Unraveling the Mystery of Obamacare

This morning I have a question for you: why is requiring car insurance for drivers good, but requiring health insurance for people who have bodies bad? A few possible answers.

1. Not all states require auto insurance, just 47 of them. If you want to drive, you can always move to New Hampshire; also Wisconsin or California if you're willing to put up an enormous bond.

2. If you're poor, well, stop driving. Driving is for rich people! If you are rich and a poor person rams into your car (probably by accident but they're getting pretty irate lately) you can afford to fix it yourself. Or sue the poor person for his... uh... well, why give money to a trial lawyer anyway?

This second point is nicely illustrated by this clip from Fox News Sunday, in which Mitch McConnell points out that if you wanted medical care, you'd make more money.


After all, the last thing we need is for the death panels to say that we should approve treatments for your retired-without-a-pension parents. What kind of strong society will that serve?

Look Under A Rock For Him

Speaking of Newt, here's a handy table of positions he's taken in the last few years which suggest that he's actually okay with all the of the parts of "Obamacare" that he calls socialism.

	Newt Gingrich	Affordable Care Act
Individual Mandate	“You ought to either have health insurance, or you ought to post a bond.” [Healthcare Cease Fire, 2005]	Section 1501: U.S. citizens and legal residents who don’t obtain coverage by 2014, pay a tax penalty.
Group Purchasing	“Large risk pools…should be established so low income people can buy insurance as inexpensively as large corporations.” [Winning The Future, 2005]	Section 1321: States establish health insurance exchanges to allow individuals, families, and small businesses to harness the purchasing power of large employers.
Subsidies	“Some aspect of the working poor has to involve transfer of finances. To ask people in the lowest paying jobs to bear the full burden of their health insurance is just irrational.” [Healthcare Cease Fire, 2005]	Section 1401: Families with incomes between 133-400% of the federal poverty line will receive premium credits to purchase insurance through the Exchanges.
Comparative Effectiveness Research	“A health care system that is driven by robust comparative clinical evidence will save lives and money.” [NYT, 2008]	Section 6302: Establishes a non-profit Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to identify research priorities andconduct research that compares the clinical effectiveness of medical treatments.
Improving Quality	“Don Berwick at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement has worked for years to spread the word that the same systematic approach to quality control that has worked so well in manufacturing could create a dramatically safer, less expensive and more effective system of health and health care.” [Washington Post, 2000]	TITLE X: Improves health care quality through numerous provisions, including the innovation of payment reform models and rewarding providers who deliver quality care.
Prevention	“The 21st Century System of Health and Healthcare willpartner with you first to prevent illness and then to care for you as a patient if you become ill.” [Saving Lives & Saving Money, 2006]	TITLE IV: Prevention services will be available without additional cost-sharing and the law establishes a Prevention and Public Health Fund.
Health Information Technology (HIT)	“Going to a paperless all-electronic system is going to save lives, it’s going to save money, it’s going to lead to better outcomes, it’s going to give us new opportunities.” [Paper Kills, 2007]	The stimulus act invested in HIT and the ACA requires the government to develop standards “that facilitate electronic enrollment of individuals in Federal and State health and human services programs.”
Fraud	“First, we must dramatically reduce healthcare fraud within our current healthcare system.” [Stop Paying The Crooks, 2009]	The federal government has “more than tripled the amount of money it has recovered” in the past six years form fraud and the ACA includes numerous anti-fraud provisions from increasing the federal sentencing guidelines for health care fraud to appropriating an additional $350 million over 10 years to ramp up anti-fraud efforts.

Ron Paul Is No Hypocrite

That clip I ran yesterday, in which Ron Paul said that it's not his responsibility to care for the uninsured, was based on a hypothetical guy. Let's take a look at a real one!

Back in 2008, Kent Snyder — Paul's former campaign chairman — died of complications from pneumonia. Like the man in Blitzer's example, the 49-year-old Snyder was relatively young and seemingly healthy when the illness struck. He was also uninsured. When he died on June 26, 2008, two weeks after Paul withdrew his first bid for the presidency, his hospital costs amounted to $400,000. The bill was handed to Snyder's surviving mother, who was incapable of paying. Friends launched a website to solicit donations.

Charity fell short in this case, by about 9/10s of what was needed. If Paul seems a little more troubled in the clip than your typical Tea Party candidate, that's probably why; the question wasn't hypothetical at all. Tentative props to Wolf Blitzer for bringing it up.

I know that bad things happen to good people, and no system is perfect, but we're the only Western nation in which this guy couldn't receive care. On the whole, Germany's economy or France's or England's is no worse off than ours is, and they manage to provide medical care for everybody. When you're figuring death panels into your policy decisions, keep in mind that one hero of the Right is absolutely okay with trimming you from the herd.

This Ad Also Goes Too Far

Strictly speaking, Republicans aren't trying to push old people off a cliff. They're trying to persuade them to wheel themselves.

Weirdly, the argument being made by some is that the Paul Ryan plan not eliminating Medicare. It's merely putting tax money into the hands of seniors so they can choose their own plan. If this sounds familiar it's because it's the part of "Obamacare" that they insist is SOCIALISM!!!!111!!! Seniors would then, because the money is capped in a way that it isn't now, would be forced to shop around and therefore, market prices would drive down the price of medical care.

Much in the same way that Medical Prices are low now because people can shop around. Oh, they aren't low? Well, they would be. And seniors would have the upper hand in the deal because if they can't get a deal they like, they can just walk away from the negotiation.

(descending slide whistle; CRASH)

Well, I hope the Republicans keep pushing the plan right up to the edge of the next presidential election.

My Weirdest Purchase Lately

It's a muscle stimulator! I was in the mall over the weekend and this kiosk guy tried to talk me into buying one for $100 bucks. I thought it was cool but figured I could do better online. And yes, I did. $40, thanks for asking.

If you ever saw the Bruce Lee biopic Dragon, Lee was a devotee of such machines, though at the time they were tabletop-sized and now you can clip them on your belt. You glue electrodes to your skin over muscle groups and then electric shocks are sent to the muscles, forcing them to contract. It's just like that experiment in high school where you jolted a frog's leg and made it jerk around. No they didn't make me do it in my high school but I heard stories.

I'm using it now on my pecs and man, it's strange. My moobs are dancin'! I've also got a couple on my abs, but that's barely registering. Either I don't have them near enough to the muscles or more likely, they layers of fat are keeping the electricity from getting through.

I think probably what this will be really useful for, as far as I'm concerned, is that nagging middle-back pain that I have. A few months ago I was plagued by lower back pain, and I remembered that a cure for that is ab exercises. Sure enough, I stregnthend those muscles with daily sit-ups and the pain hasn't bothered me. Then I had shoulder pain and since I stared doing pushups, I feel great. But I don't know a good middle back (lats, right?) exercise. Besides I'm essentially lazy. I'd rather a 9-volt battery did my exercise for me while I blog. Is that so wrong? Hopefully I can find a gadget online to answer that.

THIS IS THE LOWEST THE BAR HAS EVER BEEN!!!!!!11!!!!

Today is the first anniversary of the greatest single assault on our freedom in my lifetime: the signing of ObamaCare.

-- Ron Johnson's lead in his editorial for the Wall Street Journal.

All this time I thought it was the light bulbs! What about suggesting that Sarah Palin's speech might have inspired crazy people to do violent things? That's not a big deal any more?

Johnson goes on to talk about his daughter's medical problems, which he must have gladly paid for out of his own pocket and is now furious that he will be forced to buy insurance instead. Or he was thinking of cutting his daughter off and now cannot. And he wanted insurance companies to have the option of refusing coverage to her! That's their RIGHT! No wonder he's so upset!

I Was For The Death Panels Before I Was Against Them

Amy Sullivan does a little research.

"The covered services are: evaluating the beneficiary's need for pain and symptom management, including the individual's need for hospice care; counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning." The only difference between the 2003 provision and the infamous Section 1233 that threatens the very future and moral sanctity of the Republic is that the first applied only to terminally ill patients. Section 1233 would expand funding so that people could voluntarily receive counseling before they become terminally ill.

So either Republicans were for death panels in 2003 before turning against them now--or they're lying about end-of-life counseling in order to frighten the bejeezus out of their fellow citizens and defeat health reform by any means necessary. Which is it, Mr. Grassley ("Yea," 2003)?

Health Care Reform is Dead To Me Now

I don't think Americans are capable of it. As the bills work their way through congress, all the things Americans want are being taken out, and curiously everything the health and insurance industries are getting in. When the final bill arrives on the President's desk in mid-January, it will contain a mandatory insurance requirement with a guaranteed annual 10% rate hike. The costs will drive a number of businesses to outsource to countries where wages are lower AND health care is paid for by the governement. My antipathy towards congress is stronger than ever. The senate, a little less.

I'm done. Now I'm going to bust up this soapbox for firewood and move on to other corners.

Euthanasia

The President goes before cameras pretty soon and will take another stab at unscaring America about health care reform. The bill isn't even written yet but I gotta tell you, if it looks anything like the current bill by the time they vote for it, Obama would be wise to veto it and start over in 2011.

We don't need insurance sold by the government. We need universal health care, health care run as a service like the police and fire department. We need, essentially to pay $100 more to taxes and $300 less to insurance companies.

We need to screw the insurance companies. I can't put it any plainer than that. They can still have auto and homeowners and life, that's fine. Because I can live my life without driving and I could rent, but if I don't visit doctors, I'm probably dead at 50. I wouldn't even know I had a cholesterol problem if I had to pay full price for checkups. I am for free market solutions except in cases where the market offers you a choice between using their product or DEATH. I don't like to negotiate if I can't walk away from the deal. If I have to be carried away from the deal that's even worse.

Americans pay twice as much per capita for medical care than any other nation, and a lot of that money goes to employees who are earning bonuses by finding ways to avoid paying for care that you thought were buying. Afraid that socialized medicine will stop you from getting to choose your doctor? In the past ten years I have been forced to change doctors 5 times, and had no doctor for an aggregate of 5 months.

If Obama can get a health care system set up like in all the other major industrialized countries, he will have achieved lasting savings AND made everybody's lives better. Which is why, when you see Republicans fighting to keep Blue Cross executives from losing their bonuses, you should remember that their agenda is to keep Obama from looking good. It's NOT to help America.

Unless you believe that Obama serving a second term is a worse disaster than anything else, of course. But I'm going cover that concept in a different entry.

Liberals Find Something Else to Blame on Bush

Teenage pregnancies and syphilis have risen sharply among a generation of American school girls who were urged to avoid sex before marriage under George Bush's evangelically-driven education policy, according to a new report by the US's major public health body.

In a report that will surprise few of Bush's critics on the issue, the Centres for Disease Control says years of falling rates of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease infections under previous administrations were reversed or stalled in the Bush years. According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older had been in decline since 1991 but are up sharply in more than half of American states since 2005. The study also revealed that the number of teenage females with syphilis has risen by nearly half after a significant decrease while a two-decade fall in the gonorrhea infection rate is being reversed. The number of Aids cases in adolescent boys has nearly doubled.

-The Guardian

As though teens would react this way toward abstinence programs and a campaign to limit access to condoms. Everybody knows that if you tell a teenager not to have sex, they'll obey you without question! Besides, Bush TRIED to slow down teen pregancy rates.

Here's Why Obama Is Talking To Doctors

PRINCETON, NJ -- Nearly three-quarters of Americans (73%) say they are confident in doctors to recommend the right thing for reforming the U.S. healthcare system. That is significantly higher than the public confidence extended to President Barack Obama, as well as to six other entities that will be weighing in during the emerging healthcare reform debate.

You might conclude that the only reason I even posted this was to point out that the people whom the public trusts LEAST to reform the health care system are Congressional Republicans. Well, fine, think what you want.

After

As promised, here I am just 15 hours later, after a good nights sleep which followed a good afternoon's sleep. Valium, it turns out can do ANYthing.

I can report that the procedure is brief and extraordinarily unpleasant, but in the right hands (and machines) very effective. I can see! Last night before I went to bed I watched a little hi-def network TV and it looked hi-deffer than I've ever seen.

Well, I have to get ready for work. See ya!

Before

I'm killing time outside the Barnes & Noble, waiting for my LASIK surgery. As you can see, I am wearing glasses.

Hopefully tomorrow you'll see another picture like this one only I will be smiling wider and not wearing glasses. It's also possible that it will be a picture of me with my eyes bandaged up, posted by my lawyers; but everything I've read so far suggests that's a remote possibility. I stand a better chance of getting the H1N1 virus.

Oh God, what my doctor HAS the H1N1 virus! I'll die of swine flu, blind and resentful. I bet I catch the ebola there too.

Well, I hope we see each other tomorrow.

(for more fun eye material, check out my podcast this week!)

A Sensible Bod Mod

BBC reports that a previously blind man has been sucessfully outfitted with a bionic eye.

Ron had the experimental surgery in summer 2008 at Moorfield's eye hospital and has made good progress since. Ron, who lost his sight in his 40s due to retinitis pigmentosa, now has the ability to see flashes of coloured light and dark.

His treatment is part of an international trial carried out be an American company called Second Sight and he is one of the 18 patients across the world who taking part in the experiment.

Reportedly he can now discern the white lines on asphault and sort socks. Doesn't sound like much, but if you've been blind for 30 years it's nothin' to sneeze at. And the BBC isn't at all snippy about the fact that the eye still isn't good enough for him to enjoy Dr. Who reruns.

The Drugs Won

The War On Drugs, is starting to look like the Wars on Vietnam and Iraq: unwinnable, expensive and frankly we're wondering why we started 'em in the first place. Speaking personally I've been wondering about the efficacy of the war on drugs for years. I come from a gene pool with a tendency toward addictive behaviors and some of my relatives have hurt themselves with legal drugs like alcohol, while others have hurt themselves with illegal drugs, and the availability and damage has been roughly the same in either case. Furthermore, fear of the breaking the law hasn't had any effect.

Except for me, by the way. It seems to have skipped a generation in my case, though I've got a jones for sugar that even I can't believe.

Anyway, making certain drugs illegal has only had the effect of raising their price while depriving the state of a chance to earn tax revenue from them. For this reason cash-strapped California is throwing around the idea taxing marijuana sales; further ideas about this can be found here. It would be great if nationally we could just relax drug laws and make them legal and safer. We'd have more resources to devote to violent crime, and more luxury tax money besides.

Would it cause an increase in drug use? Don't think so. People who don't want to smoke crack now aren't going to say, "well, now that it's legal maybe just this once." People who don't drive while they're drunk around going to smoke joints on their commute home. Besides, I'm perfectly fine with the idea of THAT being illegal. If we use alcohol laws as the template to regulate ALL recreational drugs, I bet we'll be a much stronger country.

How I Spent The Weekend

Well, let's see - I bought groceries, including a nice cut of salmon which I had for dinner. And I did some laundry and I watched a whole lotta TV. And I shaved off all my chest hair. Oh, and I was in the hospital for a couple of days.

Yeah, I might as well blog about this, because it'll save the me the trouble of relating it as an anecdote when people ask about the marks on my face. What happened was, I went to bed Thursday night, and woke up at around 2:00 am to go the the bathroom. I don't want to go into too much detail here, but I was basically doing something Elvis became famous for (it KILLED him) and I simply passed out. It was like this - sound of the ocean rushing in my ears, closing my eyes for a second, wondering why one side of my face was so cold, and realizing it was because that was the side against the tiles.

So I got back up, sound of the ocean, closed eyes, and realizing I was slumped against the shower door. Then I finished my business and crawled back into bed with my girlfriend.

I was driving her back to her place the next morning and I mentioned all this and she said "Jesus! Why the hell didn't you tell me?" I don't know, I said, I thought I needed the sleep. "What if you had a concussion! What's wrong with you!" And this got me thinking - most normal people would not shrug off a thing like this and go to work, they would get an ambulance to the emergency room. Since I was already driving, I just kept on going until I found the nearest emergency room covered by my insurance. I got to park in the emergency patients space! That was exciting.

So I checked myself in and they stuck a bunch of electrodes to my very, very hairy chest, and monitored me in ICU for four hours. I flirted with a couple of nurses to pass the time. Eventually a doctor came in and told me there was probably nothing all that wrong with me (sudden drop in blood pressure, happens now and then though usually to older people) but just in case they wanted to keep me overnight for observation. So I waited another two hours until they transferred me to a room, which I shared with a personable dialysis patient.

At least in the upstairs room I had an adjustable bed and a nice TV. Every time an orderly told me to expect something (MRI for example, or lunch) it was always two hours later than they said, and it always seemed to happen just at the climax of the movie I was watching. Late in the day I was told they were going to let me out Saturday afternoon, after the stress test. That's the treadmill one that you see all the time on HOUSE.

I slept surprisingly well considering there was a bulky IV hookup in my right hand and a heart rate monitor in my gown pocket, and it was noisy and people would show up in the middle of the night to take my blood pressure. 

Saturday morning I have never been so grateful for cable. Even though I felt fine I was essentially bed-ridden. Sure I could get up and walk around but they like to know where you are. And if you're not in your room when they bring breakfast, it might not come for another two hours. I don't have cable at home and let me tell you, Saturday morning is a wasteland. I have to admit I have grown fond of THE SWEET LIFE OF ZACK AND CODY, because Ashley Tisdale has great comic timing, but the rest is all CGI puppet shows and golf. So access to news channels made me feel a LOT better.

Some time around three the nurse told me that my doctor had an emergency and he probably couldn't get to the stress test until Sunday morning. I was tired of TV, my neck was sore from the adjustable bed, my cell phone was running low and I was worried about my car, still parked in the emergency space. I begged the nurse to talk someone into releasing me. I could go home, fast the next morning and come in for my stress test. And my doctor did show up around 6:30 and said he agreed with me. I'm making an appointment tomorrow for the test.

After that it was a short wait for the nurse to show up with the forms, and to unhook me from the Matrix. How long was that anyway? About two hours. Everybody kept asking me, "is someone picking you up?" I drove here myself, I replied. They looked at my like I was nuts. Yes, I'm used to that.

So I drove home, and the first thing I did was pull off those adhesive electrode points that they stick onto you for the EKGs. When I was done I had these holes in the fuzzy coat of hair on my chest. And since I know I'm going to be hosting those things again soon, I figured I'd shave it all off. Besides now and then I wonder what it would look like.

Trust me, it doesn't look good. The hair did a lot to camouflage the complete lack of muscle. I'm looking forward to having it back. Or I guess I could work out once in a while. I think I lost a pound too, the result of a controlled hospital diet. I should try to get a copy of that menu because it must be nutritious but it's sure not laden with calories.

My friends all have different theories about why it happened. One thinks I'm drinking too much water, and I need more potassium. Another thinks I simply lost too much weight lately. My girlfriend thinks it was the combination of steak, red wine and sex that made me dehydrated. I can avoid at least one of those things as long as I get the other two.

Anyway, I'm fine now, so stop worrying.

Too Delirious to Keep On Message

Today's spam email from Townhall.com, the morning after the triumphant speech by President-elect Palin:

From:  TownHallmessage@townhallmail.com

Subject:  The shocking truth about blood sugar

Date:  September 4, 2008 7:09:58 AM PDT

It goes on to try to sell me a blood sugar monitoring system. Or book. Or something. You have to click on a link to find out, and my blood sugar is just fine.

But why does Townhall hate Sarah Palin?

How I Spent Labor Day Weekend: A Multiple Choice Quiz

Well, it was a long, hot 3 days. I will now report on my activities, only to make it less boring I'll let you guess which scenario actually took place.

1. Blind Date
a. I had a blind date.
b. I didn't have a blind date.
c. Other.
(answer c; I had one but she flaked on me.)

2. Swimming pool
a. I swam in the cool refreshing waters of my apartment's pool
b. I did not swim in the cool refreshing waters of my apartment's pool.
(answer b; just didn't get around to it, even after spending half a day outdoors at a birthday party in Agoura. The temperature ranged from 95 degrees to 112 degrees. As a matter of fact, the temperature in Las Vegas this weekend trailed ours by 5 degrees.)

3. Met a girl
a. Hung out with a bright-blue-haired Russian girl named Natasha at a karaoke bar in Studio City; she told me she was a mail order bride who had been abandoned by her patron and if I married her she would give me "good DJs."
b. No, that's ridiculous.
(answer a; but I'm pretty sure she was just an actress working on a character. Either way quite charming.)

4. Vision correction
a. Spent several hours looking for a hobo who would sell me his eyes.
b. Spent several hours at Lenscrafters getting contact lenses and new glasses.
(answer b; I actually had an agreement in principal with a local hobo but the deal fell through because I couldn't find a competent doctor to perform the surgery.)

Thanks for playing!

Meat is Murder -- Delicious, Juicy Medium-Rare Murder

I'm reading a piece on the podcast tonight about PETA, and their picks for the sexiest vegetarian celebrities. I think it's Carrie Underwood and Kevin Eubanks this year. Whatever.

Periodically I wrestle with the idea of becoming vegetarian, simply because I'm certain I'd lose weight. Meat isn't inherently fattening but limiting your dietary choices inherently is. The second you start questioning every snack over whether there is dairy in it, or wheat, you're forced to also think "is it worth the trouble to eat this?" Boom! There goes 10 pounds. Which, by the way, would put me within actuarial tables' opinion of what I should weigh.

A lot of people object to carnivorism on moral grounds. Either it's bad for the environment because you're artificially raising the population of cows and feeding them, instead of just making cow feed into human feed, or you're taking the life of a creature with a brain and a soul.

You are, you know. Can't be helped.

There have been studies which suggest that plants also posses intelligence. If you limit your diet to things without intelligence, you won't be sexy for long. You'll be food for one of those other things. It's the circle of life. Can you feel the love tonight?

Nice guy that I am, even I recognize that you gotta either kill or be killed. What you kill is a matter of choice; if I could afford it and it wouldn't clog up my arteries my choice would be Kobe cow about once a month. Well-done, with a horseradish sauce and a side of once-lively vegetables, and a red wine made from the life-force of happy central-California grapes. I'd savor the well-marbled deeply browned flesh of this animal for the full month until nothing was left but the bones, which I would happily give to my faithful dogs, who demonstrate their affection by not eating me instead.

Instead I cheerfully enjoy chicken, turkey, and lesser quality beef on a daily basis. Thus do I remain nourished and confident that I'm at the top of the food chain.

For now.

Sanity and Combs: Freebies From Pharma!

Wired magazine goes all in-depth on the practice of getting doctors' attention by giving away stuff. For example, USB Flash memory sticks to promote an Alzheimer's disease drug.

"...so much of the merchandise handed out generously in past years -- Prozac mouse pads and gym bags, Zoloft coffee mugs -- promoted drugs with recently expired patents, which are now sold generically."Nobody can make money on the generics so they aren't going to pay to sell something," Carlat says. "Only three of the SSRIs (a class of antidepressant) are still patented."

I'm of two minds on this phenomenon. I think I'll go with the pros first. It's nice to be able to take free samples of a drug before you commit money to it. And when I was running theatres, I hosted a few screenings sponsored by drug companies. To this day I have a note pad with the Paxil logo on it. Nice. And the pens! Oh, the pens.

Giving free stuff to doctors makes them happier doctors, and happy doctors make less mistakes, unless they're happier because you gave 'em booze.

Two downsides: the obvious ethical problems the arise when Diet and Exercise can't sponsor a weekend golf trip while Glaxxo can. And my pleasure at getting free samples is mitigated by sitting in a waiting room, watching salesman after salesman walk in to talk to the doctor while my appointment time stretches to two hours late.

By the way, since I've been off anti-depressants for a couple of months now you can assume my opinions aren't clouded by them. If they can make a drug that combats shyness, it's only a matter of time before they make one that targets your distaste for big pharma. Keep a close eye on the reservoirs.

(And no, nowhere in the article does it say that they gave away any combs. If you were me, would you be able to resist that title? Hell no!)