You know when you've made a bad documentary when liberal Reuters can't support you:
Three New York rescue workers injured in the September 11 attacks got the best treatment Cuba can offer in Michael Moore's film critique of U.S. health care, the Cuban doctors who attended them said this week.
The 9/11 responders spent 10 days on the 19th floor of Cuba's flagship hospital with a view of the Caribbean sea, a sharp contrast to many Cuban hospitals that are crumbling, badly lit, and which lack equipment and medicines. . . .
But the hospital where SiCKO's patients were treated is an exception in Cuba, where patients of many other hospitals complain they have to take their own sheets and food.
Yeah, Cuba's health care system is sooooooo much better than ours.
Speaking of Big Government Healthcare, in the UK a woman dies waiting for brain scans
At least, a recent study suggests that aspartame (APM), which is the primary ingredient in today's diet drinks due to the hysteria over saccharine, will do so:
The results of this mega-experiment indicate that APM is a multipotential carcinogenic agent, even at a daily dose of 20 mg/kg body weight, much less than the current acceptable daily intake. On the basis of these results, a reevaluation of the present guidelines on the use and consumption of APM is urgent and cannot be delayed.
Wal-Mart's advance into health care is a testament to private-sector industriousness. While others whine about America's health care "crisis," and back monstrous government programs to solve it, Wal-Mart is actually making care more affordable.
Wal-Mart will place in-store medical clinics in up to 400 stores in the next two or three years. If successful, there could be clinics in as many as 2,000 stores by 2014, fully half of their stores.
With low prices that are the Wal-Mart standard, the clinics will particularly help the poor. Yet they will be operated by local hospitals or independent professions.
Wal-Mart's actions shows a continuing commitment to meet the health-care needs of the public, as it follows on the heels of significant prescription drug price cuts introduced last fall.
Already, Wal-Mart has brought low-cost health care by selling 30-day supplies of more than 300 generic prescription drugs at some stores for $4. Almost a third of those $4 prescriptions are bought by the uninsured. Customers have saved $290 million through the program just since September.
Tell me who you would trust more with your health care, Wal-Mart or Hillary? As for me, I'll opt for the answer provided by capitalism over big nanny government any day of the week.
Tennesseans use more prescription drugs than any other state — an average of 17.3 prescriptions per person in 2005 according to BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. Yet the state of Tennessee ranks 47th when examining the health of its citizens!
Consequences of improper drug use in Tennessee include an annual $761 million cost for adverse drug events, and $593 million for accidental poisonings in 2003.
Tennessee ranks second in drug spending, at $1,192. That's what happens when crackheads call ambulances when they need a fix and we give them methadone instead of sending them to jail.
You know that health care in America is in trouble when companies start outsourcing medical procedures:
Carl Garrett, a paper-mill technician in Leicester, N.C., is scheduled to travel Sept. 2 to New Delhi, where he will undergo two operations. Though American individuals have gone abroad for cheaper operations, Mr. Garrett is a pioneer of sorts.
He is a test case for his company, Blue Ridge Paper Products, Inc., in North Carolina, which is set to provide a health benefit plan that allows its employees and their dependents to obtain medical care overseas beginning in 2007. ...
Garrett's medical care alone may save the company $50,000. And instead of winding up $20,000 in debt to have the operations in the US, he may now get up to $10,000 back as a share of the savings. He'll also get to see the Taj Mahal as part of a two-day tour before the surgery.
His two operations could cost $100,000 in the US; they'll run about $20,000 in India.
If this takes off, the medical community in America will have to address its shortcomings. Hopefully it won't be too late, like that of the Big 3 auto makers.
So once again, it will be the free market that provides the solution to a "national crises".
Of course, try suing a hospital in India for leaving a sponge in your chest cavity — or for operating on the wrong knee.
Technorati Tags: Free Market Healthcare, Outsourcing.
Mining 2002 data, it noted that even then, more than 7 million Americans used bootleg prescription stimulants, and 1.6 million of those users were of student age. By the time students reach college nowadays, they're already apt to know about these drugs, obtained with or without a prescription.The article refers to Provigil, which is the American brand name for modafinil. You may recall that the military is experimenting with modafinil for long missions.
I used to drag around due to unexplained insomnia, but now have a prescription for Provigil. The great thing about this drug is that it not only make you more awake when you are awake, it actually increases REM sleep when you sleep, thus reducing the number of hours that you must spend in bed each night.
One day perhaps I'll post my experience like this journalist at Slate but for now I will just say that modafinil is the best drug since novocaine and I have a whole new lease on life. The only bad thing about it is that I have to be grateful to the French; they invented it in the late 70's.
Technorati Tags: Provigil, Alertec, Vigicer, Modalert, Smart Pills, Insomnia.
Kerry Watch: The hubris of a billionaire's self defense fund.
Economy Watch: US Steelmakers are expecting robust demand for the rest of the year, making it the third year in a row that demand has remained strong.
Tax Watch: It looks like Republican lawmakers will succeed in extending some of the tax cuts for another year or two.
UN Watch: U.N. peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers are having sex with Liberian girls as young as 8 in return for money, food or favors.
MSM Watch: The New York Times has once again been caught plagerizing.
Illegal Alien Watch: An Arizona sheriff is using an old tactic to find and arrest those entering our country illegally: posses.
Health Watch: Cancer resistant mice have been discovered. "When white blood cells from the mice are injected into other mice, they eradicate advanced tumours and provide lifetime protection against the disease. ... Even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with very large tumours were eradicated."
Looney Watch: PETA has launched an ad campaign in which PETA President and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk is quated as saying, "Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it." [One supposes the same goes for cancer.]
Fun Facts for Lefties: Fidel Castro is apparently worth $900 million and ranked seventh on the Forbes magazine list of wealthy heads of state.
It doesn't matter if you are white, black, yellow or brown. It doesn't matter if you are rich or poor. We all get just about the same quality health care.
Now admittedly, the study also says that the quality of care is "woefully mediocre" for all, but that is not the point. The point is that the health care crisis of the poor American underclass is a myth:
The survey of nearly 7,000 patients, reported Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, considered only urban-area dwellers who sought treatment, but it still challenged some stereotypes: These blacks and Hispanics actually got slightly better medical treatment than whites.Health care has lately been wielded by the Left as the weapon of choice in fermenting class warfare in their quest for votes. The poor uninsured. The black male who can't get treatment. The pregnant mother that is ignored by the system. The immigrant that can't take advantage of the benefits of American medicine.While the researchers acknowledged separate evidence that minorities fare worse in some areas of expensive care and suffer more from some conditions than whites, their study found that once in treatment, minorities' overall care appears similar to that of whites. . . .
Blacks and Hispanics as a group each got 58 percent of the best care, compared to 54 percent for whites. Those with annual household income over $50,000 got 57 percent, 4 points more than people from households of less than $15,000. Patients without insurance got 54 percent of recommended steps, just one point less than those with managed care.
As to gender, women came out slightly ahead with 57 percent, compared to 52 percent for men. Young adults did slightly better than the elderly.
These results undermine that argument but don't look for the MSM to trumpet this study as they do so many others and don't look for references to it in any of Hillary's speeches.
On a personal note, this kinda pisses me off. After becoming, according to the Democrats (although my creditors may disagree), a "rich white man", I think I deserve something for all my hard work. You'd think I could afford better health care than I had twenty years ago when I was a bartender making about $10K a year. Why else do we have a capitalist medical system? Damnit!
Technorati Tags: Health Care, American Medical System, Class Warfare.
While health and medical news is a popular topic on local television newscasts, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Michigan found that the typical story was only 33 seconds long, lacked specifics and, in a few cases, contained egregious and sometimes potentially deadly errors, according to an exhaustive analysis of 1,799 TV health stories.Among the more egregious errors noted in the study were:"Most of the stories were not useful, but not overly harmful," said lead author James Pribble, an emergency room physician and lecturer at the University of Michigan Medical School.
Technorati Tags: Media Inaccuracy, Health News.
Malcolm makes a series of rather interesting observations from which he concludes that women and men use health care in profoundly different ways:
That suggests to me that the ideal health-care system for a man is very different from the ideal health-care system for a woman. In fact, what a man wants from a health-care system is a health-care system that is acutely oriented, not chronically oriented, that is much more interested in quality of care, much less interested in access. A man doesn't need access to care until he's very old. He wants a high end, super-specialized system that when he has something seriously wrong with him fixes it right away. A woman, on the other hand, wants a system that's low tech, that sacrifices quality for a kind of presence. She can go to the doctor three times a month if she wants to and get a personal relationship with that doctor.The discussion goes on to cover things like infant mortality, quality of life issues, heroic measures, development and adoption of cutting-edge technologies, and so on. As I said, fascinating.The Canadian health-care system is a health-care system for women. The American health-care system is a health-care system that is perfectly situated for men. It's the male health-care system. This whole debate about what is better, the American system or the Canadian system, is essentially a variant on the gender war.
Fast forward to today, six years after the discussion that took place above, to a time when Canada is the only remaining industrialized country that still outlaws privately financed purchases of core medical services. The New York Times reports that the Canadian health care system is "gradually breaking down", leading to the opening of private clinics:
The country's publicly financed health insurance system — frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity — is gradually breaking down. Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.Perhaps Canada will be the one to strike the fine balance and meet the need for low-tech pervasive care and high-tech acute attention.Dr. Day, for instance, is planning to open more private hospitals, first in Toronto and Ottawa, then in Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. Ontario provincial officials are already threatening stiff fines. Dr. Day says he is eager to see them in court.
"We've taken the position that the law is illegal," Dr. Day, 59, says. "This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."
Technorati Tags: Canada, Canadian Health Care, America, American Health Care, Health Care, Socialized Medicine.
The new program is working for the vast majority of beneficiaries. Over 25 million Americans are now enrolled. Each week, 250,000 to 400,000 people sign up. Pharmacists are filling hundreds of thousands of Medicare-covered prescriptions each day. Senior citizens who enroll are spending less on their medications than ever before. For those having problems, insurers, pharmacists and state and federal governments are working together to fix these problems as quickly as possible.I'll believe that "below estimates" when I see it for myself. I've never seen a government program come in on time or under budget.Recent reports also show that the cost of the Medicare drug program is coming in below estimates — by tens of billions of dollars — largely because of lower premiums to seniors resulting from competition among private plans. Some of the same critics of the current implementation phase are those who belittled the effect of these market forces on prices.
Technorati Tags: Medicare, Medicare Reform.
[Two immediate questions leap to mind. First, what the hell are DJs doing that brings them into contact with more germs than a doctor? Second, where do politicians fall in this list — or are politicans the "germs" that cause professions six through nine appear on the list?]
This is according to research performed by University of Arizona microbiologist Charles Gerba, PhD, and colleagues.
Phones are the workplace's top spots for bacteria, according to Gerba's team. Next are desks, computer keyboards, and computer "mice." ...The top five most germy items in public places (at least in Korea) are:"Desks are really bacteria cafeterias," Gerba says, in the news release. "They're breakfast buffets, lunch tables, and snack bars, as we spend more and more hours at the office."
The best way to prevent contamination from bacteria is to do what your mom always said: Wash your hands. The Korean board, however, found that most people don't listen to their mom.That matches my observations here, although I'm surprised it isn't higher in Korea because so many people smoke. It has been my experience that smokers are the least likely to wash their hands after using the restroom.More than 77 percent of people were aware of the importance of washing their hands, but only 47.9 percent did so after using public facilities.
Technorati Tags: Bacteria, Germs, Health News, Medical News.
Imagine: not just a treatment, but a real cure for AIDS. That is what is under development by professors at Brigham Young and Vanderbilt Universities in conjuction with Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals.Although so far limited to early test tube studies, CSA-54, one of a family of compounds called Ceragenins (or CSAs), mimics the disease-fighting characteristics of anti-microbial and anti-viral agents produced naturally by a healthy human immune system. ...Not only that, but the CSAs invented by Dr. Savage may be just as effective against other diseases such as influenza, smallpox, herpes and may even be able to stop the bird flu pandemic (if it ever comes).What studies to date show is a compound that attacks HIV at its molecular membrane level, disrupting the virus from interacting with their primary targets, the "T-helper" class white blood cells that comprise and direct the human immune system. Further, CSAs appear to be deadly to all known strains of HIV.
The drug still has to go through peer review, human testing and FDA approval but will probably be put on the FDA fast track. In the meantime, most stockholders* are doing fairly well. Here's a chart showing price for the last five days:
* Full disclosure: I own 50 whole shares as of an hour ago and have lost $2 so far.
Technorati Tags: AIDS, AIDS Research, HIV, Bird Flu, Avian Flu, Health Care, Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals, Brigham Young University, Vanderbilt University, Ceragenins, Dr. Savage.
Rosenbaum points to the successful losers in the ongoing National Weight Control Registry, some 5,000 people who have lost 30 pounds or more and maintained the loss for at least a year. Registry participants used every imaginable diet. But maintaining their losses is a major effort. Most eat a low-calorie, low-fat diet, record food intake, and exercise an hour a day or more to override their bodies' biological drive to regain. "A person who maintains even a small degree of weight loss has done an amazing thing," Rosenbaum says. "Evolution favors fatness." ...I've never believed in dieting, preferring exercise. A muscular body burns more calories when sitting still and is more efficient at processing food. It is the beginning of a life style change. Get up, get active! [he writes on his laptop from the comfort of his La-Z-Boy . . .]Despite the impact of biology and genetics, about half of all weight gain is due to our environment and our increasingly sedentary lifestyle. So the real question may not be, What's the best diet? but: What can I do to manage my weight and improve my health?
Technorati Tags: Diet, Health, Weight Loss.
U.S. hospitals could contribute to the spread of influenza during a pandemic because most do not follow good hygiene practices, a group reported on Thursday.
40 Years Ago Yesterday ...40 Years Ago Today
- You didn't have health insurance. You didn't need health insurance.
- It was possible that your doctor would visit your home to see what was ailing you
- You visited your family doctor five times a year, and grudgingly paid the three to four dollar fee.
- Whatever the fee was, a doleful look could get it cut in half, or the query, "What can you afford?"
- Medical procedure fees were negotiable.
- Your doctor read your chart. He knew if he had removed your kidneys on the last visit
- The government had nothing to do with any of this
- Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law, effectively setting a minimum fee for visits and procedures.
- Its involvement gave gummint an interest in your lifestyle, and the right to control it in the name of cost controls.
- Costs doubled, tripled, quadrupled .....
- Who cares? It's all free!
Dark chocolate can not only soothe your soul but can lower blood pressure too, researchers reported on Monday.Red wine and dark chocolate, the perfect evening snack. Guess I'll have to give up my scotch and milk . . .The study, published by the American Heart Association, joins a growing body of research that show compounds found in chocolate called flavonoids can help the blood vessels work more smoothly, perhaps reducing the risk of heart disease.
"Previous studies suggest flavonoid-rich foods, including fruits, vegetables, tea, red wine and chocolate, might offer cardiovascular benefits, but this is one of the first clinical trials to look specifically at dark chocolate's effect on lowering blood pressure among people with hypertension," said Jeffrey Blumberg of Tufts University in Boston, who led the study.
| Disease | 1998 Deaths | NIH Research Monies spent per Patient1 | |
| 1 | Heart Disease | 725,790 | $108 |
| 2 | Lung Cancer | 168,234 | |
| 3 | Brain Disease | 159,877 | |
| 4 | Digestive Cancer | 128,109 | |
| 5 | Lung Disease | 110,637 | |
| 6 | Pneumonia | 88,383 | |
| 7 | Diabetes | 62,332 | $28 |
| 8 | Breast Cancer | 42,181 | |
| 9 | Prostate Disease | 37,000 | |
| 10 | Other Cancers | 35,421 | |
| 11 | Other Kidney Diseases | 25,570 | |
| 12 | Liver Disease | 24,765 | |
| 13 | Urinary Tract Cancer | 23,271 | |
| 14 | Septicemia | 22,604 | |
| 15 | Alzheimer's Disease | 22,527 | |
| 16 | Leukemia | 20,197 | |
| 17 | HIV / AIDS | 16,317 | $2,400 |
| AIDS Deaths in 1999 | 10,1222 |
Doesn't quite seem fair, does it?
- In the National Institute of Health's budget, HIV/AIDS received the most money: $1.8 Billion
- Although heart disease is the #1 killer vs. #17 for HIV/AIDS, heart disease receives $500 million less than AIDS
- Diabetes killed more people than AIDS and breast cancer combined
- In California in 1991, AIDS killed 9,035. In 1999, it killed 209.3
- Diabetes is the most expensive disease to society, costing over $100 billion4
- In 1999, Hepatitis C's mortality rate (highest estimate) equaled that of AIDS, yet Hepatitis C's 4 Million Patients received $10 per patient.5
- 1 National Institutes of Health, Office of Financial Management
- 2 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- 3 California Department of Health Services: AIDS Office and "The Desert Sun", Palm Springs, California
- 4 John Graham, CEO, American Diabeties Association
- 5 National Institutes of Health, Office of Financial Management
Sounds like progress to me.
But not MSNBC:
However, recent outbreaks of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases in major cities around the country offer a hint that new infections may be as high as 60,000 cases a year, rather than the government estimate of 40,000, said Dr. Carlos del Rio, an Emory University professor of medicine.Wow. 60,000 people a year contracting a disease that is completely preventable. And whose fault is it?
“The U.S. has had a clear failure in HIV prevention — I think the increase in prevalence is a reflection of that, of the poor job we do in HIV prevention,” del Rio said.The "U.S." Let's not fault the people who have unprotected sex or share drug needles. Let's blame the establishment.
Don't get me wrong. AIDS is a devastating illness and not everyone who is infected participated in high-risk behavior.
But let's keep some perspective. Like these stats from 2004:
According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), more than a half million Americans will die of cancer in 2004–that is more than 1,500 people a day. One of every four deaths in America is from cancer. About 1.4 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in 2004. This estimate does not include diagnoses of in situ (preinvasive) cancer (except for urinary bladder cancer) or the approximately 1 million cases of nonmelanoma skin cancer that will be diagnosed this year.How many people have you known or known someone who knew someone with AIDS? Now compare that to the people you know that have had cancer. According to the CDC, 35 times more people will get cancer this year than AIDS. And if you are in a long-term and drug-free monogamous relationship, the odds of getting AIDS are astronomical.The National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimates that about 9.6 million Americans with a history of cancer were alive in January 2000. Although some of these individuals were considered to be cured or cancer free, others continued to live with the disease and may have been receiving treatment.
Who's setting our healthcare priorities around here? Hillary?
Previous operations took cells from cadavers, reversing diabetes in about 100 people over the last five years.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated today that packing on too many pounds accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States. As recently as January, the CDC came up with an estimate 14 times higher: 365,000 deaths.More startling still:
But like several recent smaller studies, it found that people who are modestly overweight actually have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight.It's lawyers I feel sorry for. Suing fast food companies just doesn't seem so attractive now.
Somebody please pass the butter — I want to spread some on my double bacon cheeseburger. And change out this light beer for something with taste, will ya?
A UK group concerned with the amount of anti-depressants being prescribed has published a report titled Up and Running?MHF said that growing evidence showed that a supervised programme of exercise on prescription could be as effective as anti-depressants in mild to moderate depression.This will, no doubt, cause some consternation in AlphaWife as she has invested considerable effort over the years in convincing me that the cure for depression is shopping ("After all, you don't want me to be unhappy — do you dear?").But its report said GPs were still turning to the drugs as their first option because they believed there was a lack of available alternatives, such as counselling.
I, on the other hand, am totally committed to the Homer Simpson exercise program.
Hundreds of millions of birds have died as a result of contracting the disease or being culled to prevent its spread. And even though North Korea is dependent on foreign aid for feeding its population and recently cut rations to starvation levels, hundreds of thousands of chickens have been killed to try and contain the outbreak.
The outbreak in North Korea is worrisome for several reasons. One is the obvious threat to human life. Just yesterday, the World Food Program renewed appeals for increases in food subsidies to North Korea because shortages have become so severe that rations are being cut for children and the elderly:
WFP already has stopped giving vegetable oil to 900,000 elderly North Koreans and will cut back supplies to schoolchildren this week, Banbury said. The oil is a source of nutrition for people whose only other food might be corn porridge and acorns.There is also the impact on the ongoing nuclear negotiations to worry about. Although it would seem logical that this outbreak would make North Korea more likely to accept conditions in return for increased food shipments, there is little to indicate that such a thing will take place. Kim il-Jong murders women and new-born babies and deliberately starves his people into submission. Such a monster will not feel little compulsion to make concessions just because a few more people are suffering. On the other hand, civilized nations will likely react by increasing aid which will give face to Kim il-Jong and make North Korea more pugnacious than ever when it comes time to return to the negotiating table.
But the most alarming aspect of this is that rather being contained, this deadly strain of Avian Influenza is spreading. And the more it spreads, the greater the chance that it will mutate to become communicable between humans.
The influenza virus easily mutates through a process known as antigenic drift, which creates new forms for which we have no antibodies or vaccines, and antigenic shift, which is a genetic combination of two existing influenza viruses that enables the flu strain to jump from one animal species to another (click on the links for rather nice illustrations that explain the terms).
The H5N1"Quick lesson: there are 15 Influenza A subtypes based upon the molecular structure of their Hemagglutinin (H) protein component. Several of the H subtypes (including H1) naturally propogate in humans. Others subtypes (e.g. H5), normally infect birds. So, the human population (likely infected with H1 Flu at some point in their lives) has built up some natural immunity to H1 strains. However, it has been determined that the Spanish Flu (H1N1) had genetically re-arranged in such a way to overcome this immunity." subtype of the avian flu is known to be especially gifted in this department, having done so in the late 50's (Asian flu) and 1968 (Hong Kong flu). Research also indicates that the dreaded Spanish Flu pandemic"Pandemics are different from seasonal outbreaks or "epidemics" of influenza. Seasonal outbreaks are caused by subtypes of influenza viruses that are already in existence among people, whereas pandemic outbreaks are caused by new subtypes or by subtypes that have never circulated among people or that have not circulated among people for a long time. Past influenza pandemics have led to high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss." of 1918 in which 20 to 40 million people died (some historians put the number as high as 100 million) was of avian origin.
Mutations typically occur in rural areas, particularly in third world countries where people, domestic fowl and domestic mammals (like pigs) are in close proximity. In many areas of the world chickens and livestock share the yard and often the house. This makes transmission and mutation easy (this is easy to understand if you looked at the illustrations I told you about earlier).
In its current form, humans contract the disease by handling infected poultry, and while millions of birds have died as a result of the most recent strain of Bird Flu only 48 people have died. Looking at those numbers it is easy to see why most people aren't very worried.
On the other hand, only 69 people have been infected — that's a 70% mortality rate, making it one of the most virulent diseases in history
. Even allowing for misdiagnosis and missed cases it is almost certain that mortality exceeds 50%.
Further, the most recent victims were aged 26 and 17, providing stark similarities to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic"Pandemics are different from seasonal outbreaks or "epidemics" of influenza. Seasonal outbreaks are caused by subtypes of influenza viruses that are already in existence among people, whereas pandemic outbreaks are caused by new subtypes or by subtypes that have never circulated among people or that have not circulated among people for a long time. Past influenza pandemics have led to high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss." which targeted young healthy adults over those with weakened immune systems, as in the very young, the very old, and the infirm. Given our propensity to give vacinnes first to the very young, very old and infirm, what would be the effect if we ran out of vacinne before everyone else was protected?
And run out we will.
"May" is the operative word, because no one knows what will happen. Perhaps the current strain of avian flu won't mutate at all to spread death around the world. Or perhaps the mutation will cause only the mildest of flu symptoms. Or maybe the worst will happen: a mutation will occur that will fly from person to person, killing one out of every two and be resistant to all known vaccines.
No one knows what will happen, which is why governments are hesitant to spend millions in buying Tamiflu which has a shelf life of only five years. This is why polls such as one recently given in Canada shows that people aren't worried about a bird flu pandemic.
But maybe they should be.
Yet it seems that all doctors are well paid. True, some specialists excell at making the big bucks -- but there ain't many doctors hurtin' for money.
Now in Florida, capitalism is coming to medicine:
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida launched a program in November to reward doctors for good performance, and it could mean an extra $3,000 to $12,000 a year. UnitedHealthcare plans to introduce a program in Florida later this year that could mean up to $20,000 a year for top doctors....Handled correctly, this could be a very good thing. Hopefully the government will stay out of it and let American business do what it does best: innovate.Ultimately, this may lead many insurers to push consumers to the best and most cost-effective doctors, by offering cheaper or no co-payments, or by jacking up the co-payments for those considered poor performers, said Francois de Brantes, General Electric's leader of healthcare initiatives....
''If it's done right, it can improve the quality of healthcare,'' Nielsen said. ``The problem is who is deciding what makes for good performance. It's the large employers and health plans that are pushing this. The biggest fear from doctors is that it's just cost containment.''
Finally, German scientists have come up with something useful. A father-daughter team says that too much exercise is bad for you and if you want to live longer then you'd better learn to put your feet up, relax -- oh yeah, and laugh more.In a new book called The Joy of Laziness: How to slow down and live longer, Dr Peter Axt, retired professor of health science at Fulda University near Frankfurt, and his daughter, Dr Michaela Axt-Gadermann, a GP, say that everybody has a limited amount of "life energy" and that the speed with which it is consumed determines their life span.They argue that high-energy activities, such as pounding the treadmill at the gym, accelerates the ageing process and makes the body more susceptible to illness.
"A more relaxed way of life is important for your health," said Dr Axt-Gadermann. "If you lead a stressful life and exercise excessively, your body produces hormones which lead to high blood pressure and can damage your heart and arteries."...
The book also says that laziness is good for the brain. It says that exercise and stress can cause the body to produce the hormone cortisol, which can damage cells in the brain and lead to memory loss and premature senility.
To illustrate the theory that laziness equals longevity, The Joy of Laziness also suggests that early risers are more prone to stress and that late sleepers live longer because they conserve their energy. "People who would rather laze in a hammock instead of running a marathon, or who take a nap instead of playing squash, have a better chance of living into old age."
Dr Axt and his daughter advise readers that gentle walking, their own preferred form of exercise, is sufficient to keep people in shape if combined with a sensible diet that is low in carbohydrates and high in protein.
I love the part about everyone having a limited amount of "life energy". How deliciously Cocoon!
It reminds me of my eighth grade science teacher who told us that chewing gum would "wear out your spit glands" because they could only make so much spit in a lifetime. He based this belief on a friend of his who started chewing tobacco at a very early age and used up his share of spit. (No mention about the effects of the chemicals or carcinogens in the leafy product.)
Of course, I took this man's teachings with a huge grain of salt after he told us that the best way to treat a burn is to immediately put the