Baker, Bob Dole, and Tom Daschle proposed at the beginning of this debate last year.

The President must be quite impressed with his own powers of persuasion if he thinks he can convince his base between now and November that Bob Dole, Howard Baker and Mitt Romney are actually liberal Democratic icons.

Somehow, though, I doubt anything short of free Viagra will get too many on the left very excited about voting for Democrats who continually crow about passing Republican healthcare plans.  

Pardon. M. le Président, avez-vous lu la législation ?

At Columbia University yesterday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy both chastised and praised the US for the passage of the Health Insurance Bill:

“Welcome to the club of states who don’t turn their back on the sick and the poor,” said Sarkozy. He also added: “When we look at the American debate on reforming health care, it’s difficult to believe. The very fact that there should have been such a violent debate simply on the fact that the poorest of Americans should not be left out in the streets without a cent to look after them … is something astonishing to us.”

snip

“If you come to France and something happens to you, you won’t be asked for your credit card before you’re rushed to the hospital.”

M. Sarkozy hasn’t read the bill, obviously.

Now it’s time to work for real health care reform — Medicare For All, say Greens

• The Democratic “insurance company enrichment” bill burdens millions of Americans and imposes mandates that enrich insurance companies

WASHINGTON, DC — Green candidates and party leaders said today that the passage of the Democratic health care bill, with its increased financial burdens on millions of Americans, should not slow the movement for Medicare For All (single-payer national health care).

The Democratic bill “falls short on many levels, and hurts many people more than it helps,” as Jane Hamsher writes in “Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Care Bill” (http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/19/fact-sheet-the-truth-about-the-health-care-bill).

Physicians for a National Health Program said in a statement on Monday, “Instead of eliminating the root of the problem — the profit-driven, private health insurance industry — this costly new legislation will enrich and further entrench these firms. The bill would require millions of Americans to buy private insurers’ defective products, and turn over to them vast amounts of public money.” (http://www.pnhp.org/news/2010/march/pro-single-payer-doctors-health-bill-leaves-23-million-uninsured)

• Dennis Spisak, Green candidate for Governor of Ohio (http://www.votespisak.org/governor): “Now that this bill has passed, those of us who support real universal health care must keep up the demand for Medicare For All. Every American deserves the same high-quality guaranteed health coverage that Congress members enjoy. We will challenge those who insist that further health care reform is no longer on the table. The Democratic bill was mainly written to give the appearance of reform. It forces people to buy insurance or face a tax penalty. It works like a regressive tax, in which in the uninsured — in the midst of a recession — must pay for insurance they can’t use due to the likely high co-pays and deductibles. Especially vicious is the amendment prohibiting states from enacting their own single-payer programs.”

• Jill Stein, physician and Green candidate for Governor of Massachusetts (http://www.jillstein.org): “”The position of most Democrats and Republicans on health care is that Americans have no right to medical treatment, but private insurance companies have every right to enrich themselves on our need for health care and to send hundreds of thousands of Americans financial ruin over medical costs. According to Physicians for a National Health Program’s critique of the bill, about 23 milion Americans will remain uninsured after nine years, resulting in ‘an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually and an incalculable toll of suffering’. In the media coverage of health care reform, the angle was whether President Obama could prevail against the GOP and uncooperative Democrats. It was all about personalities and a horse-race competition. Whether the Democratic legislation — or obstruction of reform by Republicans — actually helps people became a
side issue.”

• Rich Whitney, Green candidate for Governor of Illinois (http://www.whitneyforgov.org)
: “The real story of health care reform over the past year is how the insurance and other health lobbies sent millions of dollars in campaign checks to both Democrats and Republicans to make sure their interests came first. We’ll get real health care reform when Americans get angry enough to stop voting for Democratic and Republican candidates who are addicted to corporate contributions, and elect Greens, who call health care a basic human right.” (Visit the web site of the Center for Responsive Politics to learn how much these corporations donate to each Congress member: http://www.opensecrets.org)

• Nancy Allen, farmer and long-time Green organizer from Maine: “Some of the Tea Partiers showed their true colors this past weekend, when crowds hurled racist and homophobic epithets at Rep. John Lewis, Rep. Barney Frank, and other Congress members. How much did Republican politicians, insurance companies, and other industries encourage such behavior? How did these corporations successfully convince so many Americans that their own medical care is less important than corporate profits and power?”

• Rodger Jennings, Green candidate for US Congress in Illinois, District 12 (http://www.rodgerjennings.org): “The winners are the largest for-profit health insurance companies. Both Democrats and Republicans made the bottom lines of the insurance cartel the top priority, rather than every American’s need for quality medical care. Private insurance adds cost to health care but provides no value — physicians, nurses, and other professionals do the actual medical work. The administrative overhead, including CEO bonuses and salaries, of private insurance raises health care costs by up to 31%. The administrative overhead for Medicare is under 3%. By eliminating the corporate insurance middle-man, we’d reduce health care spending from over 15% to about 9% and cut the price of coverage and care dramatically, and every American would enjoy guaranteed, quality health care.”

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org

• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Greens available to speak on health care reform: http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-health-care.php

• Green candidate database and campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml

Single-Payer Now! Green Party page on health care reform
http://www.gp.org/campaigns/health/single-payer

Physicians for a National Health Program http://www.pnhp.org
PNHP’s Frequently Asked Questions page http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-faq

Healthcare-Now http://www.healthcare-now.org

Single Payer Action http://www.singlepayeraction.org

“The Sober Reality of Health Care Reform”
By Jane Hamsher, FireDogLake, March 22, 2010
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/22/fdl-statement-on-the-passage-of-the-health-care-bill

“Deaths Rising for Lack of Insurance, Study Finds”
By Michelle Andrews, The New York Times (blog), February 26, 2010
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/deaths-rising-due-to-lack-of-insurance-study-finds/#preview

“NY Times Reporter Confirms Obama Made Deal to Kill Public Option”
By Miles Mogulescu, Huffington Post, March 15, 2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/ny-times-reporter-confirm_b_500999.html

Reposted from Green Party Watch

Just the other day, I declared my liberation from politics and talk radio and blogs that promote the party line.   With this liberation came a renewed interest in the only man outside the system, Ralph Nader.

Today, I got this email from him on health care.  It contained the usual stuff that we all know.  The bill is corporate welfare and was written by the health care corporations.  Many people recognize the Obama spin for the lie it is, and it contains many money quotes from Chris Hedges and others who know that when it smells like a skunk, looks like a skunk, well you know the rest of that.

I have copied and posted the entire email below in case someone wants to donate to the single payer cause; but there is one short paragraph on Howard Dean in the email that caught my attention.  I bolded it because I think it is important.  Apparently Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders got their pound of flesh for their support shutting up.  Bernie got clinics for the people, and Dean got – well read it for yourself.  

Welcome to this week’s Health and Fitness. This is an Open Thread.

Drug-resistant tuberculosis killed about 150,000 people in 2008, and half of all the world’s cases are thought in be in China and India, the World Health Organization said in a report last week.

No one knows the exact number of cases of the two types of drug-resistant TB, called MDR and XDR for multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant.

A few places, like Peru and Hong Kong, have fought the disease effectively, as New York City did in the early 1990s. Progress has been made in parts of Siberia, but in another region of Russia, more than a quarter of all cases are drug-resistant. And in Africa, a vast majority of cases have probably not even been diagnosed, the report said.

Even standard tuberculosis takes six months to cure with a four antibiotic cocktail. But the drugs cost only $20 and are relatively easy to take. Drug-resistant forms can take two years and require dangerously toxic drugs that cost $5,000 or more per person; they usually emerge when public health officials fail to ensure that patients with regular TB take their drugs daily.

As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.  

SMOLENSKAIA: The bill has been proclaimed historic, and the media, following administration’s lead, called the House vote a victory. But supporters of the health reform are divided on the merits of the legislation.

NORMAN SOLOMON, JOURNALIST AND MEDIA CRITIC: To call this a victory for health care as a human right, I think, is a mistake. This is not a victory. It is as much a victory for corporate America and for price gouging and for exploitation as it is anything else.

Full transcript below…

Schwhack!

This entire generation, whether in media or power, is hopeless. A write off. Gutless, stupid and liars. They all need to go. And forgive me, that includes most of the high ranked bloggers, many of whom I consider my friends. Instead of being people who challenged power, who had the moral and intellectual integrity to speak from a place of principle, they have become apologists for the worst sort of craven sell-outs imaginable, constantly decided that if some group wins it’s ok to hurt other groups, including by taking away their rights.

The blogosphere I grew up in, is dead. And the hope that the Democrats would be enough better than the Republicans to fix America, well, that too is dead.

That’ll leave a mark.

cross-posted from Sum of Change

(This segment was recorded live on Ustream on 3/24/2001 at 12:00pm EST)

Where has the new found slanderous noise gatherings, ‘teabagger patriot’s’, been for the past years, before the new administration, and their messages now?

Where is their noise about ‘their’ taxes, and children being left in debt, as to these State AG’s coming out to try and take down the Health Care Bill, just signed, I mean hey, it’s State funds and time by many being spent, that these States don’t have so will need to run up even further huge and growing deficits, don’t know about where you are but we’ve got libraries and schools closing plus, not to mention they certainly sound like lawsuits by Political Activist Lawyers, don’t they hate those.

Know where they were then, saw much of their thoughts on message boards with articles and such over these past years.

I’ll show you at the bottom where many are today, the day after, but first a few reports on the present results of that past.