Charting The Economic History of US Health Reform
By MIKE MAGEE, MD
Adam Gaffney’s recent Boston Review article, “What the Health Care Debate Still Gets Wrong”, a landmark piece that deserves careful reading by all, reaches near perfection in diagnosing our health system malady.
Dr. Gaffney is president of Physicians for a National Health Program, and a co-chair of the Working Group on Single-Payer Program Design, which developed the “Physicians’ Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform.”
A seasoned health policy expert, his article cross-references the opinions and work of a range of health commentators including Atul Gawande, Steven B...
Source: The Health Care Blog - November 25, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health Policy Politics Adam Gafney Atul Gawande health economics health reform Medicare For All Mike Magee Single payer Source Type: blogs
Statement to the Randolph County (NC) Commissioners Regarding a Taxpayer " Bail-Out " of Randolph Hospital
You get tired of playing the game - or banging your head against stone walls. For weeks, I have been resolved to appear at tonight ' sPublic Hearing at the old Asheboro Courthouse - in which Randolph County Commissioners will take up the matter of going into massive debt (by applying for a loan from the state) to keep Randolph Health from closing its doors in late January or February.But I cannot . . . and will not even try to . . . cram 22 years into 3 minutes. I can actually make the statement in 8 or 9 minutes, but not 3. The hospital has pontificated from its various soapboxes and manipulated the...
Source: Dr.J's HouseCalls - November 21, 2019 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Stop the Presses! or, How the Fed Can Avoid Reserve Shortages without Bulking-Up, Part 1
George SelginThe FOMC should forget about r* for the moment and focus on … the supermassive black hole at the center of global dollar funding markets.–Zoltan Poszar, 21 August, 2019A few weeks ago, as part of its effort to prevent overnight rates from rising above the Fed's target range, and especially to avoiddramatic overnight rate spikes like the one that occurred in mid-September,the Fed announced that it would soon begin acquiring assets again. Over the course of the next two quarters, the Fed plans to purchase $60 billion in Treasury securities each month, or a total of somewhere between $250 and $300 billion, ad...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 12, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs
Bariatric surgery . . . . for kids?!
That’s precisely what the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is recommending: more weight loss surgery for overweight kids.
This sort of perverted advice reflects the deep and widespread failure of the healthcare system to address nutrition and health, resorting instead to an awful surgical “solution” that, contrary to the AAP’s declaration that it is a proven safe option, is filled with complications, nutritional deficiencies, dysbiotic alterations in bowel flora, hormonal disruptions, and—not all that rarely—death. (Granted that it was over 10 years ago, but the first patient ...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - October 31, 2019 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Open bariatric surgery gastric bypass lap bad Weight Loss wheat belly Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, October 28th 2019
In this study, the enhanced mice live somewhat longer than their unmodified peers, though not as much longer as is the case for the application of telomerase gene therapy. The mice do also exhibit reduced cancer risk, however. The scientists here class telomere shortening as a cause of aging, which is not a point universally agreed upon. Reductions in average telomere length in tissues looks much more like a downstream consequence of reduced stem cell activity than an independent mechanism.
Researchers obtain the first mice born with hyper-long telomeres and show that it is possible to extend life without any geneti...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 27, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Financial Inclusion without Finance? The Misguided Quest to Limit Choice in Consumer Credit
Diego ZuluagaOn October 21, I had the pleasure to give the research keynote address at the annual conference of the Financial Services Centers of America (FiSCA) in Miami. The below is a transcript of my speech, in which I critiqued some policymakers' attempts to promote financial inclusion by restricting consumer choice and giving the government a larger role in credit allocation. In light of historical experience in the U.S. and elsewhere, I offered market competition as a more effective policy to ensure all Americans can achieve financial security.*****The legislator, who knows nothing, nor can know any thing, of any on...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 24, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Diego Zuluaga Source Type: blogs
Republican Study Committee Proposes an $11 Trillion Tax Cut
Michael F. CannonThe Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative House Republicans, has issued a health reform proposal. It ' s not the first thing onthe RSC web site, but scroll down and you ' ll find it. The proposal has much to commend it.Freeing Consumers from Harmful RegulationsNotably, it would repeal the Affordable Care Act ' sconsistentlyunpopular preexisting-conditions provisions, which not onlymake coverage worse for the sick butleaveeveryACA enrollee with inadequate coverage. (Can you say, " junk insurance " ?) One of the reasons Republicanssuffered losses in the 2018 mid-term elections was their failure...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 23, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Michael F. Cannon Source Type: blogs
Our Golden Years? Research Into The Ups And Downs Of Retirement, Digested
By Emma Young
If you ever daydream about retirement, what do you picture? Lie-ins, instead of being woken by an alarm? Walks on a beach, in place of the morning commute? More time for beloved hobbies? Or perhaps endless open, solitary days, with nothing much to do…?
Retirement is what psychologists term a “major life transition”. As such, it’s regarded as a stressor that carries risks as well as potential rewards. Now that the number of retirees in many countries is soaring, so too is the number of studies into whether retirement is good for your mental and physical health — or not. This work certainly suggests ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - October 9, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Feature Health Mental health Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 19th 2019
In conclusion, our data show how oncogenic and tumor-suppressive drivers of cellular senescence act to regulate surveillance processes that can be circumvented to enable SnCs to elude immune recognition but can be reversed by cell surface-targeted interventions to purge the SnCs that persist in vitro and in patients. Since eliminating SnCs can prevent tumor progression, delay the onset of degenerative diseases, and restore fitness; since NKG2D-Ls are not widely expressed in healthy human tissues and NKG2D-L shedding is an evasion mechanism also employed by tumor cells; and since increasing numbers of B cells express NKG2D ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 18, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 12th 2019
We examined 9293 individuals from the Copenhagen General Population Study using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy measurements of total cholesterol, free- and esterified cholesterol, triglycerides, phospholipids, and particle concentration. Fourteen subclasses of decreasing size and their lipid constituents were analysed: six subclasses were very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), one intermediate-density lipoprotein (IDL), three low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and four subclasses were high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Remnant lipoproteins were VLDL and IDL combined.
Mean nonfasting cholesterol concentration was 72...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 11, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 5th 2019
In conclusion, with study of the frailty syndrome still in its infancy, frailty analysis remains a major challenge. It is a challenge that needs to be overcome in order to shed light on the multiple mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of this syndrome. Although several mechanisms contribute to frailty, immune system alteration seems to play a central role: this syndrome is characterized by increased levels of pro-inflammatory markers and the resulting pro-inflammatory status can have negative effects on various organs. Future studies should aim to better clarify the immune system alteration in frailty, and seek to esta...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 4, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Zeev Neuwirth Reframes Primary Care …Brilliantly
By AL LEWIS
I would urge THCB-ers to read Reframing Healthcare by Dr. Zeev Neuwirth. While much of the territory he covers will be familiar to those of us with an interest in healthcare reform (meaning just about everyone reading this blog), Chapter 5 breaks new ground in the field of primary care.
Primary care is perhaps the sorest spot in healthcare, the
sorest of industries. Primary care providers (PCPs) are underpaid,
dissatisfied, and in short supply. (The supply issue could be solved in part if
employers didn’t pay employees
bonuses to get useless annual checkups or fine them if they don’t, of
course.) ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 22, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Medical Practice Physicians Al Lewis primary care primary care physicians Reframing Healthcare Source Type: blogs
A Strong Currency Is No Good Reason to Keep Tariffs High
An interestingdebate has arisen in Ecuador during recent weeks over the following proposition advanced by authors at a Quito think tank: a dollarized country shouldn ’t reduce its tariffs when the dollar is overvalued relative to the currencies of its regional trading partners (according to purchasing-power-parity measures) because that would undermine its “competitiveness” in export market. As several commentators have noticed, this is reminiscent of the Mercantilist view that a country will lose too much of its gold if it does not discourage imports with tariffs or promote exports with subsidies, a view that David ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 5, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Lawrence H. White Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 24th 2019
This study sought to investigate what could be learned from how these men have fared. The men were born in 1925-1928 and similar health-related data from questionnaires, physical examination, and blood samples are available for all surveys. Survival curves over various variable strata were applied to evaluate the impact of individual risk factors and combinations of risk factors on all-cause deaths. At the end of 2018, 118 (16.0%) of the men had reached 90 years of age.
Smoking in 1974 was the strongest single risk factor associated with survival, with observed percentages of men reaching 90 years being 26.3, 25.7, ...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 23, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Healthy eating for older adults
Eating right can help keep your body and mind healthy and extend your quality of life. But some older Americans may face barriers to getting enough nutrients or calories.
Many ways aging can affect appetite
Physiological changes that come with aging can result in reduced calorie needs, which can lead to decreased food intake and altered body composition, even in healthy older adults. This can be compounded by diminished smell and taste, and changes in hormone levels that affect how quickly you feel full. Depression, lack of independence, and social isolation can make food less appealing, further contributing to a less than...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - June 20, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Katherine D. McManus, MS, RD, LDN Tags: Health Healthy Eating Source Type: blogs
