Healthcare For All: Five Reasons Government Controlled Medicine Would Be Bad
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008As I watch Dennis Kucinich jump around the stage and scream for “health care for all!” and then claim that his views are mainstream while Bill O’Reilly listens amused, I wonder just how mainstream universal, aka government controlled, health care actually is to average Americans. Good look finding hard data. Government controlled health care sounds good in theory, but it’s terrible in reality. How do we know? Let me count the ways:
1. People would lose jobs. The very people who would stand to benefit from health care would be in trouble, because what’s the plan to pay for these grandiose policies? Small businesses will pay. And how will they offset those costs? Hire less people. The people who need jobs will lose jobs.
2. It would be outrageously expensive. Beyond the cost to employers, there will be costs to American taxpayers. Someone is paying for this mess. A good analysis is here.
3. It would create more government bureaucracy. Can anyone argue that the government makes anything better? Just think IRS. Now imagine a bureaucrat deciding your health care coverage. It should send shivers down your spine.
4. Patient care suffers. Ultimately, this is about what is best for patients, right? One only has to look to countries doing what universal health care types desire to see that between waiting for procedures, being lied to about care choices, etc., government controlled health care is bad for your health.
5. Government involvement stifles innovation. America leads the world in cutting-edge technology and patient care. The innovation draws patients in dire straits who benefit from socialized medicine world powerhouses–Canadians, Britons, French, etc. Still, they come to America to get prompt, excellent, cutting-edge treatment. Will the government improve upon the efforts of the private sector where the innovation happens. Doubtful.
I Could Make Everyone Fat Today If I Wanted To
Thursday, August 7th, 2008Turns out, everyone is fat, myself included, or nearly everyone is fat, and will for sure be fat in forty years. Women and minorities are hardest hit. A scientist says so, and I believe scientists implicitly because scientists use the scientific method therefore making them scientific:
The new projections, published in the journal Obesity, are based on government survey data collected between the 1970s and 2004.
If the trends of those years continue, the researchers estimate that 86 percent of American adults will be overweight by 2030, with an obesity rate of 51 percent. By 2048, all U.S. adults could be at least mildly overweight.
Weight problems will be most acute among African-Americans and Mexican- Americans, the study projects. All black women could be overweight by 2034, according to the researchers, as could more than 90 percent of Mexican-American men.
Well, let’s get this disturbing business over with right now. I’ve decided that the BMI for both men and women should be a healthy “5″. There. Now, everyone is fat. In fact, everyone is morbidly obese.
Please. Sometimes I think the pointy heads are too smart by half. There will be preternaturally skinny people. They exist. We all hate them. These are the people who can eat a whole fattened water buffalo with grease on the side and not gain an ounce. I’m guessing that in 40 years, these freaks will still exist and be loathed even more then. Or maybe, they’ll be so rare, that we decide as a culture to worship them–put them in special castles and prostrate our fat bodies before them in awed supplication.
There’s another thing. People are living freaking forever now. Fat, globular, rotund people are living to a ripe old age and driving around on their scooters to the Mall. I see them. So, for all the disgusting fatness, is it a big problem? It’s kinda like Global Warming (or Climate Change). It’s getting hotter, but who says it’s a bad thing? Who knows?
And why should the government give a fat grandma’s ass if the citizenry prefers to look like corpulent amoebas rolling from one place to another in their XXXXXXL clothes? Do they propose a fat tax? Do officials deem the waste produced and the food consumed by fat people to be problematic? I can see environmental implications here and a vast array of ways for the government to manage American’s lives. If these crises keep getting manufactured, the government will get to control everything, including the food you eat, from cradle to grave.
For thousands of years, people have been skinny because they were starving. Now, scientists are bitching because people are fat. There are worse problems than fatness.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews.com
Birthing A Baby To Save A Baby and Dying At Will: The Ethics Of Saving Or Losing A Life
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008It seems impossible that 18 years have passed since the controversial decision by the Ayala family who chose to get pregnant with a baby to save their daughter, Annisa, who suffered with leukemia. She needed a bone marrow transplant to save her life, but there were no matches. Her parents had another child who ended up being the perfect match. Both girls are alive and well today. Watch the whole story here.
An ethicist made the argument that it was wrong to have a child, and before the baby could consent herself, take her bone marrow to save her sister. I watched the family, imagined watching my daughter die and can see making the same decision. The thought did occur to me, though, what if the child wasn’t a match? How would that reality affect the family? After the older daughter died, would the new child be a solace or source of pain? That’s a lot to put on a child. I’m sure the parents thought this through. What say you?
This case also reminded me of end of life decisions, too. No one likes to talk about it, but I know for a fact that parents, children and doctors make tough choices every single day in hospitals across America. The Terri Schiavo case was especially divisive because of the nature of her husband’s relationship and the questionable circumstances surrounding her coma. At any rate, her case wasn’t typical. Most people at the end are suffering and the question is whether to intervene and end it, or less overtly, just remove the life support; or, should nature be allowed to take it’s course, meaning that the person dies when the body quits. Again, I’m curious about your reaction to this dilemma.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
Obama Wants Another Way To Lift Blacks From Misery
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008The first question that popped into my head while reading about Obama’s the notion of reparations: Will Obama receive 50% reparations since hes 50% black? But wait just one little minute….. His dad isn’t an American citizen and Obama’s family were never slaves–well, not American slaves. Slavery was and is alive and well in many parts of Africa so maybe he should get money for the oppression that happened there.
The second thing that popped in my head was damn, it’s hard to pander to the oppressed and deprived, and to the people who do the oppressing and depriving. I mean, it’s a tightrope. On the one hand, it’s difficult to convey how bad life sucks for black people. On the other hand, it’s tough to get votes from white people when you call them racist bigots. It’s especially hard when a good bunch of Americans (my family, for one) never owned a slave, believe slavery is reprehensible, but don’t feel the guilt because, well, they’re not guilty.
So Obama doesn’t think reparations are a good idea but as Karl notes, he’s all for socialism:
SEN. BARACK OBAMA: You know, I have said in the past, and I’ll repeat again, that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed. And I think that strategies that invest in lifting people out of the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, but that have brought applicability and allow us to build coalitions to actually get these things done, that, I think, is the best strategy.
Not to mention a strategy that Obama believes will cost billions of dollars and involve universal healthcare. But it apparently will not involve reparations [as such are typically defined - K], which is a point worth clarifying.
The answer to past oppression is to oppress everyone today. An Obama administration we will all be “free at last” alright. We’ll be free to enjoy the socialist suckitude that England now enjoys (the good news is that there’s drugs coming that reverse Alzheimers, the bad news is that under socialism, your taxes will go so high that you can’t afford the new drugs that aren’t approved by the government):
The drugs are expected to cost the same as current treatments for the illness such as Aricept, which are £2.50 a day.
However, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) the Government’s drugs watchdog, ruled that Aricept, which has been shown to improve the memory and day-to-day life of those in the late stages of the disease, was too expensive for widespread use in Britain.
Terry Pratchett, the best selling author who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, disclosed earlier this year that he was being forced to pay for the drug himself.
Of course, if Obama wins the presidency, you might want to forget the good old days, so it could all work out.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
More On Autism-Savage Firestorm: Is Autism The New Sacred Cow?
Saturday, July 26th, 2008Katherine Berry of Villainous Kate fame wrote a thoughtful article for Pajamas Media about Autism being the new protected class:
But Savage chose to stand by his comments, explaining in a New York Times interview:
“My main point remains true,” Mr. Savage, whose radio audience ranks in size behind only those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, said in the interview. “It is an overdiagnosed medical condition. In my readings, there is no definitive medical diagnosis for autism.”
While there’s no denying that Savage’s initial remarks were cruel and ignorant, this situation has made one thing perfectly clear: autism is big news. It’s the latest celebrity cause. It’s the new chipotle, the disorder du jour, and now it’s a plot line on NBC’s “Days of Our Lives.”
And when it comes to protecting autistic children from discrimination, everything else takes a backseat.
She continues, by citing the situation of a child melting down on a plane and the resulting actions of the stewardess and pilot:
Consider, for instance, an incident last month involving a mother and her 2-year-old autistic child who were escorted off of an American Airlines flight after airline personnel declared the boy’s behavior “uncontrollable.” According to the airline, the child’s behavior simply compounded an unsafe situation stemming from the mother’s refusal to place her carry-on bag in the overhead compartment and the boy’s inability to remain in his seat.
Naturally, the mother’s story differs. In her telling it all comes down to the airline not understanding that, due to autism, the child had special needs to which the airline should have been more sensitive.
She claims, for instance, that the attendant repeatedly came by to tighten the child’s seatbelt because, in the mother’s own words, the child “was wiggling around and trying to get out of his seatbelt.” When the attendant reached over to tighten the child’s seatbelt again, the mother says she warned that the action would exacerbate her son’s autistic behavior. The child once again got out of his seat.
Her conclusion:
While the pilot and the airline are being pummeled on blogs for their “cruelty” — and at the risk of sounding insensitive myself — I can’t help wonder when “special needs” became synonymous with disregarding the needs of others, or when the parent of a child with special needs was accorded special needs of their own.
As I’ve shared before, I have an autistic son. And, as it turns out, I had a very similar travel situation, except that it turned out differently. Here’s what happened: My husband, just-turned-three year old autistic son and baby daughter were taking our first plane trip to a family reunion. My son hadn’t traveled on a plane before. His personality was docile, non-aggressive and he rarely melted down, but we were still nervous. It was new. Autistic children don’t do “new” well. So, we get on, the door closes and the engine starts, so the pressure changes. Now, a typical child often melts down at this point. The pressure changes hurt delicate ears which is why all people inwardly groan when they’re seated in a child’s proximity. Well, my son started screaming…in pain. He tore out of my arms, started running for the plane door, and started tearing at it trying to escape. He was obviously suffering. The other passengers were as horrified as we were. It was obvious that he wasn’t throwing a fit or being rebellious, he was anguished. I ran after him, scooped him up, and looked at my son in despair. We weren’t sure how it would go, should we ask them to return to the gate? It was horrible.
I held him close as he sobbed and screamed. The stewardess came by but did not force me to put him into a seat. She could have. Instead, she came over and asked what could be done. I said, nothing, I’ll just hold him and I did. I essentially nearly had my biceps ripped out holding him close so he couldn’t escape. He sobbed himself to sleep and was a zombie the entire family reunion visit. He had retreated into some remote place. I was deeply distressed about forcing him through the return flight. The return trip was a bit better, but he sat in my lap again.
We didn’t take him on a plane trip again for years. And when we decided to try again, we were very worried. And he cried and shook and leaned into us, but he was okay, he stayed buckled in his seat, and by this time we could explain what was happening. He still grabs his sister’s hand on plane trips, but he can do it.
I’ve already said that Michael Savage is a moron about autism. But society at large isn’t much better educated. Here’s the problem: Autistic children look “normal”. If they had some sort of physical deformity, I think people could handle accommodating them better. For all the talk of a child-centric society, children in general are not cut much slack. Special needs children who look like typical kids get the same treatment.
Now, I’ve seen the dopey parents with undisciplined children running amok in restaurants and stores. And even disciplined children have bad days. Each of my children chose to throw a public fit–once. But it happened in places like Target and Dillards and they were public and the impression could definitely be that I have unruly children. When I say it happened once, it’s because it was a learning experience. It didn’t happen again.
For my autistic son, it has never been about discipline. His melt-downs were always stimulus response cycles. They were unpredictable and still, we did everything we could to predict them. We also severely limited our lives. For the first four years of his life, we simply didn’t go anywhere or do much of anything. The plane trip was a big risk, it back-fired and we retreated. Very often, the parents of autistic children who do venture forth, do so with trepidation.
Autism is constant, unrelenting work. The diagnosis often takes forever to get. The treatments vary in success and aren’t paid for by insurance. It strains relationships. The child may or may not make progress even after investing significant resources. They don’t potty train. It takes years and years if they do. They self-stimulate to deal with pain or discomfort or whatever it is that’s bothering them. Parents are told by ignorant pediatricians that the child will “grow out of it” or is just delayed when early interventions are key to development and outcomes.
Down here, in Texas, many churches are starting to do outreach for parents because government resources are non-existent. So, there are “date nights” sponsored by the “Special Needs” ministry. Parents also worry non-stop about leaving their child with anyone else for a variety of reasons. First, the child might react unpredictably. Second, the child cannot communicate. Do this search: autistic child + assault. You’ll get the few, bizarre cases of the child assaulting someone. More likely, you’ll get horrifying cases of the autistic child being assaulted. Why? They are the perfect victims; they can’t speak.
So while I have sympathy for the argument that autistic children are the latest faddish protected class, I have to chuckle. Please. The lives of most families with an autistic child are unrelenting hell. If families do attempt to engage the world–which eating, wearing clothes, going to church, and working tend to force, other people will have to deal with the uncomfortable feelings they have when they see a child acting “weird”.
As for the safety of others: that is why early intervention is so important. These children and their parents, need help when the child is small. A 6’0″, 200 pound emotional child is dangerous, indeed. I understand a church putting on a restraining order because the son is aggressive, but I understand, too, a mother’s desire to get spiritual sustenance after years of raising this child. The church could spend it’s resources, not on a lawyer, but on special care so the mom could get a break on the weekends. How about that? Churches are in the business of tending the weak, are they not?
It is easy, from the outside, to judge these families. In addition to receiving a bleak diagnosis, parents have to fend with discipline advice, harsh condemnation and isolation. Also, and I saw this over and over at the conferences I attended, overwhelmingly, mothers deal with the child because the parents separated–often because the father had been undiagnosed but was on the spectrum somewhere himself and he either could not or would not help. (I met one father in this position.) These single parents must be highly commended. Working to survive, in addition to caring for these children is a monumental task.
The safety of everyone, autistic or not, is paramount. First, do no harm. After that, though, what should be done? Right now, parents soldier on alone, but these children, all grown up, will be society’s problem. Parents lament about their child’s care after they die. What will be done? I shudder to think of these children, the perfect victims, being housed in institutions with the mentally ill abusers. It already happens in early intervention: “at risk” children (code for the emotionally damaged aggressive, future-bullies-of-America, eventual prison inmates) are placed in the same classroom with children on the Autism spectrum.
Prison or institutions is where the one group ends up. Parents care for the other group, but they eventually need help. For as loud as the Autism awareness folks screech, it doesn’t really seem like anyone is listening.
To me, the solution isn’t a government program or huge institutions, but tax cuts so parents can choose educational resources and places for their children. Let the free market decide this. There is no question parents need help, let them have their tax dollars so they can find a solution.
Oh, and as I said before, it’s a free country, Savage can say what he wants, but on this, he’s wrong.
Violent Genetics
Monday, July 14th, 2008
So, there is a violent gene, but (and this is a big BUT) it can be ameliorated by environment:
MAOA regulates several message-carrying chemicals called neurotransmitters that are important in aggression, emotion and cognition such as serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine.
The links were very specific.
The effect of repeating a grade depended on whether a boy had a certain mutation in MAOA called a 2 repeat, they found.
And a certain mutation in DRD2 seemed to set off a young man if he did not have regular meals with his family.
“But if people with the same gene have a parent who has regular meals with them, then the risk is gone,” Guo said.
“Having a family meal is probably a proxy for parental involvement,” he added. “It suggests that parenting is very important.”
Could a criminal claim bad genes? I suppose he could try. (Note that the research wasn’t conducted on women and girls.) Here’s the thing though: Just because you have a gene doesn’t mean that it has to express itself. Since environment can turns these on and off, a criminal will have a tough time claiming no responsibility.
And that sword cuts both ways, and this part concerns me generally: would a judge keep a criminal with a “bad” gene in jail?
This slope is slippery, people. Will insurance companies insure drivers or the health of people carrying the “violent” gene? I’m guessing that the violent guy would be more likely to experience road rage, heart attacks and trauma secondary to violent interactions. Who is going to want to insure that?
And, will parents of embryos with the “violent” gene abort their babies or not implant them?
The time to consider all this is now.
Testosterone Supplementation To Stay Young Feeling and Healthy
Thursday, June 19th, 2008Testosterone does good things for a body, both male and female. It increases bone density, muscle mass, mental acuity, increases metabolism, enhances libido and according to this research, fights against metabolic syndrome in older men. So researchers are encouraging older men to supplement with testosterone.
Futurepundit (via Instapundit)worries about the evolutionary implications of declining testosterone in older men and that it might be a protective adaptation against diseases like cancer (since hormones, especially testosterone and estrogen can be tumor growth factors). Maybe.
Testosterone, for men, is the defining, healthy hormone just as progesterone, is the defining, healthy hormone for women. For both men and women the ratio of testosterone:estrogen and the ratio of progesterone:estrogen changes as they age. In both cases, estrogen increases proportionally. Part of it is age. Part of it is diet. Part of it is environmental. Estrogens are everywhere in the environment–from plastics to soy. Fat stores and releases estrogen. Estrogen, in and of itself, isn’t bad, but it can be problematic when it’s in the wrong proportion to testosterone and progesterone.
So, men can supplement with testosterone and women can supplement with progesterone and testosterone, too, for that matter, and this will happen: the body will down-regulate. That is, the body will stop producing as much testosterone and progesterone in response to the supplementation. This happens with all hormones which is why, once a person is on Synthroid, (synthetic thyroid hormone) he or she is on it for life. The body will stop producing it.
Now, there are vegetable-based hormone replacements that are less manipulative of the system and they can give the body a rest to recover, but the ideal is to produce these hormones oneself without the aid of supplementation. The answer to hormone balance is simple, but no one wants to do it because it’s certainly not as easy as a supplement:
- Lose the fat. Fat produces the estrogens. Lose the fat, the hormone ratio gets better.
- Build muscle. Especially lower body muscle. Muscle growth produces testosterone.
- Eat right. You know what that means. Everyone knows what that means. Lean protein. Eggs. Veggies. Good fats like butter and olive oil and flax. Skip fast food. Skip soda. Skip fried food. Drink alcohol moderately. Drink coffee moderately. Eat chocolate moderately.
- Keep moving. It’s not just the muscle, it’s the metabolic rate. Aerobic exercise burns off the stress hormones that cause you to accumulate fat in the first place (which stores estrogen). So work up a sweat a couple days a week.
- Get some sun. Without Vitamin D, all sorts of bad things happen. Increased bone density helps a person carry more muscle mass which helps increase the metabolic rate. See how these things work together?
Unfortunately, as people age, they become more sedentary which itself creates risk factors for Metabolic Syndrome. I have read articles by doctors who have been on long-term supplementary testosterone themselves, and they seem perfectly healthy. I have had patients (women actually) who have supplemented, short term with testosterone, for weight loss. The usage is going up. People are making experiments of themselves.
I suspect that it will be agreed that testosterone has salubrious effects for men and women short term, but like supplementary estrogen, the long-term effects won’t become apparent until after years of use. Manipulating mother nature usually has a downside even if it’s not immediately apparent.
What would I recommend to my patients? Well, short term use could be beneficial, but long term, the advice would be the same old boring stuff: lose weight, get fit and eat right.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
Antipsychotics Up Death In Those With Dementia
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008Antipsychotics should be given to psychotic and schizophrenic people. Period:
Antipsychotic drugs aren’t specifically approved to treat dementia. They’re mainly used to treat patients with schizophrenia. But people with dementia sometimes suffer delusions or hallucinations and may exhibit violent behavior. Doctors may prescribe antipsychotics to control these behaviors.
Pro-Life Pharmacies
Monday, June 16th, 2008It might be legal, but is it right? In answering the question for themselves, some pharmacists have refused to fill prescriptions of birth control pills or morning after pills. I am really torn about this whole thing, actually. While I’m all for people not violating their consciences, I just think there are better ways to deal with this than refusing service. For a pharmacist who doesn’t want to fill a morning after pill prescription, why can’t he just have his co-worker do it? Why the need to lecture the woman?
This whole issue brings to mind the Muslim taxi drivers refusing to pick up someone who has been drinking, is drinking, or carrying alcohol or others not taking seeing eye dogs. It’s legal. If they don’t like to pick up all people, even those they disagree with, pick another freaking profession. My sentiments go the same direction about persnickity pharmacists.
However, it seems to me that an Ob/Gyn is well within his or her rights to refuse to perform an abortion. In fact, few people get the specialized training for them, so forcing a doctor to do this procedure could, in fact, be harmful to the woman wanting one.
The free market has a solution–pro-life pharmacies:
When DMC Pharmacy opens this summer on Route 50 in Chantilly, the shelves will be stocked with allergy remedies, pain relievers, antiseptic ointments and almost everything else sold in any drugstore. But anyone who wants condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive will be turned away.
That’s because the drugstore, located in a typical shopping plaza featuring a Ruby Tuesday, a Papa John’s and a Kmart, will be a “pro-life pharmacy” — meaning, among other things, that it will eschew all contraceptives.
So, pharmacists who work here can work with a free conscience. Hmmmm….. I seem to remember Catholic hospitals being forced to dispense certain drugs and perform certain procedures, including abortions. In fact, a Catholic hospital in Colorado was sued by a “transgender” woman for not allowing the surgery and the hospital eventually relented. That just happened in March. This seems to violate the separation of church and state, but then, the hospital isn’t a church, per se. It’s a charity.
A pharmacy is a private business so they can do whatever they want, right? Substitute people seeking birth control drugs, for say, HIV drugs. Say the pharmacy decides to not sell cholesterol lowering drugs because fat people aren’t “honoring the temple”. Really, many medications are needed because of some stupid lifestyle choice. Stopping at the sexual vices seems rather limiting.
What do you think?
A Story Of Preemies
Monday, June 16th, 2008I thought I’d share this story with you guys. Eleven years ago this week, my premature twin boys were born. They were born at 24 weeks gestation. My surviving son is a testament to the miracles of modern technology and to miracles, period. I am thankful to God and I’m thankful to the doctors who take up this noble profession.
