Recently in Health Care Category

Texas is facing a budget deficit of at least $18 billion.Texas Republicans say pulling the state out of Medicaid is an option for the 2011 legislative session to address this deficit.While some Republicans maintain the fiction this can be done without making people homeless, the chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, Jim Pitts, at least tells the truth.From the Houston Chronicle---"Some Republicans who talk about Texas potentially opting out of Medicaid are quick to...

The newly empowered majorities in the Texas Legislature are considering pulling out of Medicare and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).Doing so would---In the view of the far-right--- have the double-barreled effect of possibly saving money---If only in the short-term and at great human cost---and finding yet another way to stick it to Washington.(Below--Double-barreled rifle. Photo by Commander Zulu. )It is estimated that 3.6 million Texans use Medicaid and CHIP.Here is the Texas Medicaid web page. Here is...

From The Daily Herald:  Under the theory that perhaps thousands of Utah college students are having babies paid for by Medicaid that they could pay for themselves, one lawmaker has a plan: cut all elective epidurals and elective C-sections. Sen. Dan Liljenquist, R-Bountiful, has vowed massive Medicaid reform in next year's legislative session, and first on the list is people who may be freeloading. Medicaid pays for 15,000 births a year in Utah, a third...

Sharron Angle, the gift that keeps on giving. The well of stupid that never runs dry. From an interview with Action News in Las Vegas on the subject of "Obamacare": "I think we get confused a little bit. Our healthcare system is the best in the world. There's nothing wrong with our healthcare system. Our doctors are the best," says Angle."But how many people get access to the best healthcare in the world," asks Action...

The boys and I spent yesterday at a waterpark in celebration of my youngest's 12th birthday. We were there for a number of hours so I had a chance to do some serious people-watching, one of my favorite things. We've been exposed to the Hollywood and media standards of beauty and so-called health -- rail thin, flawless skin and makeup, perfectly symmetrical and artificially perky C-cups (or larger), spray tans, liposuction-sculpted torsos, over-processed hair with lots...

There has been much opinion vomited back on various "news" programs about what the INSURANCE reform bill really means to us. Misinformation has run rampant--from those who say that 65-year-olds will be given "death pills" so they will no longer burden the system to how it will completely drive small businesses out of business with "forced" policies. Smarter people than I have really looked into what this bill represents, and here's what it comes...

The Washington Post is reporting: "President Obama Thursday signed a memorandum requiring hospitals to allow gays and lesbians to have non-family visitors and to grant their partners medical power of attorney. The president ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation. The memo is scheduled to be made public Friday morning, according to an administration official and another source familiar with the White House decision. An official said the...

I heard John McCain speak this morning on the news about the "sleazy, back door politics" of the Dems that are ramming this horrible healthcare bill through and how the American people don't want it.Hmm... sleazy. What does that make me think of ...Ehrlichman: "Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can ... the reason he can do it ... I had Edgar Kaiser come in ... talk...

When we boil down the health care debate we come back to the point again and again that it was never about health care. It was about health care insurance. I suspect that the health care debate was never this difficult in Europe or Canada, but then again I wasn't there. I suspect it wasn't as difficult because they didn't have as many people dedicated to the principle that greed was good. I couldn't imagine...

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman wrote a great piece yesterday about President Obama appealing to the Democratic caucus to be courageous and pass health reform much like LBJ did to get the Civil Rights Act passed.  The President said to the Democratic caucus:"Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make...