Legislative | Regulatory
Working Poor Families Struggle to Pay Bills
01/16/2013
There’s a Direct relationship between poverty, obesity, and the cost of health care.
Here’s some statistics, mostly from the 2010 census:
- 15.1% of Americans (46.2 million) live in poverty, including 22% of our children. 20% live in extreme poverty.
- 3.2 million Americans were kept out of poverty by unemployment insurance.
- 20.3 million were kept out of poverty by social security.
- The poverty threshold for a family of four is $22,113; the 2010 avg. income of the bottom 90% was $26.364.
- $6,298 — decline in median working-age household income from 2000 to 2010.
- 49.1 million — number of people under 65 without any health insurance.
- 13.6 million — decline in people under 65 with employer-sponsored health insurance from 2000-2010.
- Public health officials can accurately predict obesity and longevity rates by zip codes. One inner city example had an average lifespan of just 64 years while it was 90 years in a wealthier neighborhood just 8 miles away. (HBO’s documentary, The Weight of the Nation)
- Disadvantaged communities are at higher risk for many preventable health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, asthma, HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis B and C, and infant mortality, largely due to the lack of health care, nutritious food at affordable prices, and sidewalks and parks to encourage exercise.
- Pressures from Job, Money, Divorce and Violence cause a vicious cycle of Stress = Obesity = Stress.
Tech innovation and automation also plays a role, increasing productivity and profits for some, but eliminating jobs faster than creating new ones. Dr. Oz apparently agrees, as shown in this article, which also features a CBS report on the jobs impact of robotics and a collection of slides that I recently presented to a local jobs group.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/us-working-poor_n_2476463.html
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Where’s Real Reform in Health Care?
01/02/2013
The Patient Accountability and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is a reasonable first step in health reform, but much more needs to be done. That’s primarily because Obamacare is still dependent on health insurance, which turned health care into an industry that profits from the perverse incentives of treating patients as paying customers. This health care industry often works to keep patients as paying customers by treating their symptoms rather than providing real cures, and prescribing drugs, performing procedures, and doing unnecessary tests. Since that’s how practitioners are paid, it’s what they do.
The following videos explain how our money-driven system of medicine works, and what’s wrong with it. The video series then ends with an easy-to-understand animated explanation of Obamacare. Read the rest of this entry »
Nine States Deny The Poor Health Care
12/28/2012
GOP Governors Deny The Poor Health Care
In Opposing Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion
By Peter S. Goodman and Jeffrey Young
RUSTON, La. — With no health insurance and not enough money for a doctor, Laura Johnson is long accustomed to treating her ailments with a self-written prescription: home remedies, prayer and denial.
Texas Rankings Disappoint
12/23/2012
 Click on the image to view: “Texas on the Brink,” a 2001 report from the Texas Legislative Study Group that includes many more rankings and supporting statistics. Not much has changed. |
Texas near the Top:
Blessed with an abundance of land, rivers, oil and other natural resources, Texas pioneers built a great state, and even today, it seems that everything is bigger in Texas. I’ve lived in this “Great State of Texas” for most of my live, moving here from Arlington, VA in 1976, and I now live in the state capitol of Austin. So I call myself a Texan, but in many ways I’m not proud of my state. Here’s why. We relish in being #1 in many things, but not these:
- Texas is #1 in the percent of population uninsured
(as if that would be something to brag about). - We have the largest number of uninsured children (#1).
- We have the most toxic chemicals released into water (#1).
- We generate the most hazardous waste (#1).
- We have the most carbon dioxide emissions (#1).
- We also have the most executions (#1).
- We have the second highest birth rate
and are 4th in the number of kids living in poverty. - We have the second highest percent of population under 18.
- We’re #2 in percent of population with food insecurity.
- We’re #4 in percent of population living below poverty.
Health Care Opportunities That Can Make a Real Impact
11/24/2012
Refocusing on Health Care Opportunities That Can Make a Real Impact
By Kenneth Thorpe, Chairman, The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (original on Huffington Post)
Now that the campaign smoke has cleared, we can expect a refocusing of the nation’s arguments from the question of who will get elected to what will be done about hot-button issues like health care. Expect pitched debates to begin imminently on battlegrounds including, but certainly not limited to, Medicare reform, revisiting the Affordable Care Act, the Independent Payment Advisory Board and medical device taxes.
The fact is though, the more time policymakers spend wrangling over these issues on which there are clear, and not easily bridged partisan divides, the more we’re missing the fundamental steps that can and must be taken if we’re going to contain health care costs without compromising the quality or accessibility of care.
It begins with acknowledging what we don’t know about improving health care, and what we need to do to broaden our knowledge base. And it has to do with the more than 75 million Americans who have not one, but multiple chronic illnesses. Our health care system in this country is quite adept at treating people who have a single disease. We don’t have an effective set of best practices, or an essential foundation of research, to know how to take care of those who are coping with more than one condition.
We have the opportunity to improve this situation, and it should begin with the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI.org), the entity created by Congress to evaluate different prevention and treatment therapies and offer scientifically-supported evidence on how to provide patients with the most effective care.
Obamacare Fact vs. Fiction (Now that you Voted)
11/06/2012
By Wendell Potter, Analyst at the Center for Public Integrity, author of Deadly Spin (original on Huffington Post, slightly modified after the election)
Wouldn’t it be great if our candidates had to take a dose of truth serum every morning before hitting the campaign trail? If they did, those of us who recently voted wouldn’t be nearly as confused about what Obamacare is and what it isn’t, what it will do and what it won’t.
Since there is no such truth serum requirement, I believe that many of us actually voted against our own best interests and for candidates who scared them into believing that Obamacare is a government takeover of health care that will bankrupt the country while slashing Medicare benefits. Read the rest of this entry »
Social Media in Politics
10/15/2012
I’ve posted several articles about social media in HEALTHCARE, including:
- Patients Find and Help Each other in Social Media
- Social Media Growth is Fastest among Boomers
- Consumers use Social Media more than Health Companies
- Physicians find and help Patients through Social Media
- Physician use of Social Media
This article is about social media in POLITICS. While I try not to subject you to my own political views, they probably shows sometimes when I discuss things Obamacare, Medicare, regulatory oversight, and the future of medicine. But no matter what side of the issues you’re on, you may enjoy this infographic, because so many health-related issues are at stake in this year’s election. And if you feel compelled to do so, share your thoughts below and justify your views to others.
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Understanding Obamacare
10/12/2012
Healthcare became a hot potato during this political season, even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Governor Romney wants to repeal “Obamacare,” but what’s actually in the law and why was introduced in the first place? To address these common questions, I’m reposting one of my first articles on the topic.
This article describes a great presentation by Dr. James Rohack on Health System Reform. Rohack is a practicing cardiologist and Director of Scott & White Center for Healthcare Policy. He is also a professor at Texas A&M Health Science Center and was the president of the American Medical Association from 2009 to 2010 during debates over Obama’s Healthcare Law.
The presentation was held in Sun City, a planned community north of Austin for retirees with active lifestyles. It didn’t include handouts, but I was able to find some of Rohack’s slides online and offer them below with my notes.
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The Waiting Room, a feature length documentary
10/08/2012
Certified Nurse Assistant Cynthia Y. Johnson at Highland Hospital in The Waiting Room
The Waiting Room is like a punch to the gut for people cast off and left out of our U.S. medical care system, what some call the best in the world. When Democrats and Republicans vie for your votes and debate healthcare reform, remember that these are not the people they are talking about. Most don’t even notice the plight of those at the bottom — this ugly underside. But our politicians, and the billionaires who set their agenda, should be made to watch this documentary, because these are the 47 percent they talk about — the people left out of the American Dream. They’re real people.
This character-driven documentary film uses unprecedented access to go behind the doors of Oakland’s Highland Hospital, a safety-net hospital fighting for survival while weathering the storm of a persistent economic downturn. Stretched to the breaking point, Highland is the primary care facility for 250,000 patients of nearly every nationality, race, and religion, with 250 patients – most of them uninsured – crowding its emergency room every day. Using a blend of cinema verité and characters’ voiceover, the film offers a raw, intimate, and often uplifting look at how patients, staff and caregivers cope with disease, bureaucracy, frustration, hope and hard choices during one typically hectic day.
The ER waiting room serves as the grounding point for the film, capturing in vivid detail what it means for millions of Americans to live without health insurance. Young victims of gun violence take their turn alongside artists and uninsured small business owners. Steel workers, cab drivers and international asylum seekers crowd the halls. (movie trailer follows)
Poverty in America — it’s not what you think.
10/03/2012
As our presidential candidates debate the issues, what will they say about Poverty in America? And how do they plan to address the problem?
The Line is an important documentary that cover the stories of people across the country living at or below the poverty line. They have goals. They have children. They work hard. They are people like you and me. Across America, millions are struggling every day to make it above The Line.
Poverty is a drag on the economy that also affects the cost of healthcare, as I’ve written before in this blog.
- America’s Obesity Epidemic – a BIG Problem
- Sleep Apnea and Poverty: How Socioeconomics Impacts Diagnosis & Treatment
- States Slash Home Health Care & Services for the Neediest
Read the rest of this entry »
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