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America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

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Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

I suspect the reason we pay more for health care is we have more to pay. Benjamin Franklin said something like "medicine will always be the queen of the sciences because it deals with the thing we are most interested in: ourselves." We just do not apply the same cost-benefit calculus to medical care that we do to, say, building a bridge or a dam. We can easily be cajoled or bullied into gilding the lily. We have roughly the same perspective on medicine as a teenager has on getting the latest cell phone.

Other countries aren't any smarter. They're just poorer.

Here's an interesting Inside Baseball take on the politics of the Senate debate.
 
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Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

leswp1 said:
Well- we could let everyone die.:rolleyes:

Trouble is we are hitting the babyboomer population bump. No matter what we do cost is going to be up because more people are utilizing things.
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And once again the Baby Boomers screw over their descendants.
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

leswp1 said:
Nope. I think it makes things move out of stagnation and that it will force change to begin.

Nothing is going to 'fix' a problem this big in one try. Kind of like trying to completely renovate a house in 1 day. No matter how many people you have the various things need time to dry/cure/set etc before you can move to the next step. Tincture of time.
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Not as pessimistic as the first sentence but agree with the overall premise. The effort has to start somewhere. A good place to start is a cost neutral attempt to insure a lot more people. Once somebody touches the third rail here and doesn't get fried, its gets a lot easier to make changes, most likely in smaller pieces. Fail in this effort and it will be decades before anybody tries again.

Also, I'm curious with the notion of a new entitlement program. Its already an entitlement program. This is a try at fixing its solvency (among other things, such as coverage) which is something we haven't seen the government undertake since the Social Security revamp in '83 I believe.
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

Did anyone hear Pelosi when asked if the bill passed by congress would put people in jail if they don't have insurance. It was simple yes or no question, yet she danced all around it and never did answer the question.
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

walrus said:
Did anyone hear Pelosi when asked if the bill passed by congress would put people in jail if they don't have insurance. It was simple yes or no question, yet she danced all around it and never did answer the question.
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She is an idiot.

.

And I forgot to quote Dr D but those are thought provoking points. Great post.
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

leswp1 said:
She is an idiot.

..
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Why can't she say, we think everyone should have insurance, this is the incentive to make sure that happens. Or that part of the bill sucks and it should be gone. Its her bill, defend it in plain language, maybe people will get behind it although I doubt that.
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

walrus said:
Why can't she say, we think everyone should have insurance, this is the incentive to make sure that happens. Or that part of the bill sucks and it should be gone. Its her bill, defend it in plain language, maybe people will get behind it although I doubt that.
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See post you quoted.

.
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

leswp1 said:
She is an idiot.

.

And I forgot to quote Dr D but those are thought provoking points. Great post.
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Thank you-I may be getting older but I still got it!:eek:
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

Hey, Doctors, I have a question for you, with a little background.

So, I'm reading a story about Justice O'Connor's husband passing away from Alzheimer's, and when reading the comments, I caught this one from a guy claiming to be Mack D. Johes, MD, SAAN. I had no idea who the guy was/is, but did a quick web search on his claims below. The man's name is referenced in a few articles I found on a couple references, but I'm posting a couple links by one highly pedigreed Ear/Nose/Throat specialist and a different research paper than Dr. Johes's paper.

http://www.medhelp.org/user_journals/show/51302

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/558168

Mack D Jones said:
Article Link

My condolences to the O'Connor family.

Alzheimer's Disease took my father and his father. Evidence is accumulating in support of the concept that obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a cause if not the cause of Alzheimer's Disease and/or other dementias and treatment is as simple as the use of a positive airway pressure (PAP) machine.

All Alzheimer's patients with OSA (almost all have it) should be treated with a PAP machine.
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Is there anything to add to something like this? I'm taking my mother to her Neurologist Wednesday, and I've been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea for a few months now. Coming across this statement was a bit jarring, to say the least. Chances are good that my mom had OSA, thinking back on how loud she snored.

Thank you for any insight or suggestions you might have. (I won't hold anyone to something that could ever lead to trouble, if that's a roadblock. It's not like I'm paying for anything here.)
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

St. Clown-I must admit I had never heard of the association but it sure makes for interesting reading. There are always doctors who tout various treatments for almost anything. Usually it takes a bit of time with some double blind testing to separate the things that work from the things that don't. I have seen Positive Airway Machines touted as cures for just about everything from heart attacks to migraines to toenail fungus. The simplistic answer is I doubt anyone knows at this stage. Since I can't think of any reason not to try it, it sounds like something worth looking into. The worst that can happen is that it is ineffective and useless-I seriously doubt that it could make the situation any worse. My credentials are basically in skin cancer surgery but I was board elligible in psychiatry in my early years. Best of luck and please let us know if there is any success.
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

I haven't heard of this but what I have seen (went to something quite recently with researcher speaking) is that plaque formation related to Alzheimers can be found in very young healthy patients and is directly related to acetylcholine metabolism. They have scanners that can find this (only at a research site in PA and one other place that I forget). THis doesn't seem to correspond to what the guy is claiming.
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

Rover said:
Medicare/Medicaid specifically which are affected by cost saving measures in the bill.
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Uh-huh. Yep - this bill is just a slight modification to Medicare/Medicaid. Hardly even worth discussing.

Nice spin.
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

leswp1 said:
I haven't heard of this but what I have seen (went to something quite recently with researcher speaking) is that plaque formation related to Alzheimers can be found in very young healthy patients and is directly related to acetylcholine metabolism. They have scanners that can find this (only at a research site in PA and one other place that I forget). THis doesn't seem to correspond to what the guy is claiming.
Click to expand...

I have seen that information published in a couple places. When I was in training back in the 60's we did not use the term Alzheimers at all. Most cases were called Chronic Organic Brain Syndrome (COBS) and were classified by various clinical presentations. Each type was separated out as a separate problem. Ican't help but think that in modern medicine what we have done is lumped all of these cases together with one diagnosis when in reality we are truly dealing with a multifaceted problem with any number of causes. The number of cases have certainly increases in the 40+ years but I wonder how much of that is due to the extended lifespan we now see?
 
Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Part 2 - Deathers vs. Commies

LynahFan said:
Uh-huh. Yep - this bill is just a slight modification to Medicare/Medicaid.
Click to expand...

My understanding is that the Medicare/Medicaid reforms being offered along with ObamaCare could be separated out -- the reforms are not structurally dependent on the rest of the HCR package. The impact can still be fairly compared to alternative plans which don't contain it, but it isn't specific to the parts of the bill that are causing consternation: public option, mandatory coverage, etc.

Now, whether they could be politically sold separately is another matter.
 
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