Have you been told that you have high cholesterol? Or at least that you have to watch what you eat so you don’t get high cholesterol?
Of course you have! This is like a mantra – every health care professional and the writers who cover healthcare join in the party line. Everywhere you turn, it seems like everybody is on the “low-cholesterol” bandwagon.
Everybody? Hmm … (looking around) Well, there are exceptions.
Pardon me while I clear my throat and say in a loud, confident voice (and – might I add – a well-informed, scientifically and medically educated voice) – Bunk. Read more on ‘Tis The Season For Bad Dietary Advice…
Filed under Uncategorized by on Dec 2nd, 2011. Comment. 
Poverty, illness and desperation are a tragic trio and destroy unknown numbers of lives.
One story that broke my heart was that of a sweet young thing, age 23, who had inherited nothing from her father but a disease.
She needed a “specialty medicine” for it — one of those medicines that is so expensive that nobody seems to want to pay for it. But she lost her job due to “downsizing” so she had no insurance and no money. Read more on US Healthcare Is A Tragedy, Not A Success…
Filed under Healthcare reform by on Nov 3rd, 2011. Comment.
I never paid a great deal of attention to politics, until I realized that health care had become politics.
I may be the last of a generation that learned, in medical school in France, that the responsibility of a doctor was to keep a record of cash transactions, something best done in a bound notebook with no pages ripped out, and only a single line to cross out errors, so that integrity would not be questioned.
The same year I entered medical school, President Richard Nixon signed the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973.
Wealthy industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, billionaire shipbuilder, and steel and aluminum magnate (as well as staunch Republican and major contributor to the Nixon campaign) was the first person to establish a “for-profit” hospital. Read more on Don’t Tell Me You Think Insurance Will Actually HELP…
Filed under Healthcare reform by on Oct 7th, 2011. Comment.
I’m sure you’ve heard of Americans who need health care but don’t have insurance or aren’t qualified for whatever programs are offered by the government going to Canada or some other country to take advantage of their universal health care programs. Or maybe somebody who has joined the military to get benefits.
But what about the person who robbed a bank – with the full intention of getting caught and going to prison so he could have healthcare. Read more on Going To Prison For Healthcare…
Filed under medicine, News by on Jul 1st, 2011. Comment.
Research is something that many people find suspicious. The mass public doesn’t know what makes “good” research and what is just plain manipulation.
Most people know that studying a lot of cases gives a more accurate picture than studying a single case – or just a few cases. But speaking as a formally trained and professional researcher, let me tell you that – contrary to conventional wisdom — it is really hard to make any sense of any kind of statistics that study a big-lot-much-HUGE number of human people.
Filed under politics, Research by on Jan 19th, 2011. Comment.
“Innovative Health Care Programs?”
This seems to be the era of backwards-definitions. “No Child Left Behind” means a diminished budget and fewer programs for child education. “Compassionate Conservatism” means cutting programs for the unemployed, the medical indigent and the hungry. “Strategic Defense” means a full-speed-ahead attack.
The “Innovative Programs” article talks about are mostly supplied by The Greenfield group, where improved medical care is provided if people fork in some cash to get it. Also “Harvard Vanguard,” who loves to be the first to do things.
Since there is nothing but Harvard hospitals on the reality TV show Boston Med, I wonder if the Harvard Public relations people have descended to some all-invasive biological state, to infiltrate all media, and to try to get us to believe that they do things medically and surgically that are more advanced than other providers. Read more on Walls and Barriers To Providing Health Care…
Filed under Healthcare reform, politics by on Aug 20th, 2010. Comment.