No hedging on health care
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The 67-year-old retired print technician doesn&#39;t make enough in Social Security to cover prescription drugs for his stomach ulcer and his wife, Delores&#39; bone density problems.
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The Ontario Liberals vow to push ahead with its agenda to improve the health care system. Over the weekend, Ontario&#39;s doctors soundly rejected a landmark salary deal over the weekend.
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The argument that the cure to the nationâs health care problems is a single-payer system is worth consideration, but filmmaker Michael Moore left out the trade-offs.
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OPPOSITION Leader Mark Latham today rejected claims that funds would be taken from the states to pay for free hospital care for people aged 75 and over.
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I hope the Republicans come prepared to debate health care this year, and they leave the platitudes and slogans home.  Enough of us have been seriously sick, or know someone who has, or have family members who have been or are now. The way the Republicans describe health care, it's as if they've never been through it or don't know anyone who has. I got some pushback, not much, from a casual mention of universal health care a few days ago. Some think the problem can be solved through the "private sector" but that's nonsense. There is no such thing in health care. It's not a free market, as anyone who's been through it can tell you. There's nothing free about it. (Free as in freedom, not as in free beer.) When you check into a hospital you turn over your whole being to the health care system. I can't imagine anything changing that, nor do I think it should. When you're dangerously ill, decisions must be made about you. To people who have never relinquished control, it's a big trip, because that's what you have to do. You spend huge amounts of time waiting. You can't sleep because hospitals are 24-by-7. You're much more likely to get an infection in a hospital, and infection on top of other disease can kill. Even so, people are treated and some even are cured by the system. Lives are definitely prolonged, pain is eased.  Whether we have universal health care or not, it won't change the basics of how health care works, and how unfair it is to be sick and fighting for your life. But there are some things we can change, and if you have a heart, and think about it, I don't see how anyone could be against universal health care and still sleep at night. One commenter said that no one is ever turned away from an emergency room, as if that's all there was to health care.  First, emergency rooms do turn people away, and some of them die. But most disease is not treated in emergency rooms. If you need drugs to treat cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, AIDS, heart disease, depression, arthritis, emphysema, to name a few common chronic diseases -- you're out of luck if you don't have insurance. You could die years before you would with treatment, or might suffer, where if you had good insurance, you wouldn't.  I'm lucky I have good health insurance. It's lucky that I lived in Massachusetts when my COBRA policy expired, it's the one state in the US that has liberalized health insurance. I'm lucky that I can afford the monthly payments. I'm lucky. But why should getting the care and treatment you need depend on luck? We can do so much better. And I think our country would do better with a healthy population that knows if they, or someone they love, got sick they'll the help they need. It'll be interesting to see if we can get McCain to talk about this, if he turns out to be the Republcan nominee. The Republicans have never been responslble about this issue. It's of huge importance to Americans, and McCain presents himself as an honest person. He must understand how the health care system actually works. He's been through it himself, probably many times.  BTW, Hillary's passion for computerizing medical records is a good thing. She's right, a lot of money could be saved, the system could be made much more efficient, people would get better treatment, and lives would be saved. The sooner we get busy doing this, the better it will be for all of us.
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By Grand Forks Herald, N.D.  Feb. 14--There is a slope. And it is slippery.   Especially, it seems, regarding issues of public health.   Lawmakers in North Dakota and Minnesota have spent lots of time on health  proposals -- bills that protect us from ourselves.
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You wouldn't ask your banker to  choose stocks for you, or your dentist to check out your bum  knee, even though their fields are related. So don't expect  your life insurance agent to answer all of your questions about  long-term care insurance.
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Though candidates suggest adapting the health care program that covers Congress and offering it to millions of uninsured Americans, such a plan would unlikely cut costs.
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By ANNE SAILE If you&#39;re following the health care policy debate, yo. bly got a sore neck. Some say we&#39;re living in the best of times.
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OPPOSITION health spokeswoman Julia Gillard today dismissed the Australian Medical Association&#39;s attack on Medicare Gold, saying Labor&#39;s plan offered a workable alternative.
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The U.S. President has said that the problem with health care is the lawyers. He doesn't seem to think that there are any other problems we should be concerned about, and the free market is the best way to determine how much you would be willing to pay for health care. The President is pushing our current system, and his challenger is doing the same.
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More than a million people put their health at risk every year by not taking up the offer of a flu jab, the Chief Medical Officer warns.
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Federal officials flatly rejected the $12-billion-plus price tag attached Friday to the provinces&#39;s prescription for fixing Canada&#39;s health care system.
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A chill is in the air for hospitals accustomed to having insurers pay ever higher prices for hospital services. That era appears to be ending.
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No need to inquire about co-payments at Abu Ghraib prison facility. Rummyâs HMO will cover the whole thing. And, thereâs no sense in worrying about those nagging medical malpractice suits either.
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Paul Ding: "You don't have to change the oil in your car. You can always replace the engine instead. Works the same way with health care." Great essay on the cost heath care.
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The future of many uninsured may well hang on one major issue President Bush didn't discuss last night.