A repeal that’ll be dangerous to our health

MANY REPUBLICAN lawmakers are saying they will make the repeal of President Obama’s health care law their top priority in the new Congress. And yesterday a lower-court federal judge rejected a key part of the law. But what would Republicans repeal to? They don’t have an answer.

Repeal for the sake of repeal. Knock down any and everything Obamaesque. Don't give any of his legislation a chance to succeed.  Yep.  Meet the new Repubes ... same as the old Repubes.

While polls find Americans split on the general question of repeal, few people want to actually kill major individual reforms. A November Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that by margins ranging from nearly 3 to 1 to more than 4 to 1, Americans do not want to repeal such aspects as: tax credits for small businesses offering health care to employees; closing the “doughnut hole’’ to help seniors keep prescription medicine costs down; help for low- and moderate-income Americans to purchase coverage; and a ban on insurance companies denying coverage because of preexisting conditions. Also last month, a McClatchy poll found that 68 percent of Americans want to keep the ability to insure children until age 26, compared with only 29 percent of people who want that aspect repealed. The Republicans say they want to kill health care reform because it costs too much, but the old ways were costing us even more.

As flawed as the law may be to critics on the left and right, going backward is not a reasonable option. More caution against wholesale repeal came in the form of a recentstudy from Columbia University that suggested that US overspending on health might be harming Americans.

 EXCELLENT point - not sure I have seen a major newspaper get that the law is considered flawed by BOTH the so-called "left" and the so-called "right."  And yes, much caution against wholesale repeal.

Analyzing survival rates for men and women ages 45 and 65, Americans have stunningly fallen behind other large, wealthy nations in life expectancy. That is despite a rate of health care spending that has grown nearly twice as fast as the spending in 12 comparison countries since 1970.

By 2005, the 15-year survival rates of white women were not only lower than in all comparison countries, but they were lower than the 1975 survival rates for women in Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Japan. “Many people say health care is just fine and that things like the poor health of African-Americans makes statistics look worse,’’ said study author Peter Muennig, “but when you see how much worse it is for whites, too, you have a problem you cannot run away from.’’

Muennig said the study accounted for factors that many people often say explain why we are behind such nations as the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and France. Researchers accounted for population diversity, smoking, obesity, traffic accidents, and homicide. Muennig was still left with the conclusion that rising health care spending “is itself responsible’’ for the relative decline in survival rates in the United States.

 This is an extraordinary conclusion - that is probably correct. Holy shit fat man!

He said there are three reasons why this might be true. One is that rising costs mean more inadequately insured people. Another is that rising health spending may be “choking off public funding on more important life-saving programs’’ such as public transit, public safety programs, and community recreation centers. A third is that our current system encourages a level of unneeded, confusing procedures that lead to complications for patients.

In a phone interview, Muennig said, “We don’t really know for sure how much the higher expenditures are driving higher mortality as obviously it can happen in complex ways. But it is clear that other nations are investing in things other than health care and their people are living longer. Could it be that lower health care costs in other countries lead to their governments being able to sell cheaper train and subway tickets and provide more resources for people to get out and lead healthier lives as a normal part of life? In the US, health care costs could be a canary in a coal mine sort of thing.’’

If health care costs are the canary, then Republicans should be persuaded to think twice before squawking for repeal. The Republicans say Obamacare kills jobs. But health care spending prior to health care reform quite possibly was killing people.

 This is the most important article I've read on health care in the U.S. EVAH!

Derrick Z. Jackson can be reached at jackson@globe.com.

Native American Health Care

Indian health care promoted

By The Associated Press

MISSOULA - American Indians will have better health care when they are able to provide the services themselves, the president of a large Alaska Native health care foundation said Thursday.

Doing so will allow Indians more control and reduce their dependence on the federal government, said Katherine Gottlieb, president and CEO of the Southcentral Foundation, which provides health care to more than 45,000 Alaska Natives and American Indians.

Health care also will improve when Indians "own" their own medical services, she said.

"We honor and respect our own," Gottlieb said. "Now that our care is in our own hands, we treat it with respect."

(MG) be assured, Native Americans do NOT receive comparable treatment that Anglo-Americans receive ... not all doctors treat all patients equally.

Gottlieb was one of the speakers at a Missoula health care conference put on by Indian.

People's Action and the Montana/Wyoming Tribal Leaders Association. Health care providers, hospital and clinic administrators, tribal leaders, and academic and community leaders attended the gathering to discuss the state of Indian health care in Montana.

Montana's Indian population suffers higher rates of disease, death and infant mortality than other populations. But the Southcentral Foundation is turning similar statistics around in Alaska by focusing on prevention and wellness, Gottlieb and Dr. Ted Mala said.

(MG) On a stone in front of a church off of Foster Avenue in Chicago are painted words attributed to Albert Einstein to this effect: The physician of the future will not treat patients for their diseases but rather take an active hand in helping them to take control of their own health ... prevention, neo-natal care, nutrition, it begins before birth and is a life long process ... and how can the health of a nation's people not be a priority item homeland security?

"We're especially interested in prevention," said Mala, director of tribal relations and traditional healing at the foundation.

He said the foundation bases its treatment on traditional culture, including the use of traditional medicine.

The Southcentral Foundation has been around for 25 years. Before that, health care was handled by the federal Indian Health Service.

Gottlieb said health care has improved since Alaska's many tribes came together to run their own health care program in south-central Alaska, which includes Anchorage.

The foundation draws about 45 percent of its budget from IHS but controls how that money is spent, Gottlieb said. It has created a health care system that is responsive, culturally sensitive, proactive and more likely to promote independence over dependence, she said.

The foundation now has more than 1,200 employees and provides more than 65 medical and behavioral health services.

The client, working with doctors and other health care providers, dictates how treatment will progress, Gottlieb said.

"Our providers listen, and we tell them what we need," she said. "It's a conclusion reached by everyone involved."

Brain Wave Therapy for Meth Addicts

(MG) One of the great joys and pleasures of the internet is access to newspapers across the country and around the world. Here's an June 2, 2007 article from the Billings Gazette that offers some hope for meth addicts (and others).

At the Rimrock Foundation, addictions treatment patients are using "cranial electrotherapy" a "method [that] uses a device called an alpha wave stimulator to send a certain radio frequency through the brain" at a frequency which "lulls the brain's neurons into their most relaxed waking state, called the alpha brainwave state ... a pleasant place to be" and is naturally achieved "in the moments after you wake up but before you become fully alert" according to Jon Gjersing the nursing director.

People whose brains have been damaged by drug use or other trauma can lose their ability to slip into alpha's meditative mode, and that can prevent them from functioning well day-to-day. It can also block recovery efforts.

Cranial electrotherapy guides the brain into alpha and seems to help it remember how to get there again on its own, said Mona Sumner, Rimrock Foundation's executive director.

"It's almost like this targets the injured part of the brain and starts to promote healing," Sumner said.

"This particular intervention has been probably one of the most effective things we've seen," she said. ...

"It's basically like turbocharging your efforts at meditating" ...

A typical session lasts 20 to 30 minutes, and patients undergo the therapy two to six times a week.

Results are almost immediate, with antsy patients suddenly able to sit still and anxious ones able to relax. Gjersing has seen the therapy ease tremors in people with Parkinson's disease, restore balance and strength to people with multiple sclerosis and reduce discomfort for chronic pain patients.

For recovering meth addicts, the treatment can eliminate all-consuming cravings for the drug ...

Methamphetamine harms the reasoning part of the brain, and it can take up to two years after drug use stops for the brain to regain regular function.

At the very least, the therapy enables meth addicts to function better during those months when their brains are stabilizing.

...

Alpha wave stimulators can be purchased for a few hundred dollars and used at home, but getting one requires a prescription from a doctor.

(MG) I can't see Big Pharma being happy with these results, but they sure sound encouraging to me ... especially the applications to Parkinson's M.S. and chronic pain patients.

Hate War - Always - we must

(MG) Military.com has this article which came to my attention via Melanie Mattson's Just a Bump in the Beltway Blog. Why do we the people let our elected / appointed officials drape themselves in the flag and hide behind the troops to wage our never-ending imperialist invasions and occupations (wars of choice)?

Health Care System Puts Troops at Risk

Associated Press | May 04, 2007

WASHINGTON - The military is putting already-strained troops at greater risk of mental health problems because of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, a Pentagon panel said Thursday in warning of an overburdened health system.

(MG) and in present day warfare, guerrilla wars waged against innocent civilians in countries that never asked us to be there, the daily grind of warfare is SO different from "the big one (II)" where troops cannot distinguish friend from foe (face it, at this juncture, they are all opposed to our presence) where troops cannot let their guard down for one minute ... but where mostly it is about waiting ... waiting in anticipation the pressure of battle is ever-present ... these wars of choice take a HUGE psychic toll ... and think about how many of our troops are reservists, and national guardsmen ... these are NOT soldiers who have signed on for this type of never ending battle

Issuing an urgent warning, the Defense Department's Task Force on Mental Health chaired by Navy Surgeon General Donald Arthur said more than one-third of troops and veterans currently suffer from problems such as traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

(MG) the only even REMOTELY hopeful thing about this article is that post-traumatic stress disorder is now recognized as debilitating ... there were huge debates over PTSD and Viet Nam vets ... because the cost of providing counseling IS so high ... and the costs of not providing counseling ... well, that simply is higher ... and this is the absolute bare bones minimum we need to do for our troops

With an escalating Iraq war, those numbers are expected to worsen, and current staffing and money for military health care won't be able to meet the need, the group said in a preliminary report released Thursday.

"The system of care for psychological health that has evolved in recent decades is not sufficient to meet the needs of today's forces and their beneficiaries, and will not be sufficient to meet the needs in the future," the 14-member group says.

More Wounded Warrior News

Branding Pentagon policies overly conservative and out-of-date, the task force called for more money and a fundamental shift in treatment to focus on prevention and screening - rather than simply relying on Soldiers to come forward on their own.

It cited a significant stigma in which Soldiers believe they would be ridiculed or their careers damaged if they were to acknowledge having problems.

(MG) the taking of a life of another human being is as unnatural an act (for most humans) as can be imagined ... the losing of the life of a soldier-in-arms is devastating ... plus survivor's guilt ... that good 'ole boy "tough it out" attitude causes SO much damage ... when one buries one's feelings, those feelings are buried ALIVE, and they will claw and scratch and fight their way to come out to light, to fresh air .. and WHEN (or if) they finally resurface, there is no guarantee that they will resurface human

The four-page summary of findings, which will be incorporated in a final report to Defense Secretary Robert Gates in June, comes amid renewed attention on troop and veterans care following recent disclosures of shoddy outpatient treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The task force found 38 percent of Soldiers and 31 percent of Marines report psychological concerns such as traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from deployment.

(MG) traumatic brain damage -- so many more troops SURVIVE head wounds today (than in Viet Nam) because of the rapidity with which they can be flown to specialty hospitals ... many of these troops would have died in wars past

Among members of the National Guard, the figure is much higher - 49 percent - with numbers expected to grow because of repeated deployments.

In recent weeks, several U.S. senators have pointed to problems in the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs' mental health care, citing the Army's Fort Carson in Colorado where some troops have said their pleas for mental health care went unanswered or were met with ridicule.

(MG) it's inbred .. that macho culture

In its report, the task force - which visited 38 military bases in the four armed services within the past year - underscored many of the lawmakers' fears. Without citing specific examples, it said Soldiers too often don't seek the care they need.

Care for family members also needed improvement, the report said.

Many base mental health programs have had to limit their practices to active-duty military, shutting family members out or forcing them to try to access civilian providers through the cooperative program known as TRICARE. But in many places, the list of TRICARE providers is small, inadequate or even incorrect.

Both the VA and the Pentagon in recent weeks have acknowledged a need to improve mental health treatment. Jan Kemp, a VA associate director for education who works on mental health, has estimated there are up to 1,000 suicides a year among veterans within the VA system, and as many as 5,000 a year among all living veterans.

(MG) although there are discrepancies in the reported numbers, I have read that the number of Viet Nam veterans who have committed suicide is greater than the number killed in combat ... there are no memorial walls to the suicides - but they too have given their lives, serving their country

A recent investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that just 22 percent of U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who showed signs of PTSD were being referred by Pentagon health care providers for mental health evaluation, citing inconsistent and subjective standards in determining when treatment was needed.

(MG) about one out of five returning troops WHO SHOWED SIGNS of needing mental health care have been referred by Pentagon health care providers ... this is NOT what one would call supporting the troops