We spent a lot of time over the last several weeks reading about the health care reform legislation and have many great articles and books to recommend.
We found the following to be very informative in thinking about health care reform:
Newsweek once again shows that it is willing to speak out on issues that most others are not willing to confront. Its current issue includes several very informative and thought provoking articles:
The Case for Killing Granny: Rethinking end-of-life care, which points out that 1/3 of medical care expenses are incurred in the last 2 years ofl life and often when the patient doesn’t want the care and won’t benefit from it, and No Country for Sick Men, which posits the POV that the content of a nation’s character is evidenced by its health care system and the US is the only advanced, free-market democracy that does not provide health care to everyone. To read the full articles, click here and here.
Attack! The Truth About Obamacare, Newsweek: This article dissects the many myths propounded by the right like death panels and rationing and why some people buy into them and describes the summer as the “great phrase face-off”. From Obama comes “bending the cost curve”; from Sarah Palin: “death panels.” To read the full article, click here.
Why We Must Ration Health Care, NY Times: the reporter points out that our current health system rations health care and concludes that rationing will be inevitable no matter what system of health care is implemented. To read the full article, click here.
Health Care Reform and the Unpopular T-Word, NY Times: columnist David Leonhardt describes how the exclusion of employer-provided medical insurance creates perverse incentives that unnecessarily increase health care costs. To read the full article, click here.
Business Week offered In Most Markets, A Few Health Insurers Dominate, in which it points out that, because of state laws, in most states only one or two insurers dominate and competiton among health care insures simply does not exist under our current system. To read the full article, click here.
Without a ‘public option,’ what will keep insurance companies honest, LA Times: this article questions what, without a public option plan, will guard against windfall profits by the insurance companies with monopolies in specific states and proposes that local monopolies be broken by allowing insurers to compete across state lines. To read the full article, click here.
400 Percent Profit Increase for Health Insurers Cited by Health Care Backers is Selective, ‘Meaningless’ Number, Say Analysts, cnsnews.com: the claim made by the Health Care for America Now that private health insurance companies experienced 400% profit increases over the last 8 years is denied by insurance companies. The article includes links to HCAN’s chart which details its calculation to support the 400% profit increase claim and details the insurance companies claims as to why that claim is wrong. To reach the full article, click here.
In a new book entitled The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office, authors David Blumenthal and James A Morone, puts the current quest for health care reform in historical context and describes previous attempts and successes in reforming health care. According to a NY Times review, the authors’ most provocative finding is that presidents who have been most successful in moving the country to universal health care (i.e. Medicare) have disregarded or overruled their economic advisors. For the full NY Times review, click here.
In another new book The Healing of America, author T.R. Reid explores the medical treatment offered in 10 different countries for a chronic shoulder problem. In the US, his orthopedist recommends a shoulder replacement which would cost tens of thousands of dollars. In Germany, he can get the same surgery for $30. In London, he is told to learn to live with it or go private and pay for the surgery himself. In India, he is prescribed a regimen of mediatation, rice, lentils and massage paid by him at $42.85 per night, which “led to obvious improvement in [his] frozen joint.” For a review in the NY Times, click here.
Hollywood Star
September 2009
Hollywood Star-Eco Princess Style-Think Green Kids Tee by Revenge Is
Soleil Moon Frye, co-owner of The Little Seed, an environmentally friendly children’s boutique, was seen in LA with daughters Poet & Jagger this past week, Poet wearing a really groovy Think Green Kids Tee by Revenge Is. I found it through Inhabitots which is a really cool website whose mission is “sustainable design for the next generation: and they are a great source of information for environmentally aware parents…Being eco friendly should be at the top of our lists as parents of the future generations, who will likely be most affected by the choices we make today.
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Marilyn
Making Activism Fashionable
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