How do young people manage without health insurance?

They offer insurance at Home Depot, but you’re only allowed to sign up during a two-week period and I missed it. If it’s a cut or bruise or whatever, I try to patch it up myself. I usually know what to do. I bruised a rib last winter. I just wrapped it in rags to keep it tight, and it got better after a few weeks. Also, I cut my head on a wineglass back at Halloween. I was very drunk, and there was blood all over the place. My friend wanted to call the ambulance, but I told her not to. I just cleaned it out myself. Now I’ve got a scar, but at least I’m not broke.

Confronting Confinement

On any given day, 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and over the course of a year, many millions spend time in prison or jail. 750,000 men and women work in correctional facilities. The annual cost: more than 60 billion dollars. Yet within three years, 67 percent of former prisoners will be rearrested and 52 percent will be re-incarcerated. At this moment, the effectiveness of America's approach to corrections has the attention of policy makers at all levels of government and in both political parties. The Commission and its report, Confronting Confinement, make a unique contribution to this timely national discussion by connecting the most serious problems and abuses inside jails and prisons with the health and safety of our communities.

ACLU Free Speech Victory

In one of the most important student free speech cases in decades, the ACLU joined attorneys for former student Joseph Frederick before the U.S. Supreme Court this week and urged the high court not to abandon its famous 1969 ruling that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

Families USA Publications

A Pound of Flesh: Hospital Billing, Debt Collection, and Patients' Rights provides an overview of some of the progressive reform measures that state policymakers have implemented to help families struggling with medical debt. [Recommend you read this document, along with any of the other publications that may interest you.]

Families USA Global Health Initiative

"With globalization, the same sea washes all of humankind. We are all in the same boat. There are no safe islands. There is no dividing line between "foreign" and "domestic" infections...There is no them: only us.” –UN Secretary General Kofi Annan

Is Genuine Health Care Reform Finally Feasible?

It has been nearly a decade and a half since the last effort to overhaul the nation's health care system. But the issue is back, driven by recent state initiatives seeking ways to provide universal health care and by the 2008 presidential campaign. . . . The phrase "universal health care" has been widely used among the Democratic presidential candidates.
Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrat from Illinois, recently told the International Association of Fire Fighters that he will make sure that everybody in the country has universal health care by the end of his first term as president.
Not to be outdone, Democrat John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator and presidential candidate, has already laid out a fully detailed plan for universal health coverage. On NPR's Talk of the Nation, Edwards pledged that he would implement his plan even faster than Clinton and Obama would: before the end of his first presidential term.

Can the Best be the Enemy of the Good?

It’s Kennedy versus Kennedy as two members of Congress from the same family face off over competing versions of legislation that would require many health insurance companies and employers to provide more generous benefits to people with mental illness.
Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island and chief sponsor of the House bill, has criticized as inadequate the Senate bill introduced by his father, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. Representative Kennedy is trying to mobilize mental health advocates to lobby for what he describes as “the stronger of the two bills, the House bill.”

Do You Support Prescriptive Authority for Appropriately Trained Psychologists?

Community health centers across the state and the Hawaii Primary Care Association strongly endorse Senate Bill 1004 and House Bill 1456, which address prescriptive authority for certain psychologists. We believe that the requirements outlined in these bills regarding psychopharmacological training, supervised practice, standardized testing, board review and authorization, restrictions on what drugs can be prescribed, and practice only within community health center settings will ensure that patients will be well served rather than jeopardized.

The Best Health System in the World?

With some of the best-equipped hospitals and most highly specialized physicians in the world, it is no wonder that many people believe the U.S. health system is the best on earth. The evidence, however, suggests this confidence is misplaced.
According to the National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, the United States scored just 66 out of 100 when comparing the nation's average performance on three dozen indicators against benchmarks set either within the U.S. or abroad. Given America's high standards—and high spending on health care—that is simply unacceptable.

Social Isolation Is Hazardous to Men's Health

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health who looked at more than 28,000 men over a period of 10 years found that those who were socially isolated were more likely than others to have died of all manner of illness, accidents and suicide. This study and others show that men who lack strong social networks are at far greater risk of developing heart disease and that those who already have heart disease are more likely to die from it. And men who are not connected with other people run a higher risk of depression and other mental health problems.

Harvard economist proposes team approach on healthcare

WASHINGTON -- A renowned Harvard economist unveiled a plan yesterday to revamp the US healthcare system by focusing on the value of care to patients, arguing that improving the quality of medical services can by itself save money and provide a road map to a national health plan. . . . The nation's healthcare system is using "21st-century technology delivered with a 19th-century system," Porter said. Medical care, he added, is "the only sector in our economy that has not undergone reconfiguration seen everywhere else."

Paying for Care Episodes and Care Coordination (Karen Davis, NEJM)

The fee-for-service system of provider payment is increasingly viewed as an obstacle to achieving effective, coordinated, and efficient care. It rewards the overuse of services, duplication of services, use of costly specialized services, and involvement of multiple physicians in the treatment of individual patients. It does not reward the prevention of hospitalization or rehospitalization, effective control of chronic conditions, or care coordination.

Price Variations for Generic Drugs

Wolf began snooping around and found that two chains, Costco and Sam’s Club, sold generics at prices far, far below the other chains. Even once you factor in the cost of buying a membership at Costco and Sam’s Club, the price differences were astounding.

[Note to Class: Will you refer your clients to Sam's Club? Do you have any ethical concerns about supporting companies like Walmart? Poke around this website and explore some of the interesting stories, and, if you have the time, read this book.]

Does Treatment Work for Sex Offenders?

Similar to aspects of Alcoholics Anonymous, relapse prevention has sex offenders own up to wrongdoing and resign themselves to a lifelong day-to-day struggle with temptation. But one of the few authoritative studies of the method, conducted in California from 1985 to 2001, found that those who entered relapse prevention treatment were slightly more likely to offend again than those who got no therapy at all.
Clinicians who work with sex offenders cling to relapse prevention nonetheless, and its durability speaks volumes about the troubled, politically fraught science of treating sex offenders. Not only is relapse prevention of questionable value, but so are the tests to gauge whether sex offenders in treatment still get inappropriately aroused, the drugs used for so-called chemical castration and the methods of predicting risk of reoffending.
Treatment methods have become particularly topical as thousands of sex offenders are confined or restricted beyond their prison terms under civil commitment laws on the books in 19 states.

Should sex offenders be released after they have finished their prison terms?

The decision by New York to confine sex offenders beyond their prison terms places the state at the forefront of a growing national movement that is popular with politicians and voters. But such programs have almost never met a stated purpose of treating the worst criminals until they no longer pose a threat.
About 2,700 pedophiles, rapists and other sexual offenders are already being held indefinitely, mostly in special treatment centers, under so-called civil commitment programs in 19 states, which on average cost taxpayers four times more than keeping the offenders in prison.

Health-care debate revives

After sorry 14-year hiatus, health-care debate revives - USATODAY.com: "Hopes were high 14 years ago when Bill and Hillary Clinton proposed an ambitious plan to provide health insurance for all Americans. Democrats and Republicans alike cheered when the president threatened to veto anything less than universal coverage.
That promising moment didn't last long. After initially winning support from medical, business and labor groups, the Clintons' top-down plan collapsed under the weight of its own complexity. Attacks on 'Hillary Care' helped Republicans win control ofCongress in 1994. Ever since, health care reform has been considered too costly, in dollars and political capital, for most politicians to touch. But the beleaguered system's problems — one in seven people without insurance, rising premiums and lower reimbursements for those who have insurance, endless payment hassles — haven't gone away. Attempts at fixing them have been incremental and timid at best. That could be about to change. Several groups that usually are at odds on health care now agree on the need for broad reform. These strange bedfellows are still a long way from agreeing on a plan, but the fact that they now see a common need signals a shift in the political dynamic. "

Drug Company Detailers

Independent lens - The Boston Globe: "Drug companies flood doctors' offices with attractive salespeople whose mission is to boost the number of prescriptions written for their products. But some say that the tactics used by the representatives, known as detailers, wrongly hype expensive new drugs when older, cheaper treatments work just as well. To combat the sales pitches, critics are now employing the same marketing methods that drug companies use to sell doctors on new products."

Child Health Care Splits White House and States - New York Times

Child Health Care Splits White House and States - New York Times: "Governors clashed with the White House on Monday over the future of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, an issue that some members of both parties said was as important as money for the Iraq war. Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, held a hearing with governors Monday at their winter conference. In the session at the White House, when President Bush reported on progress of the war, governors pressed him to provide more money so they could guarantee health insurance for children. In response, administration officials said states should make better use of the money they already had."

Most Support U.S. Guarantee of Health Care - New York Times

Most Support U.S. Guarantee of Health Care - New York Times: "A majority of Americans say the federal government should guarantee health insurance to every American, especially children, and are willing to pay higher taxes to do it, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. "

Insurers feel heat on mental-illness coverage

Insurers feel heat on mental-illness coverage: "Why should insurance companies be allowed to treat mental illnesses any differently from physical illnesses? They shouldn’t. And some members of Congress want to do something about it. 'This is an issue of civil rights at its core,' said U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy . . . . Kennedy, along with Minnesota Republican Rep. Jim Ramsted, plan next week to introduce the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Act, named for the late Minnesota Democrat who made mental illness one of his signature issues. The bill would amend the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 by requiring group health insurers to offer identical benefits for mental and physical illnesses. It would close loopholes that allow insurers to charge higher co-pays, co-insurance, deductibles and maximum out-of-pocket limits and impose lower day and visit limits on those seeking care for mental illnesses or addictions. "

NPR : Congress Faces Choice on Health Care Funding

NPR : Congress Faces Choice on Health Care Funding: "Congress is trying to figure out how to continue to pay for Medicare while expanding the children's health insurance program. Democrats have promised to find money to cover more children, but fixing a flaw in Medicare will also cost a lot of money."

Drug Treatment for Schizophrenia

In Schizophrenia, Drugs May Be Personal Matter - New York Times: "U.S. government-funded studies show there really is no good drug for treating schizophrenia, a mental disorder that affects about 1 percent of the population globally and 3.2 million Americans."

Washington Times 4 Part Series on India's Inbalance of Sexes

"In most places in the world, a mother can find out the sex of her unborn child, but in India, it's illegal to do so. That is because if she's a female, there is a good chance she will never be born.
Roughly 6.7 million abortions occur yearly in India, but aborted girls outnumber boys by 500,000 -- or 10 million over the past two decades -- creating a huge imbalance between males and females in the world's largest democracy. Ratios of men to women are being altered at an unprecedented rate in India and neighboring China, two countries which account for 40 percent of the world's population.