When Blind Faith in a Medical Fix Is Broken

When Blind Faith in a Medical Fix Is Broken - New York Times: "A blocked artery is not a good thing. Public health campaigns have drilled that message into the national psyche. Surely, then, whenever doctors find a closed artery, especially in the heart, they should open it. Maybe not. A major study, presented Tuesday at a medical conference in Chicago, challenged the widespread use of tiny balloons and metal stents in people who had suffered heart attacks days or weeks before. Although such treatment can be lifesaving in the early stages of a heart attack, the study found that opening the artery later did no good at all. It merely exposed patients to the discomfort, risk and $10,000 expense of an invasive procedure. "

Insurer Sued for Refusing to Pay Costs of Anorexia - New York Times

Insurer Sued for Refusing to Pay Costs of Anorexia - New York Times: "A New Jersey couple filed suit against Aetna Inc., the Hartford-based insurance company, on Wednesday, claiming that it refused to fully cover their daughter’s treatment for anorexia."

Living With Love, Chaos and Haley

Living With Love, Chaos and Haley - New York Times: "PLYMOUTH, Mass. — When Haley Abaspour started seeing things that were not there — bugs and mice crawling on her parents’ bed, imaginary friends sitting next to her on the couch, dead people at a church that housed her preschool — her parents were unsure what to think. After all, she was a little girl."

Time to Go! Inside the Worst Congress Ever

Rolling Stone : COVER STORY: Time to Go! Inside the Worst Congress Ever: "There is very little that sums up the record of the U.S. Congress in the Bush years better than a half-mad boy-addict put in charge of a federal commission on child exploitation. After all, if a hairy-necked, raincoat-clad freak like Rep. Mark Foley can get himself named co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, one can only wonder: What the hell else is going on in the corridors of Capitol Hill these days?"

Poverty

The Mismeasure of Poverty. America’s official quest to describe the circumstances of the disadvantaged in quantitative terms began in the 1870s and the 1880s, with the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the initial efforts to compile systematic information on cost-of-living, wages, and employment conditions for urban working households in the United States.1 U.S. statistical capabilities for describing the material well-being of the nation’s population through numbers have developed greatly since then.

Medicaid Hurdle for Immigrants May Hurt Others

"More than 50 million Medicaid recipients will soon have to produce birth certificates, passports or other documents to prove that they are United States citizens, and everyone who applies for coverage after June 30 will have to show similar documents under a new federal law. The requirement is meant to stop the 'theft of Medicaid benefits by illegal aliens,' in the words of Representative Charlie Norwood, Republican of Georgia, a principal author of the provision, which was signed into law by President Bush on Feb. 8."

A Physician Speaks Out on Health Care Reform

"[I]ncreasingly I've come to believe that if done right, health care in America could be dramatically better with true single-payer coverage; not just another layer -- a part D on top of a part B on top of a part A, but a simplified, single payer that would cover all Americans, including those who could afford the best right now. Representatives and senators in Washington should have to use the same system my patients and I do were they to vote it in."

Obstacles to Generic Drugs Criticized

"The brand-name drug industry is aggressively working to keep blockbuster drugs widely used by the elderly from being sold in cheaper generic versions when their patents expire, the organization that represents pharmacy benefit managers said yesterday. With an unprecedented number of top-selling drugs scheduled to go off patent within five years, the organization said, branded drug companies are constructing roadblocks to potential savings of $23 billion to seniors and the Medicare system."Free Registration Required for the Washington Post

China Has Too Many Men

"The gender imbalance grew out of communist China's draconian social engineering policies, where a woman, after having one child, was forced to make a choice: sterilization or insertion of an IUD (intrauterine device). To make sure the women kept their birth control devices in, the government � starting in 1982 � sent portable ultrasound machines all over the country. They are compact and lightweight and even some small villages got as many as two or three. But in a classic case of unintended consequences, pregnant women realized that the machines could also identify whether they were having a boy or a girl. And, as a result, by conservative estimates, more than 8 million girls were aborted in the first 20 years of the one-child policy."

Struggle Against Pricey Prescription Pills (Multimedia)

Why it's getting harder every day to find ways to save on prescription drugs.

Detox for the Botox Set?

"Brown, now 44, paid almost $15,000 for a controversial medical method known as 'rapid,' or 'anesthesia-assisted,' detoxification. Dubbed 'detox for the Botox set' by Elle Magazine, the procedure involves placing patients under anesthesia before giving them medicines that block opiate cravings."

The Economist on the Massachusetts Plan for Universal Access

"As was discovered by Hillary Clinton a decade ago, it is politically impossible to fix America's health-care system all at once. Congress is too angrily divided, and the federal government lacks the muscle to impose a grand vision on unwilling states. The riddle of how to provide health insurance for the 46m Americans who lack it will have to be solved by trial and error in the states. This week, Massachusetts offered an intriguing proposal. The state legislature passed a bill that would make health insurance compulsory. Just as everyone who drives a car must insure it, so everyone with a body must insure that, too. "

Universal Access in Massachusetts

"Governor Mitt Romney signed most of a sweeping new healthcare bill into law yesterday at a festive Faneuil Hall ceremony hailed as a hallmark of bipartisan achievement, even as healthcare specialists expressed concern that the plan could start losing money in three years. The bill will require all state residents to have health insurance by July 1, 2007, and require businesses with 11 or more workers to pay $295 per employee annually if the companies do not provide insurance. Romney vetoed the fee, but the Legislature is expected to override the veto."

Prophylactic Measures

"An informal survey found that almost half -- 22 of 50 -- of the District's CVS pharmacies lock up their condoms -- this in a city where one in 20 residents is HIV-positive. Most of those stores are in less affluent areas where the incidence of HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy -- all preventable with condoms -- are highest."

Sally Satel on SAMHSA and Mental-Health Politics

"Recently, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), part of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, has released its Consensus Statement of Mental Health Recovery. It is a travesty of psychiatric care. In fact, if a psychiatrist treating patients with severe mental illness followed most of the ten "fundamental" principles of recovery elaborated in the statement, he would be at risk of committing malpractice."

Federal suit seeks RxP for psychologists

"A group of RxP-trained psychologists in California filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles contending that a state law barring them from writing prescriptions denies treatment to thousands suffering from mental illness."

Lower Income Linked with Poorer Care Experiences

"There is a health care gap not only separating the U.S. from the other four countries, but also one standing between lower-income and higher-income Americans. Among the countries surveyed, the U.S. stands out for income-based disparities in patient experiences, with below-average-income U.S. adults reporting the worst experiences�compared with their counterparts in the other four countries�on most measures of primary care access, coordination, and doctor-patient relationships. Although a lack of health insurance intensified the disparities, with uninsured U.S. adults often forgoing needed care, insurance coverage does not level the playing field. Even when insured, below-average-income Americans under the age of 65 were more likely to report access problems and delays than insured, above-average-income adults."

U.S. Ranks Poorly on Many Measures in Cross-National Patient Surveys

"U.S. health care leaders often say that American health care is the best in the world. However, recent studies of medical outcomes and mortality and morbidity statistics suggest that, despite spending more per capita on health care and devoting to it a greater percentage of its national income than any other country, the United States is not getting commensurate value for its money. The Commonwealth Fund's cross-national surveys of patients' views and experiences of their health care systems offer opportunities to assess U.S. performance relative to other countries through the patients' perspective�a dimension often missing from international comparisons."

Appearance and Success

"Marie Curie may have discovered radium, but judging from her pictures, she never figured out how to control her frizzies. Eleanor Roosevelt, looking back on a singularly accomplished career, wished she'd been prettier. Madeleine Albright's memoir records her long losing battle to lose weight along with her triumphs as secretary of state. And so on ..."

Effects of Student Debt on Careers

"At a time when the government estimates that two million new teachers will be needed in the next decade, the large student-loan debt that college graduates face may deter students from entering public-service careers like teaching and social work, according to a report released on Wednesday by the State Public Interest Research Groups' Higher Education Project."