Fighting the flu in Texas

September 27, 2009

Texas government worries about the flu, with good cause.

The Texas Department of State Health Services set up a flu information page at its website, urging Texans to act now to prevent trouble later:

Flu season is here — here’s what you can do:

  • Stay Informed
    TexasFlu.org is the DSHS site for flu information in Texas. Bookmark it. Sign up to receive Twitter and e-mail notices when information is posted.
  • Get a Seasonal Flu Shot Now
    Don’t wait. Get your seasonal flu vaccination now. It’s one of the best ways to protect yourself and others from seasonal flu. Also, be prepared to get the 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine later. It is expected to be available in mid-October.
  • Stop the Spread
    Wash hands frequently. Cover coughs and sneezes. Stay home if you’re sick. Have a plan to care for sick family members at home

    • 18 Texas kids have died from influenza in the past 52 weeks.  Health officials hope immunization will keep pediatric and other deaths low, for both the regular seasonal flu viruses and the novel H1N1 which is the subject of a WHO-declared pandemic.

    (By the way, “pandemic” does not have “panic” at its root; it’s a combination of “pan” from Greek and roughly meaning “all people“, and “demic” meaning a health issue “people. (See Mr. B’s comment below.)

    According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a pandemic can start when three conditions have been met:[1]

    • emergence of a disease new to a population;
    • agents infect humans, causing serious illness; and
    • agents spread easily and sustainably among humans.

    A disease or condition is not a pandemic merely because it is widespread or kills many people; it must also be infectious. For instance, cancer is responsible for many deaths but is not considered a pandemic because the disease is not infectious or contagious.

    Complaints that deaths are low from H1N1 should be regarded as a compliment to the work of health care workers and officials; and statements that we don’t have a flu pandemic ‘because not many people have died’ miss the definition of “pandemic.”)

    2 Comments | Disease, Health care, Influenza, medicine, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    Glenn Beck doesn’t know Canadian health care

    September 22, 2009

    Just one more thing Glenn Beck doesn’t  know that he spreads disinformation about.

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    3 Comments | Accuracy, Canada, Health care, medicine, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    Do as I shout out inappropriately, not as I do . . . (Joe Wilson)

    September 13, 2009

    South Carolina’s U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson voted to provide medical care to illegal aliens.  See solid coverage of the vote and issue at Open Congress.  (Open Congress is a good site — government teachers, bookmark it.)

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    Leave a Comment » | Government, Health care, medicine, President Obama, U.S. House of Representatives | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    Fight the flu: Posters and blog buttons

    September 12, 2009

    Cover your nose with a tissue when you sneeze or cough. Visit www.cdc.gov/h1n1 for more information.Click on the graphic for more information.

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    Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Education, Government, Health care, medicine, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    “The GOP used to be the party of business”

    September 10, 2009

    Santayana’s Ghost notes there’s an 1852 Whiggy smell about the Republican Party these days.

    Thomas L. Friedman writes at the New York Times:

    The G.O.P. used to be the party of business. Well, to compete and win in a globalized world, no one needs the burden of health insurance shifted from business to government more than American business. No one needs immigration reform — so the world’s best brainpower can come here without restrictions — more than American business. No one needs a push for clean-tech — the world’s next great global manufacturing industry — more than American business. Yet the G.O.P. today resists national health care, immigration reform and wants to just drill, baby, drill.

    “Globalization has neutered the Republican Party, leaving it to represent not the have-nots of the recession but the have-nots of globalized America, the people who have been left behind either in reality or in their fears,” said Edward Goldberg, a global trade consultant who teaches at Baruch College. “The need to compete in a globalized world has forced the meritocracy, the multinational corporate manager, the eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur to reconsider what the Republican Party has to offer. In principle, they have left the party, leaving behind not a pragmatic coalition but a group of ideological naysayers.”

    Drum up some business:

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    1 Comment | air pollution, Business, Business Ethics, Clean Air Act, Climate change, Economics, Global warming, Globalization, Health care, History, Lessons of history, Politics, Santayana's ghost | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    Wirtism? Summer political crazies explained in history

    August 30, 2009

    Santayana’s Ghost has been restless these past two months.  Now we know why:  Summer 2009 replayed summer 1934.

    Micheal Hiltzik explained it in a column in the Los Angeles Times:

    To me they’re merely the latest examples of a phenomenon that might be called Wirtism.

    If you find the term unfamiliar, that’s because I just coined it to honor the memory of William A. Wirt. Wirt’s day in the sun came back in 1934, when the obscure Midwestern blowhard placed himself at the center of a political maelstrom by “discovering” a plot by members of Franklin Roosevelt’s Brain Trust to launch a Bolshevik takeover of the United States.

    That Wirt’s yarn was transparently absurd didn’t keep it from being taken seriously on the front pages of newspapers coast to coast, including the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. He gave speeches, wrote a book and went to Washington to give personal testimony at a standing-room-only congressional hearing.

    If that reminds you of the overly solicitous treatment given by the press, cable news programs and Republican office holders to purveyors of such lurid claptrap as the Obama birth certificate story or the fantasy of healthcare “death panels,” now you know why it pays to study history.

    How did it end?  Not soon enough, or well enough, but it ended:

    “Roosevelt is only the Kerensky of this revolution,” he quoted them. (Kerensky was the provisional leader of Russia just before the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.) The hoodwinked president would be permitted to stay in office, they said, “until we are ready to supplant him with a Stalin.”

    Those words caused an immediate sensation. Wirt hedged on naming the treasonous “Brain Trusters” — which only intensified the public mania. Into the vacuum of information poured supposition masquerading as fact (certainly a familiar phenomenon today). This newspaper, then a pillar of Republicanism, gave Wirt the benefit of the doubt on the grounds that “the activities of the ‘brain trust’ during the past year fit neatly into the Communistic scheme” he described — a reminder that the most potent fabrications are those that confirm what the listener wants to believe.

    For that’s what Wirt’s story was — a fabrication. Hauled before Congress, he said he heard of the plot during a party at a friend’s home in Virginia. The other guests, mostly low-level government employees without any connection to the Brain Trust, subsequently testified that none of them could have mentioned Kerensky or Stalin even if they wished, because Wirt monopolized the dinner-table conversation with a four-hour harangue about monetary policy.

    Now you know.  So don’t act stupidly.

    1 Comment | Accuracy, Dissent, Health care, History, medicine, Politics, President Obama, Propaganda, Rampant stupidity, Santayana's ghost | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    Where’s a conspiracy theorist when you need one?

    August 30, 2009

    1 Corinthians 12:26, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it…”

    While Tom Delay dances with the starlets, and Jack Abramoff actually does time, isn’t anyone curious about who organizes all the protests against health care reform?

    (Lookie here, P. Z. — Christians doing good.  Of course it’s not justification for the faith.  It’s one hopeful sign in the Sea of Hamhovind idiocy.)

    You may also want to see:

    5 Comments | Death Panels, Debunking, Dissent, Health care, medicine, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    U.S. Boy Scouts join UN and NBA to fight malaria

    August 28, 2009

    Press release from the malaria-fighting group Nothing But Nets:

    Nothing But Nets Teams Up With Boy Scouts of America to Fight Malaria

    Boy Scouts of America Celebrate 100 Years of Service by Extending Reach Outside Nation’s Borders; Millions of Scouts Across the U.S., including Distinguished Eagle Scout Bill Gates Sr., Spread the Word on Malaria Prevention.

    Detroit, MI (Vocus/PRWEB ) August 28, 2009 — The United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets, a grassroots campaign to prevent malaria by sending long-lasting insecticide-treated nets to families in Africa, announced today that the Boy Scouts of America has joined the malaria-prevention campaign as part of its 100th Anniversary Celebration. Throughout the year, Scouts from around the country will work within their communities to raise awareness about malaria, a leading killer in Africa.

    BSA Chief Scout Executive Bob Mazzuca and Nothing But Nets Director Adrianna Logalbo launched the life-saving partnership today during a malaria workshop at Detroit Edison Public School Academy. Bill Gates Sr., Distinguished Eagle Scout and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Honorable Dave Bing, Mayor of Detroit and Deron Washington of the NBA’s Detroit Pistons, joined Mazzuca and Logalbo at the workshop to teach more than 65 local Scouts about malaria and how to help prevent the deadly disease.

    “Every single day, in almost every community across the nation, Scouts are doing their part to make this world a better place by becoming good citizens. But our concern for others doesn’t stop at our borders. We are global citizens,” Mazzuca said. “Even during a challenging economic recession, it’s hard to imagine that nearly 3,000 people die every day from a preventable disease like malaria. We’re pleased to work with the UN Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign to help make a positive difference for the children in Africa.”

    The Boy Scouts of America joined the Nothing But Nets campaign as part of its newly launched A Year of Celebration, A Century of Making a Difference program, one of eight major engagement programs the organization is undertaking as part of its 100th Anniversary Celebration. A Year of Celebration is a recognition program that rewards Scouts, leaders, and BSA alumni for devotion to five of Scouting’s core values: leadership, character, community service, achievement, and the outdoors. For the Year of Celebration service award, Scouts can choose to participate in the Nothing But Nets service project.

    “We are pleased to partner with the Boy Scouts of America and see hundreds of youth leaders work together to raise malaria awareness and spread the message of how simple it is to prevent the disease,” Logalbo said. “This initiative is powered by passionate people, and we are grateful to have the Boy Scouts help us build support to prevent malaria in Africa.”

    Through this partnership with Nothing But Nets, Scouts will help build awareness about malaria and prevention by conducting service projects such as removing standing water in parks–a breeding ground for mosquitoes–and creating educational tools and activities that illustrate the impact of malaria on the global community.

    The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been a partner of the UN Foundation and its Nothing But Nets campaign since 2006 and is dedicated to eliminating malaria deaths. “It is wonderful to watch the Scouts reach out to help other young children in Africa,” Bill Gates Sr. said. “I am proud of the Boy Scouts’ dedication to service and welcome another great partner in the fight against malaria.”

    Long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed nets are an easy and cost-effective method to help prevent malaria. Bed nets prevent malaria transmission by creating a protective barrier against mosquitoes at night, when the vast majority of transmissions occur. For more information about Nothing But Nets, visit www.NothingButNets.net.

    About Nothing But Nets:
    Nothing But Nets is a global, grassroots campaign to save lives by preventing malaria, a leading killer of children in Africa. Inspired by sports columnist Rick Reilly, more than 100,000 people have joined the campaign that was created by the United Nations Foundation in 2006. Founding campaign partners include the National Basketball Association’s NBA Cares, the people of The United Methodist Church, and Sports Illustrated. It costs just $10 to provide a long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed net to prevent this deadly disease. Visit www.NothingButNets.net to send a net and save a life.

    About the Boy Scouts of America:
    Serving nearly 4.1 million youth between the ages of 7 and 20, with more than 300 councils throughout the United States and its territories, the BSA is the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. The Scouting movement is composed of 1.2 million volunteers, whose dedication of time and resources has enabled the BSA to remain the nation’s leading youth-service organization. For more information on the BSA, please visit www.scouting.org.

    More information about 100 Years of Scouting can be found at www.scouting.org/100years.

    Press Contacts:
    For media inquiries regarding the United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets, contact:
    Amy DiElsi
    Communications Director, Children’s Health
    (o) 202-419-3230 (c) 202-492-3078

    For media inquiries regarding the Boy Scouts of America, contact
    Nicole Selinger
    (o) 314-982-0573 (c) 314-805-2165

    Leave a Comment » | Africa, Boy Scouts of America, Disease, Green Politics, Health care, Malaria, medicine, United Nations | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    Why Republicans are going the way of the Whigs

    August 23, 2009

    It’s not that they’re losing the war of politics.  It’s that they’re losing a war with reality they should not be waging.

    A new national survey from Public Policy Polling (D) illustrates the profound levels of ignorance that currently interfere with the debate over health care.

    One question asked: “Do you think the government should stay out of Medicare?” Keep in mind that this is a logical impossibility, as Medicare is a government program, which was signed into law in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson, to provide guaranteed health care to the elderly.

    As it turns out, 39% of voters think government should stay out of Medicare, compared to 46% who disagree.

    Millard Fillmore was the last Whig president; the party nominated a candidate in 1856, but was dead completely by 1860. Bust of Vice President Millard Fillmore, by Robert Cushing, U.S. Senate Chamber -

    Millard Fillmore was the last Whig president; the party nominated a candidate in 1856, but was dead completely by 1860. Bust of Vice President Millard Fillmore, by Robert Cushing, U.S. Senate Chamber -

    Among Republicans, 62% say the government should stay out of Medicare, compared to only 24% of Democrats and 31% of independents who agree.

    Government should get out of Medicare?  Yeah, and the Supreme Court should take the Constitution and get out of law.  Farmers should get out of agriculture.  And God should get out of religion.

    If you believe that, I have an island in the Hudson River to sell you, complete with bridges.  No wonder Republicans are so prone to voodoo history.

    Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

    18 Comments | Accuracy, Health care, medicine, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Reason, Voodoo history | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    End the hoaxes, part 4: When India’s health care beats the U.S., it’s time to change

    August 23, 2009

    Can’t see any reason to reform health care in the U.S.?  Read this letter to the editor of the Stockton (California) Record:

    August 22, 2009

    I recently returned from India with my partner (a Lodi resident, born and raised in Stockton), who had hip surgery there because he has inadequate health insurance and could not afford to have the surgery done here. He, by the way, had excellent care there at a fraction of the cost here, including travel.

    It is difficult to understand the paranoia of citizens who are blind to the obvious manipulation by politicians and insurance executives. Insurance companies, through their politician spokespeople, continue to succeed in duping Americans into believing they cannot trust the government, while they make decisions based primarily, if not solely, on huge profits. Certain politicians are willing to sell Americans down the river in the hopes of regaining some political ground.

    Though the government may not be great at controlling costs, it does not make decisions based only on maximizing profits into private pockets, and it answers to us at election time. Is our faith in our system at so low an ebb that we alone among industrial nations cannot manage this? Insurance companies act only for themselves.

    Me? I trust the government over insurance companies any day. Common sense tells us we need reform, we need it now, and it must address the inequalities of a system that is inherently untrustworthy due to greed and selfish motivation. A real, functional public option is key to meaningful reform.

    Susan Amato
    Lodi

    Need health care?  Insurance company won’t authorize your treatment?  Just fly to India.

    It’s the “India Option Plan” from Sen. Chuck Grassley. Claims that health care in the U.S. is the “best in the world” need to be qualified:  Best in the world for those fortunate enough to have insurance that will cover treatment, and which won’t drop them when the bills start coming in; for others, second-world and third-world coverage is reality.

    17 Comments | Health care, Legislation, medicine, Politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    End the hoaxes, part 3a: Government plans pay for cancer treatment, private insurance no better

    August 23, 2009

    Sad story out of Oregon, but a familiar story to anyone who has followed health care issues during any part of the past 40 years:  A woman gets cancer, her physician recommends a pharmaceutical or surgical procedure, but the insurance company denies coverage.

    In this case, the story is being pushed by opponents to health care reform as a scare tactic.  ‘Health care reform means cancer-fighting drugs won’t be covered.’  The tenuous link to reality this argument has is this:  The woman is insured by Oregon’s public insurance alternative, a one-state effort to do what private insurance failed to do.  So, the critics reason, if she can’t get coverage under Oregon’s public plan, no one will get coverage under any government plan.

    The pharmaceutical is a recently-developed cancer fighter, Tarceva.

    It’s a crude bluff.  Reality is different.

    1. Medicare may pay for coverage of the drug in question, Tarceva. The Oregon public program has a rather high standard for coverage — 5% chance of survival for 5 months or more, established in clinical trials — but Medicare supplemental insurance plans, a federal program, will pay for Tarceva for non-small cell lung cancer treatments.  Oregon’s program may not be equivalent to the federal program proposed.
    2. Private insurance companies often deny coverage for cancer treatments. The story from Oregon shows the disparities in care, and it demonstrates well that rationing of health care is a key feature of the current system, a key reason to work for reform.  But denial of coverage occurs across the nation, and, I think statistics would show, more often from private insurance companies, often for less judicious reasons.  In Kansas, Mary Casey got the rejection from her private insurance company:  “But when Casey went to fill her Tarceva prescription at the pharmacy, her insurer, Coventry Health Care of Kansas, denied her coverage for the drug, saying it considered Tarceva experimental in her case, even though Tarceva is FDA approved for other lung and pancreatic cancers.”  There is no significant difference between private coverage and the Oregon public plan.
    3. Private insurance failed:  This woman is on the Oregon plan because private insurance didn’t provide any coverage for her.

    Barabara Wagner’s story troubles anyone with a heart.  It’s not an argument against reforming health care and health care insurance, however, because Wagner wouldn’t be alive to this point without a government plan in Oregon, analogous to the public option proposed in the House bill; because private insurance does not differ significantly in its coverage of cancer victims; and because this woman is on a public program in the first place because private insurance simply failed to cover her at all.  Under private insurance, this woman would have been dead months ago, if not longer.

    Other notes:

    11 Comments | Death Panels, Health care, Hoaxes, Legislation, Politics, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    Happy birthday, Toni Novello

    August 23, 2009

    She looks stuffy in the photographs, but Toni Novello is one of the most genuine people and funniest women I’ve ever worked with — sometimes without intention.  When veterans of the old Senate Labor Committee chairman’s staff get together, we still laugh over Toni’s return from a weekend health care seminar raving about “Cahoon cooking.”

    We were puzzled until somebody remembered the seminar she spoke at was in New Orleans.  In her Puerto Rican view, Cajun was just pronounced a little differently.

    Brilliance packaged in a human exterior.

    Today in Science History tells us Toni was born on August 23, 19√∞.  “Physician and public official, the first woman and the first Hispanic to serve as surgeon general of the United States.”

    Leave a Comment » | Health care, History, Life, Personal, U.S. Senate | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    “Death panel” as fiction

    August 22, 2009

    Odd observation: Electronic searches of H.R. 3200, ‘”America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” find that the word “death” occurs only twice in the bill, on pages 588 and 596.

    On page 588, the reference is to fines to a “skilled nursing facility” for lapses in care that result in the death of a patient. On page 596, again the reference is to a fine to a nursing facility for a lapse in care that results in the death of a patient.

    In each case in which the word “death” occurs, the context is a fine for causing death.

    The word “mortality” occurs once, on page 620. It occurs in a section that requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to set priorities in national health care quality improvement, and to give priority to ideas that “have the greatest potential to decrease morbidity and mortality in this country, including those that are designed to eliminate harm to patients.”

    In the only case in which “mortality” occurs, the context calls for reducing mortality.

    Don’t take my word for it. Go search the bill yourself.

    Critics appear not to have read the bill.  When writing fiction, sometimes it’s best not to be bound by reality.  However, when one is not bound by reality, one is writing only fiction.

    3 Comments | Accuracy, Barack Obama, Death Panels, Health care, Law, medicine, Politics, President Obama, Reason, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    End the hoaxes, part 2a: Great need for health care reform, Flagler County Free Clinic

    August 21, 2009

    Health care professionals and legislators struggled with the need for reform of health care for the past 40+ years.  Tweaking of specific, small parts produced no great reduction in health care cost inflation.  More millions of people fall out of the pool of people who have access to health care in a timely and affordable way.

    And yet people claim not to see the need?

    Faith Coleman of Flagler County Free Clinic: Faith Colemans ordeal as an uninsured cancer patient drove her to help others without health insurance. (CNN Image)

    Faith Coleman of Flagler County Free Clinic: "Faith Coleman's ordeal as an uninsured cancer patient drove her to help others without health insurance." (CNN Image)

    Meet Faith Coleman.  She was a young nurse, delivering health care for many different employers, when she was struck with kidney cancer.  Since she worked part time for so many, no one offered her health insurance as an employee.

    Faith Coleman could mortgage her home for the $35,000 to save her life.

    Her cancer is in remission.

    But she then organized health providers in her town to take care of others in her situation.  Week in and week out, more than a hundred people show up to her essentially free clinic, trying to crawl out of the cracks in the health care delivery floor.  CNN featured the story.

    I have been given another chance, and I felt that it was important for me to make a difference and to help other people,” she said.

    So after her recovery in 2004, Coleman approached Dr. John Canakaris. The local physician with 60 years of experience had been treating the indigent population for years. Canakaris was eager to reach more patients in need.

    The two worked together to establish the Flagler County Free Clinic in Bunnell, Florida, which provides medical care for the uninsured. It has treated more than 6,700 patients.

    The clinic opened its doors in February 2005, with eight volunteers treating eight patients. Since then, it has expanded to 120 volunteers who see about 80 patients every other weekend. Coleman said she’s seen an increase in the number of patients at the clinic, which serves people who meet federal poverty guidelines.

    Go read the story, look at the videos, and help out where you can.

    One sure-fire way you can help:  Stand up for health care reform. We need it now.  In Texas, each person with health care insurance pays $1,800 a year to mend the holes in the safety net — we need to reduce that cost (for my family, that’s $7,200/year).

    Stand up for health care reform now, and stand against the hoaxes claiming we have no need, or that expanded programs won’t help.

    2 Comments | Health care, History, medicine, Politics, President Obama | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

    End the hoaxes, part 1: Health care costs cause bankruptcies

    August 17, 2009

    Health care costs, especially coupled with lack of adequate insurance even for insured people, drove our nation to the brink of economic collapse.

    We need health care reform now, to help get our economy back on its feet.

    “Unless you’re a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, you’re one illness away from financial ruin in this country,” says lead author Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., of the Harvard Medical School, in Cambridge, Mass. “If an illness is long enough and expensive enough, private insurance offers very little protection against medical bankruptcy, and that’s the major finding in our study.”

    Woolhandler and her colleagues surveyed a random sample of 2,314 people who filed for bankruptcy in early 2007, looked at their court records, and then interviewed more than 1,000 of them. Health.com: Expert advice on getting health insurance and affordable care for chronic pain.

    They concluded that 62.1 percent of the bankruptcies were medically related because the individuals either had more than $5,000 (or 10 percent of their pretax income) in medical bills, mortgaged their home to pay for medical bills, or lost significant income due to an illness. On average, medically bankrupt families had $17,943 in out-of-pocket expenses, including $26,971 for those who lacked insurance and $17,749 who had insurance at some point.

    Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say.

    “That was actually the predominant problem in patients in our study — 78 percent of them had health insurance, but many of them were bankrupted anyway because there were gaps in their coverage like co-payments and deductibles and uncovered services,” says Woolhandler. “Other people had private insurance but got so sick that they lost their job and lost their insurance.” Health.com: Where the money goes — A breast cancer donation guide.

    Personal bankruptcies played a large role in the banking crisis of late last year and early 2009.  Personal bankruptcies played a huge role in the collapse of mortgage securities markets, which prompted the banking crises.

    If anything, current proposals do not go far enough in reforming insurance.

    “To ignore the fact that medical costs are an underlying problem of the economic meltdown we’ve experienced would be to turn a blind eye to a significant problem that we can solve,” she said [Elizabeth Edwards, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress].

    Edwards was joined by Steffie Woolhandler, a co-author of the Harvard study [discussed above] who sharply criticized current reform efforts.

    “Private insurance is a defective product that leaves millions of middle-class families vulnerable to financial ruin. Unfortunately, the health reform plan now under consideration in the House would do little to address this grave problem,” Woolhandler said.

    Without new legislation along the lines of the Democratic proposals in Congress, our nation faces economic doom.

    Phony assertions of “death panels,” phony assertions of “creeping socialism,” phony claims about bad care in England, Canada and France, are all tools that help push our nation to economic failure.

    Please do not be hoaxed.

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    52 Comments | Economics, Government, Health care, Hoaxes, medicine, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Ed Darrell

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