tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48457355168173765362024-03-20T06:16:13.732-07:00Health Blogneerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-91503943030667460642014-03-20T22:08:00.000-07:002014-03-20T22:08:00.367-07:00The Picture That Changed Everything <IMG class="size-post-size wp-image-10893" alt="Before and after" src="/40-kg-650x507.png" width=650 height=507> Before and after</EM></P><P>Annelie Löfgren told her story on our Swedish Facebook page:</P><BLOCKQUOTE readability="14"><P>When I saw the picture to the left I decided that this had gone too far. This was in July 2012.</P><P>I’m so happy that I found LCHF. I’m so happy that I gave myself the chance to feel good!</P><P>Now I’m 88 lbs (40 kg) lighter since the summer of 2012. I’ve managed to squeeze in a pregnancy and son number three in between too! (A beloved little Theodor, whom in all likelihood wouldn’t exist, had I not found LCHF.)</P><P>Now I have the chance to live with them for a longer time! I also have the chance to stay longer in my profession as a hair dresser. Not finished yet, but soon! <IMG alt=:) src="/iconsmile.gif"></P></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Congratulations, Annelie!</P><P><B>LCHF for Beginners</B></P><P><B>How to Lose Weight</B></P><P>More weight and health stories</P><P>Do you have a success story you want to share on this blog? Send it (photos appreciated) to andreas@dietdoctor.com. Please let me know if it’s OK to publish your photo and name or if you’d rather remain anonymous.</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.dietdoctor.com/picture-changed-everything?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=picture-changed-everything" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-56005767337085937622014-03-20T19:29:00.000-07:002014-03-20T19:29:00.626-07:00IPPNW calls for a negotiated solution to the Ukraine crisis <P>IPPNW views with deep concern the recent developments in Ukraine. IPPNW underscores the absolute imperative to avoid the possibility of use of nuclear weapons. This danger exists with any armed conflict involving nuclear armed states or alliances, which could escalate in uncontrollable, unintended and unforeseeable ways.</P><P>“Ukraine is commendable in being one of the few states to have given up its nuclear weapons peacefully, and the people of Ukraine should not have to fear nuclear weapons ravaging their country.” said IPPNW co-president Dr. Ira Helfand from Boston, USA. Any war involves a terrible and lasting human toll, risks spreading and harming people’s health in the region and beyond.</P><P>IPPNW calls on all parties involved to work for a negotiated solution that respects the rights of all people in Ukraine to be safe from armed conflict and their right to participate in decisions affecting their future.</P><br /><p><a href="http://peaceandhealthblog.com/2014/03/06/ukraine-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-61128435520907780302014-03-20T16:52:00.000-07:002014-03-20T16:52:00.349-07:00Praise be to Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk: There are no nuclear weapons in Ukraine! <P>When the Soviet Union fell apart, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan became de facto nuclear states. Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world with about 5,000 nuclear charges, more than the UK, France, and China put together. The situation was dangerous. Russia, the USA, and Europe all had a strong interest in stopping the proliferation.</P><P>It was not a given that the plan to remove nuclear weapons from these three member states of the former Soviet Union would work.</P><P>Kazakhstan was the easiest case: Hundreds of thousands of people in that country had been subject to the radiation from the USSR nuclear tests. Get rid of the Russian bombs!</P><P>In Belarus the opinion for removal of the nukes was weaker, but finally prevailed.</P><P>In Ukraine there was a “nuclear allergy” caused by the Chernobyl disaster. Remove the nukes! However, Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma argued strongly that Ukraine should keep at least a part of the nuclear arsenal. He was overruled by the parliament and the president.</P><P>The USA, Russia, and several other countries cooperated in transporting the nukes to Russia. The US paid a substantial amount for the removal of the nukes.</P><P>The three presidents Bill Clinton, Leonid Kravchuk and Boris Yeltsin deserve our sincere gratitude for rapid and decisive action.</P><P>If Ukraine had been a nuclear weapon state today, how would the military and political balance be different? Not much. If Russia took control over Crimea, Ukraine might have threatened to use their atomic bombs, but in reality the threat would have been empty. No responsible politician, not even Mr. Yanukovich, would go to nuclear war for a province. And today, when the country does not have any nuclear weapons Russia will not take over Ukraine. The cost would be far too high. The trade with Europe, which receives 50% of the Russian export, would suffer badly. And Russia would have the threat of rebellion and terrorism.</P><P>But the stakes would be much higher, the threat to use nukes would probably be made, loudly and agressively, and great wars can be started by mistakes. The possession of nuclear weapon in itself would give Ukraine a feeling of power, which would increase tension. It is possible that irresponsible hotheads in a chaotic situation would take control over and use nuclear weapons, and we can not predict how that would end.</P><P>So thank you, Clinton, Yeltsin and Kravchuk!</P><br /><p><a href="http://peaceandhealthblog.com/2014/03/10/praise-be/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-11072434234686449392014-03-20T14:34:00.000-07:002014-03-20T14:34:00.966-07:00Mazda “Make Things Better” Award to small arms project by IPPNW affiliates <P>By Antti Junkkari, Dr. Kati Juva, Finland, and Dr. Ehase Agyeno, Nigeria</P><P>An exciting new South/North project of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), Finland in cooperation with the Society of Nigerian Doctors for the Welfare of Mankind (SNDWM), Zambian Healthworkers for Social Responsibility (ZHSR), and IPPNW just got a financial boost from the “Mazda Make Things Better Award.” The Mazda award was launched at the summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in October, 2013 in Warsaw, and the joint IPPNW project “Raising awareness on small arms through interactive radio programmes” has now won the first of these awards! <IMG class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2825" alt="Raypower project Nigeria - Lets start (2)" src="http://ippnweupdate.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/raypower-project-nigeria-lets-start-2.jpg?w=300&h=274" width=300 height=274></P><P>The award jury chose the IPPNW project, submitted by medical student Antti Junkkari from Finland, from submissions of more than 120 participating students. “We were very impressed by the way Antti’s project mirrors the spirit of Mazda’s ‘challenging convention to make things better’ principle,” said Mazda Motor Europe President & CEO Jeff Guyton, who was head of the award jury. “And we believe his initiative will effectively improve the lives of local people, which is exactly what this award is all about.”</P><P>Over a half a million people die violently every year. More than three quarters of them in non-conflict settings. Furthermore violence tends to occur in already disadvantaged settings, riddled with poverty and disease, as is the case in many countries of the global South.</P><P>A pilot radio project was developed a few years ago by Nigerian medical students within SNDWM in Jos, Nigeria because of repeated eruptions of violence in the restless areas, leading to injuries, death and widespread human suffering. The radio project, which was the brainchild of Ogebe Onazi, a former International Student Rep, and Homsuk Swomen, both now medical doctors active with SNDWM, was inspired by the fact that radio was a cheap and easily accessible means of information with widespread use among the population. It therefore stood to reason that through it people can be conveniently reached with broadcasts on issues concerning peace, violence, conflict resolution, etc. This idea turned out to be a success, and enjoyed considerable popularity among listeners.<IMG class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2828" alt="chinenyeochanyahomsukonazi studio controller (3)" src="http://ippnweupdate.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/chinenyeochanyahomsukonazi-studio-controller-3.jpg?w=300&h=225" width=300 height=225></P><P>This success is the reason this project will now be expanded in several areas in Nigeria, and also in Zambia. There will be more broadcasts on some of the original themes – small arms and health, election violence, Arms Trade Treaty – and on new themes which will be developed in consultation with experts and community leaders who will be reached out to in the planning phase of the programme. In addition, some of the broadcasts will be live so listeners can call with questions and contributions to the experts. There will also be a survey on the attitudes towards small arms before and after the programmes.</P><P>PSR Finland is applying for funding for this project from the ministry of foreign affairs in Finland, but some self-funding is also needed. We see the Mazda prize not only as an affirmation of the tremendous work our African affiliates have done against small arms violence, but also as a testimony to the huge potential of North-South collaboration towards disarmament issues. We hope this also encourages more Northern IPPNW affiliates and other peace organizations to seek funding for actions against small arms violence in the global south.</P><P>The Mazda award will be presented at a ceremony March 5 in Geneva.</P><br /><p><a href="http://peaceandhealthblog.com/2014/02/20/mazda/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-39939168760434101232014-03-20T12:06:00.000-07:002014-03-20T12:06:00.068-07:00Which of These Two Men Lives Dangerously? <IMG class="size-full wp-image-10816" alt="Before and after" src="/kent.jpg" width=650 height=526> Before and after</EM></P><P>Is eating a low-carb diet dangerous? Sometimes you can only smile at the unscientific fear-mongering that can still be seen occasionally in the media.</P><P>Take a look at the pictures and read Kent’s story. Then ask yourself, which of the two men above seems to live dangerously?</P><BLOCKQUOTE readability="23"><P>Hi,</P><P>Up until May 4th, 2013, I weighed almost 230 lbs (104 kg). I had to take antihypertensive medications and medications for constant heartburn. I had previously undergone surgery for umbilical hernia. I had constant pain in knees and shoulders. I also didn’t manage to go for longer walks than necessary without becoming exhausted.</P><P>Then I finally made a resolution to try LCHF. The hard part was freeing myself from sugar, but after that it went really well. There is so much good stuff to eat if I really want to change my diet. This has also improved my sleep, and I haven’t been sick a single day since the start. Now, nine months later, I weigh 183 lbs (83 kg).</P><P>Today I enjoy what I see in the mirror and I feel better than ever. So, if my symptoms sound familiar – give LCHF a try.</P><P>Take care and be well.</P><P>Sincerely, Kent</P></BLOCKQUOTE><P>God job, Kent, congratulations!</P><P><B>LCHF for Beginners</B></P><P><B>How to Lose Weight</B></P><P>Previously on digestive issues</P><P>More weight and health stories</P><P><B>PS</B></P><P>Do you have a success story you want to share on this blog? Send it (photos appreciated) to andreas@dietdoctor.com. Let me know if it’s OK to publish your photo and name or if you’d rather remain anonymous.</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.dietdoctor.com/two-men-lives-dangerously?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=two-men-lives-dangerously" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-60944873003296594312014-03-20T07:27:00.000-07:002014-03-20T07:27:00.342-07:00WHO Recommends Cutting Sugar Intake in Half! <IMG class="size-full wp-image-10848" alt="Upper limit for a week?" src="/sugar.jpg" width=650 height=397> Upper limit of sugar consumption for a week?</EM></P><P>Big news today, the war on sugar is heating up. The World Health Organization is planning new dietary guidelines, where the proposed recommendation is to cut sugar intake in half!</P><P>The old upper limit of 10 percent sugar intake of total energy intake per day will remain, but WHO says that a further lowering of the limit to 5 percent will provide more health benefits (for example in controlling weight gain and dental caries).</P><P>The new goal of 5 percent corresponds to an upper limit of about 25 gram (or six teaspoons) added sugar daily. This is less than the amount of sugar in a can of Coke (33 centiliter).</P><P>An average sugar consumption of 10 percent of total energy intake – like in Sweden where I live – means that about half the population consumes more than the previously recommended upper limit and <STRONG>more than twice as much</STRONG> as the new upper limit.</P><P>Most people on an LCHF diet will no doubt keep well below the new target by a large margin.</P><P>It remains to be seen whether the WHO new draft guidelines will survive a massive campaign from well-funded sugar-lobbyists. Let’s hope so!</P><P>Let’s also hope that governments issuing dietary guidelines will embrace new science and lower their recommendations.</P><P>“Fat Is In, Sugar Is Out”</P><P>Is There a Safe Amount of Sugar?</P><P>New Study: Does Sugar Cause Heart Disease?</P><P>Doctors Warn: “Sugar Is the New Tobacco”</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.dietdoctor.com/recommends-cutting-sugar-intake-half?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=recommends-cutting-sugar-intake-half" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-64953709909137870722014-03-20T04:41:00.000-07:002014-03-20T04:41:00.405-07:00The Fukushima nuclear disaster three years on <P>by Tilman Ruff</EM></P><IMG class=" wp-image-2865 " alt="Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 3 reactor in July 2013" src="http://ippnweupdate.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/fukushima-daiichi-unit-3-july-2013.jpg?w=240&h=166" width=240 height=166> Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 3 reactor in July 2013</P><P>The world’s most complex nuclear power plant disaster continues three years on, and will continue for many years hence. Uncontrolled flows of around 1,000 tons of groundwater per day into the site continue; 400 tons of water daily flows into the damaged reactor and turbine buildings where it becomes radioactively contaminated. Some is collected—more than 430,000 tons of radioactively contaminated water is now stored in about 1,000 makeshift tanks, many of which are bolted rather than welded, lack even gauges to show how full they are, and have leaked repeatedly. In one incident last month, two valves left open by mistake and one which malfunctioned led to a leak of 100 tons of water containing 230 million Bq/L of beta emitters, mostly strontium-90, 3.8 million times the maximum allowed in drinking water. Radioactivity is leaking through multiple pathways into the soil and inevitably into the ocean. During Typhoon Wipha on 16 October 2013, the 26th typhoon to hit Japan last year, levees and 12 storage tanks were reported to have overflowed. A 7.3 magnitude earthquake on 25 October 2013 was centred less than 300 km from Fukushima.</P><P>Radioactivity around the site is increasing. More than 32,000 workers have now been involved in the clean-up. Relatively lightly exposed skilled workers are in increasingly short supply, and most workers on the site are poorly trained and supported day labourers employed through multiple layers of subcontracting. There is still no national radiation register for nuclear industry workers in Japan.</P><P>By mid-February 2014, 242 spent and 22 new fuel assemblies had been transferred from the damaged Unit 4 spent fuel pool above the damaged reactor 4 to a common storage pool on the ground nearby; another 1,533 fuel assemblies are due to be transferred from Unit 4 pool by the end of this year. Decommissioning of the reactors themselves has yet to begin.</P><IMG class=" wp-image-2873 " alt="Displaced Fukushima resident. Photo by Kristian Laemmle-Ruff" src="http://ippnweupdate.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/fukushima_satou_sachiko_klr_8287.jpg?w=240&h=160" width=240 height=160> Displaced Fukushima resident. Photo by Kristian Laemmle-Ruff</P><P>About 150,000 people remain displaced, many of them still not knowing if or when they may be able to return to their former homes. Mental health and substance abuse problems, family break-up, and suicides are reportedly increased, but few firm data are available. While the average weight of Japanese schoolchildren has declined slightly since 2006, reduced play and outside exercise have resulted in rising rates of obesity in children in Fukushima. In the five years before the nuclear disaster, the proportion of obese children in Fukushima was the highest of all prefectures in no more than one grade. By 2013, Fukushima had the highest rates for six out of 13 school grades, and was between 2nd and 4th for the remaining seven grades.</P><P>In November and December 2013, government agencies promulgated statements aimed to accelerate return of displaced people to their contaminated home towns. This involves a payment—for those disadvantaged, effectively a bribe—of 90,000 yen (about US$10,000) to those returning. The government is also propsosing that levels of radiation exposure be determined by individual dosimetry. While superficially this sounds a sensible way to take account of individual and locality-related variations in exposure, the effect can be expected to be adverse as it seems intended to facilitate and encourage return to areas of relatively high environmental radioactivity, and shift the responsibility for minimising radiation exposures onto individuals and away from the government and TEPCO ensuring people are supported to live in an environment without facing excessive radiation risks.</P><P>The context for this policy is continued official denial and misinformation downplaying radiation risks. Government documents still consistently misinform the public by asserting that ionising radiation exposures of less than 100mSv have not been shown to be harmful to health. Three years on, with the acute phase of the disaster declared to be over, Japanese national policy is still based on exposures of up to 20 mSv over background levels being acceptable for the whole population, including the most vulnerable to radiation health harm—children and fetuses. This is despite the fact that 5 mSv/year is used to determine eligibility for the worker’s compensation insurance program for those who develop leukemia.</P><P>A comprehensive population register of those in significantly contaminated areas and all workers at the Fukushima Daiichi site, with early evaluation of exposures and long-term (life-time) health monitoring, recommended by IPPNW three years ago, has still not been implemented, and there seems no prospect that it will be. We also recommended that health protective and monitoring measures be applied on the basis of level of exposure to residents, irrespective of where they live. This is important because radioactive contamination extended to the neighbouring prefectures of Chiba, Gunma, Ibaraki, Miyagi and Tochigi—some areas of these provinces were contaminated to a greater degree than parts of Fukushima Prefecture. Yet disaster-related health monitoring and support is still only available for those resident in Fukushima at the time of the disaster.</P><P>The only comprehensive health monitoring being implemented is biennial ultrasound examination for Fukushima children less than 18 years old at the time of the disaster. No systematic or free comprehensive health follow-up is being undertaken, unlike the free medical examinations instituted in Tokai-mura, Ibaraki Prefecture, for residents who may have received doses higher than 1 mSv/year following a 1999 accident in a nuclear fuel fabrication plant.</P><P>The response to the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster and the future of nuclear power in Japan constitute a critical historic juncture for the people and environment of Japan, with global ramifications. Japan shut down all its 54 operating nuclear power reactors, producing around a third of the country’s electricity, essentially overnight in the wake of the disaster. Despite an extraordinary lack of energy conservation and efficiency programs, given Japan’s technical sophistication, different voltages used in different parts of the country, and the lack even of a national electricity grid in such a densely populated and geographically compact country, the country has managed fine in the past three years after going “cold turkey” on nuclear electricity. Industrial production has essentially been maintained, and there have been no electricity shortages through multiple hot summers. The increase in gas usage for electricity generation could be readily replaced and more by investments in energy efficiency and renewables. It has been proven abundantly that Japan does not need nuclear power. And the overwhelming majority of the population want nuclear phase-out.</P><P>Yet the intensely collusive and corrupt “nuclear village” involving industry, government and regulators responsible for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and its mismanagement, which placed company and bureaucratic interests and minimsation of relocation and compensation costs ahead of public safety, has battened down the hatches and is attempting to carry on business largely as usual. The new Nuclear Regulatory Agency is largely made of up of old hands, and has been spending the great majority of its time on reactor re-starts rather than the urgent priority of stabilising the Fukushima Daiichi plant, and dealing with the human and environmental toll of the disaster. The “nuclear village” is aided and abetted by the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which has ditched the previous government’s commitment to nuclear phase-out, and is intent on re-starting nuclear power reactors, promoting reactor exports to all comers, and accumulating further weapons-usable separated plutonium without plausible justification.</P><P>In September 2013, PM Abe lied unashamedly in assuring the International Olympic Committee that the “situation [at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant] is under control”, and that the contaminated water is “completely contained” within a 0.3 square kilometer area. IPPNW physicians and students should ensure that we use the upcoming Tokyo Olympics to continue to focus world attention on what happens, needs to happen and is not happening in Fukushima.</P><P>Whether nuclear power will be phased out globally in the forseeable future, or continue to aggravate nuclear proliferation and the unsolved problems of radioactive waste and add to the global stockpile of ready-made potential massive radiological weapons and global radioactive disasters in-waiting depends, to a considerable extent, on what happens in Japan. The Fukushima nuclear disaster is a global health concern both because of the indiscriminate and uncontrollable spread of radioactive fallout, and the significance of what happens in Japan for the unsustainable global health danger of the massive amounts of radioactivity and fissile materials produced by nuclear power reactors.</P><br /><p><a href="http://peaceandhealthblog.com/2014/03/11/fukushima-three-years-on/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-42097144149035419652014-03-20T02:09:00.000-07:002014-03-20T02:09:00.645-07:00Is It Dangerous to Eat Meat Before Age 65? <IMG class="size-full wp-image-10834" alt="Meat the American way. Not in the picture: the drink. " src="/hamburgare-650x431.jpg" width=650 height=431> Meat the American way. Not in the picture: the drink.</EM></P><P>Is it dangerous to eat meat if you’re between 55 and 65? Will eating lots of meat then suddenly become healthful</EM> after you turn 65?</P><P>This is the somewhat confusing conclusion that some researchers drew from a new American questionnaire study:</P><P>As usual, we have to take sensational headlines with a substantial pinch of salt. This was just a food questionnaire that was sent to some thousand Americans, and the researchers then looked at statistical associations with diseases.</P><P>As regular readers know, one can’t prove causation by correlating statistics from questionnaire studies. Only ignorant or sensationalism-driven journalists believe so. Unfortunately these two groups seem to constitute the vast majority of all journalists.</P><P>On subsequent examination, it turns out that at least 80% of similar findings in uncertain questionnaires are incorrect – see table 4 in the excellent review Why Most Published Research Findings are False.</P><P>So a more scientifically correct headline would be “There is a 20 percent chance that meat quadruples the risk of cancer for people under the age of 65 and reduces the risk for older people.” Not as enticing.</P><P>The statistical correlation between meat-eating and disease in people under 65 in the U.S. may just as well be due to the fact that meat consumption there is associated with eating junk food, smoking, lack of exercise, less vegetables and in principal any unhealthful lifestyle you can think of.</P><P>What</EM>, in all of these unhealthful lifestyles, is the cause of disease ? Statistics cannot prove this.</P><P>Therefore, there are good reasons to ignore the study. But I guess that there’s still some truth behind it. Scientists report that protein (high-quality animal protein in particular) may raise levels of the hormone IGF-1, which stimulates cell division. High levels of IGF-1 may in the long run increase the risk of cancer.</P><P>What they don’t mention is that carbohydrates also increase levels of IGF-1, at least as much. Particularly bad carbohydrates in greater quantities radically raise IGF-1 levels. The only thing you can eat that doesn’t significantly increase levels of IGF-1 is fat.</P><P>The logical conclusion is that any variation of a low-carbohydrate diet with moderate amounts of protein (and enough fat) is the healthiest in the long run – at least to keep IGF-1 low while still feeling great. How much protein? The amount you need to feel good, feel full and stay strong and healthy. What is this concept called? LCHF.</P><P>The really ambitious may add intermittent fasting for maximum effect.</P><P>Do Unhealthy Meat Eaters Live Shorter Lives?</P><P>Low Carb Wins Yet Another Study</P><P>Swedish Tabloid Warns of “Low-Carb Cancer”</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.dietdoctor.com/dangerous-eat-meat-age-65?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dangerous-eat-meat-age-65" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-79308054784991672132014-03-19T23:47:00.000-07:002014-03-19T23:47:00.233-07:00The Ukraine: What Ukranians Have to Say <P><STRONG></STRONG>The situation in the Ukraine is far more complicated than many realize.</P><P>Think Progress</EM> just published an excellent piece titled “Why Much of What You’ve Read About Ukraine isn’t Quite Right, As Explained by Ukranians.”</P><P>“Though protests had been raging in the capital city of Kyiv and cities across Ukraine since November, the eyes of the world turned sharply toward the former Soviet republic at the end of February when then-president Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia and Russian president Vladimir Putin decided to directly insert himself in his neighbor’s internal turmoil. Citing an imminent danger to Russians living in the southern Ukrainian region of Crimea, Putin sought permission from Russia’s parliament to send military forces into Ukraine. As of Monday, Ukrainian officials said 16,000 Russian troops were in Ukraine and in a Tuesday press conference from his Moscow home, Putin said they “reserve the right to use all means to protect” Russian citizens in Ukraine, but denied having sent Russian forces there.</P><P>With all of the speculation regarding Russia’s motives and endless posturing over what’s in Ukraine’s best interest, the perspectives of those that matter most, actual Ukrainians, seem to get lost along the way. “The radical voices are always the loudest,” said Olga, a native of Sevastopol, Crimea who moved to the U.S. in 2007. “I wish there were some moderate voices in between that would be heard.”</P><P>When I was at Barron’s,</EM> I wrote about Russia and went there twice. I also have a friend who recently immigrated to the U.S. from the Ukraine. What I read in this post rings true.</P><P>You will find the rest of the post here: http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/03/04/3356621/ukraine-russia-invasion/</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/03/the-ukraine-what-ukranians-have-to-say/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-12967673944229451602014-03-19T20:50:00.000-07:002014-03-19T20:50:00.281-07:00Did the Administration Conceal the Fact That Millions Would Have to Replace Their Insurance With A New Policy? <P>At the end of October NBC’s Lisa Myers and Hannah Rappleye broke the story: “millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years. Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC News that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a ‘cancellation’” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience ‘sticker shock.’</P><P>“Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010,” Myers and Rappleye reported, “is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.”</P><P>In fact, NBC’s investigative team did not t need four unnamed sources “deeply involvthe ACA” to tip them off that millions of customers would be receiving these notices.</P><P>Three years earlier Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had called a press conference to announce that under the ACA, 43 million Americans working for small companies” would be moving to new plans. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis joined her to explain that the new plans would give workers “all of the protections of Obamacare.” </P><P>In a press release HHS spelled out the numbers: “roughly 42 million people insured through small businesses will likely transition from their current plan to one with the new Affordable Care Act protections over the next few years,” along with “17 million who are covered in the individual health insurance market.” .</P><P>What about President Obama’s promise that “If you like your plan you can keep it”? As <STRONG>I explain it the post above,</STRONG> when he first made this pledge, he was addressing “the majority” of insured Americans who worked for a large companies where they received generous benefits. These were the folks who “liked their plans,” and in a debate with Senator McCain, he was reassuring them that health reform would not mean dismantling employer-based insurance and moving to a single-payer system. But over time, candidate Obama made the mistake of letting his pledge turn into a sound bite. At that point, it became easy for his opponents rip that line out of its original context, and brand him a liar.</P><P>In 2013, when reporters claimed that people who received the “cancellation letters” were blind-sided, they ignored the fact people in the individual market often lost their policies. As HHS observed in its 2010 press release: “roughly 40% to two-thirds of people in the individual market normally change plans within a year,” in part because carriers in that market routinely discontinued policies. Inevitably, the replacements they offered costs more and/or covered less. As a result, Americans who purchased their own insurance were accustomed to scrambling, year after year, to find new coverage. In the fall of 2013, neither they, nor reporters who knew anything about the individual market, should have been shocked when so many policy-holders discovered that they would not be able to renew their plans..</P><P><B>Was the News “Buried” In Obscure Obamacare Regulations?</B></P><P>Hardly. The New York Times covered the press conference in its A1 section, noting that, “the rules appear to fall short of the sweeping commitments President Obama made while trying to reassure the public” that they “could keep their current coverage if they like it.” But, as the Times reported, the administration explained that ”this was just one goal of the legislation.” Another goal was to make sure, as Labor Secretary Hilda Solis put it when responding to a question “that insurers don’t take advantage of their customers.” </P><P>Originally, the Affordable Care Act had stipulated that if an insurer sold a plan before March 2010, when the ACA passed, the carrier could continue to renew that plan—even if it didn’t meet the ACA’s standards. But reformers did not want to give carriers carte blanche. As Sebelius explained at the press conference: If, after 2010, insurers (or employers) made dramatic changes to a plan, hiking deductibles or reducing benefits (“for instance, deciding to stop covering treatments for say, HIV/AIDS or cystic fibrosis,”) it would be considered a new plan. At that point, the insurer would no longer be able to renew the policy and would have offer a replacement that met the ACA’s requirements for consumer protection.</P><P>Back in June 2010 the New York Times was not the only major media outlet that publicizing the rules: Fox News issued a “Special Report,” which claimed that “up to 80 percent of small businesses and 64 percent of large businesses may have to give up the plans they had today within three years,” The Report even included a video of Sebelius making the announcement. <BR></P><P>Yet in October of 2013 Fox would claim that the press conference never happened. On Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy charged that the administration hid the facts. “Back in 2010, they knew millions would lose [their coverage],<STRONG> and they didn’t say a word!”</STRONG></P><P>Okay, I understand that most folks at Fox don’t start their day by skimming the New York Times. But don’t they watch Fox News?</P><P>Fox & NBC were not alone. Most media pundits feigned surprise and shock when small companies and individuals learned that . (Or perhaps they weren’t feigning. I’m beginning to realize that many reporters don’t follow the news about health care policy. </EM>Often they are more interested in the politics,</EM> and the polls,</EM> than in the substance of the law.</P><P>– NBC’s Lisa Myers and Hannah Rappleye misleadingly reported that Obama did not previously disclose his knowledge that many consumers might not be able to keep their original health insurance plans, ignoring the fact that this was announced by his administration in 2010. </P><P>– “An October 29 USA Today article hyped the misleading NBC report, claiming that the White House knew insurance plans would be canceled under the ACA, <B>but does not include the important fact that this information was made public in 2010: </B></P><P>– “CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield Claims “The Administration ‘Didn’t Saying Anything’ About Some Policies Changing.” To his great credit credit, CNN correspondent Joe Johns corrected her, explaining that “in truth,this story’s been around a long time. But Banfield shouted him down.</P><P>– “CBS News reported that the fact some individuals would have policies change under the law was “an unexpected reality of Obamacare”:</P><P>– Wash. Times: White House “Acknowledged For the First Time Monday” That Some Consumers Will Need To Switch Plans.</P><P>– “Fox News’ Steve Doocy: Back In 2010, They Knew Millions Would Lose” [their coverage] And They Didn’t Say A Word’.”</P><P><B>Who “lied”—Fox News or President Obama?</B></P><br /><p><a href="http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/02/did-the-administration-conceal-the-fact-that-millions-would-have-to-replace-their-insurance-with-a-new-policy/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-57403239211520433722014-03-19T18:47:00.000-07:002014-03-19T18:47:00.157-07:00Friends don’t let friends… <IMG class=" wp-image-2813 " alt="Robock in Nayarit" src="http://ippnweupdate.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/robocknayarittalk.jpg?w=240&h=180" width=240 height=180> Alan Robock at the podium in Nayarit, describes climate impact of a nuclear war.</P><P>The head of the Civilian Protection division of Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior destroyed Mexico City after lunch yesterday. Which is to say, he conducted a classic IPPNW “bombing run,” showing the overwhelming casualties, physical destruction, and radiation effects of a nuclear detonation over this country’s capital. And if anyone didn’t draw this conclusion for themselves, he confirmed that neither his agency nor anyone else would have the resources to help the surviving victims of such a catastrophe.</P><P>Alan Robock, IPPNW’s principal science adviser on the climate effects of nuclear war, used his brilliant animations to show how the smoke and soot from less than one percent of existing arsenals would block sunlight from the Earth and disrupt agricultural production for a decade, and how a major war using the still-enormous arsenals held by the US and Russia would be…well…the end of the world.</P><P>Alan also reminded the conference, however, that Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev both credited the scientists who first studied nuclear winter for influencing their decisions to drastically cut the US and Soviet arsenals during the Cold War, and he expressed the hope that politicians would pay attention to this new science and make even better policy decisions.</P><IMG class=" wp-image-2814 " alt="Masao Tomonaga" src="http://ippnweupdate.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/masaonayarit.jpg?w=240&h=180" width=240 height=180> Masao Tomonaga</P><IMG class="wp-image-2812 " alt="Ira Helfand" src="http://ippnweupdate.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/irabigscreen.jpg?w=240&h=180" width=240 height=180> Ira Helfand</P><P>IPPNW had a very big footprint on the first day in Nayarit. Masao Tomanaga presented a new study comparing the consequences of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing with what would happen should one of today’s weapons be used against this largely recovered and thriving city. It was a sobering reminder of what is sure to happen to some city, somewhere, if we don’t finish this job.</P><P>Which led to Ira Helfand, who closed the presentations for the day in powerful form. Ira’s slides didn’t work, which turned to his favor, because everyone in the room was riveted by his words rather than trying to make sense out of dots and circles and data on charts, which will all be uploaded to the conference website anyway.</P><P>The video is on our YouTube channel, and you should watch it. Here’s the spoiler: in his conclusion, Ira likened the nuclear-armed states to the drunk drivers who show up badly injured in his hospital, and who had been in total denial, convinced that they were in control and that nothing like this could ever happen. “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk is the saying, and maybe friends don’t let friends have nuclear weapons. Go talk to your friends.” (That’s a paraphrase—watch the video.)</P><IMG class="size-medium wp-image-2815" alt="IPPNW Co-president and ICAN Co-chair Tilman Ruff asks the panelists a question at the close of a working session." src="http://ippnweupdate.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/tilmanbigscreen.jpg?w=300&h=225" width=300 height=225> IPPNW Co-president and ICAN Co-chair Tilman Ruff asks the panelists a question at the close of a working session.</P><P>Liv Torres of ICAN partner Norwegian People’s Aid asked the question of the day. During a civil society comment at the close of the evening, she observed that the facts about the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons were compelling, and asked the assembled delegations: “What are you going to do about it?” Perhaps we’ll start to hear some answers today.</P><br /><p><a href="http://peaceandhealthblog.com/2014/02/14/friends/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-19861342722600689252014-03-19T15:54:00.000-07:002014-03-19T15:54:00.120-07:00Single-Payer Health Care: Is That What Makes France So Different? (The French Way of Cancer Care – Part 2) <P>In “The French Way of Cancer Treatment,”<STRONG> </STRONG> Anya Schiffrin writes eloquently about the care that her father, Andre Schiffrin, received when he was diagnosed with stage-four-pancreatic cancer, and decided that he wanted to go to France, his birthplace, for treatment. Schiffrin had been undergoing chemotherapy at New York City’s Memorial Sloane Kettering, and his family was concerned: how could a public hospital in Paris compete with a world-class cancer center?</P><P>To their amazement, they discovered that “the French way” of caring for a cancer patient was much better suited to Schiffrin’s wants and needs—and this was not because he had been born in France.</P><P>At the end of her essay, Schiffrin suggests that “the simplicity of the French system meant that all our energy could be spent on one thing: caring for my father.” Back in New York, she confides, “every time I sit on hold now with the billing department of my New York doctors and insurance company, I think [of] all the things French healthcare got right.”<BR></P><P><B> </B>Many readers might assume this means France has a single-payer system, and that is the key to its simplicity and success. But in fact, France relies on a hybrid system that is not unlike Obamacare. The government picks up the tab for only about three-quarters of the nation’s healthcare bill.</P><P>(In 2013 the U.S. government paid for roughly 48% of medical care, though, this year, with the expansion of Medicaid, and millions of uninsured and under-insured Americans joining the Exchanges where the majority will receive government subsidies, Washington will cover more of the bill. And in the years ahead, as baby- boomers age into Medicare, government’s share will grow.</P><P>In France, “everyone is covered to a certain extent by the government’s Assurance Maladie,” explains Claire Lundberg, a New Yorker now living in Paris where she recently had a baby. “But most people also have private insurance, called a mutuelle</EM> that is either offered through their employer or bought on the private market. There’s a thriving private insurance market in France. . . Private medical insurance is advertised on the sides of buses and alongside movie previews in theaters.”</P><P>Ninety-two percent of the French have supplemental private insurance. Many are insured through their employers, as they are here. Patients pay 7 percent of all health care costs out of pocket.<BR></P><P>In France payroll taxes, paid by both the employer and the employee, along with income taxes help finance the 73% of the bill that the government covers. All told, French workers contribute around 13% of what they earn to the public sector healthcare fund.</P><P><B> While</B> the French government does not pay all healthcare bills, it does regulate prices. Because it sets fees for medical services, pricing is transparent</P><P>This is why, in France, Schiffrin didn’t have to spend hours on the phone talking to her doctors’ and insurers’ billing departments. There was no uncertainty as to what doctors and hospitals would or should be paid.</P><P>Government regulation is a major reason why the French pay far less for medical services and products. Healthcare providers, drug-makers and others are not allowed to gouge patients or use their brand name to demand exorbitant fees and prices from private insurers. Fixed pricing also leaves less wiggle room for defrauding the government.</P><P>While the U.S. lays out 17.6% of GDP for healthcare, France spends only 11.6% of the nation’s total output, just a hair more than Canada—which has a single-payer system. (This suggests that a hybrid public/private system does not have to be more costly than a single-payer scheme. As for quality, Canadians report less access to care, more errors, and a smaller percentage of the public say that the system “works well.”)</P><P>Transparent pricing surprised Lundberg. After moving to Paris it took her a while to<B> “</B>adjust to the outlandish notion that I would know the exact cost of my health care services before buying them. <BR></P><P>“In the U.S, it’s often impossible to get a price for a delivery out of a hospital,” she notes. “Estimates vary by orders of magnitude: One California study of 100,000 complication-free deliveries showed that new mothers were charged anywhere from $3,296 to $37,227, with no clear medical reason for the massive discrepancy.</P><P>She explains how price regulation in France works: “The government sets what it considers fair prices for all appointments and procedures, and then reimburses these for everyone at 70 percent.” The patient pays the remaining 30% out of pocket and/or has it covered by private insurance (the mutuelle.) l</P><P>Some French physicians charge more than the government’s recommended price—but not much more. “These overages, called dépassements, don’t come anywhere near what an American specialist might charge,” Lundberg writes. “In fact, under French law, a doctor must issue a receipt explaining any dépassement above 70 euros (roughly $93) <B>before </B>beginning the test or appointment.” (This gives the patient an opportunity to say “No, thank you. Au revoir!”)</P><P>Doctors who bill above the recommended price are labeled “sector two” physicians and must purchase their own pension and insurance coverage. Only about 15 percent of general practitioners practice in sector two; specialists, such as orthopedic surgeons, are more like to choose sector two. <BR></P><P>French physicians accept these limits on their incomes. They simply do not except to earn as much as providers. (Money is always relative: if none of your colleagues earn $400,000, you don’t feel underpaid if you bring home $100,000 or $150,000.)</P><P>A 2011 study published in Health Affairs comparing physicians’ pre-tax incomes in six developed countries reveals that, after practice expenses, primary care physicians in the U.S. average $186, 582k while their peers in France earn $95,585. In the U.S., after paying his overhead, the typical orthopedic surgeon nets $442,450 while an orthopedic surgeon in France earns $154,380. (These numbers are adjusted for differences in cost of living.)</P><P>Of course doctors’ incomes account for only a slice of the difference in total health care costs. Americans also pay far more for drugs and medical devices. As for hospitals, you can stay in a hospital in France for $483 a night—versus an average of $4,287 in the U.S. <BR></P><P>In France the ministry of health allocates funding to hospitals on an annual basis, putting hospitals on a budget based on the needs of the population they serve. The government also determines the amount of equipment, including expensive medical technologies that hospitals require. Medical Centers are not allowed to engage in “medical arms races” with every hospital scrambling to buy the newest, most expensive equipment as it competes with the hospital down the block. (If the U.S. had a more rational system, urban hospitals would share patients and equipment. For an MRI, a patient might go to the outpatient clinic at hospital X. A patient who needed a CAT-scan he might go to the outpatient clinic at hospital Y, four blocks away.</P><P>Of course, there are trade-offs. Because French hospitals operate on a budget, patients are less likely to have a private room. As Schiffrin noted, at the hospital where her father received his chemo, “the room was a little worn and there was often someone else in the next bed,” but “what was most important is that there was no waiting.”</P><P>Lundberg agrees about the trade-offs: “If you have a baby in France, expect to bring your own towels to the hospital. While there are no $10 aspirins, there’s not much in the way of other amenities, either. But for great, affordable health care, I’m just fine with bringing my own shampoo.” <BR></P><P>In the U.S., some medical centers have the market clout to demand three times what competitors charge for the same service. This includes uncomplicated procedures. On average, a night in a U.S. hospital runs $483 but those with a marquee reputation can demand that insurers fork over $12,500 per diem. </P><P>In France that cannot happen. Thus, payers do not have to narrow their networks to exclude providers who would make premiums unaffordable. This is good news for patients: they can choose whichever doctor or hospital they prefer.</P><P>For this to work in the U.S., Congress would have to pass legislation that forced hospitals and specialists to accept discounts. Maryland is actually experimenting with a plan that would rein in hospital costs. In January the Obama administration announced that Maryland will begin capping hospital spending and setting prices; the administration expects the state will save $330 million in federal spending. <BR></P><P>Meanwhile Massachusetts has passed legislation stipulating that insurers must tell their customers how much an MRI of the knee costs at an individual hospital, imaging center, or doctor’s office. The quote will include how much of the total price members would pay based on their deductibles and co-payments. As of January, hospitals and doctors will be required to provide their own cost estimates to patients. Legislators hope that patients will use those numbers to comparison shop, and that his might put downward pressure on prices.</P><P>But I don’t expect to see many other states attempting to either regulate or lower hospital prices, or physicians’ fees —and not just because the lobbyists representing hospitals and specialists are so strong. American patients would be up in arms. The majority truly believe that if they (or the government, or an insurer) is paying more, they must be getting superlative care. (It will be interesting to see how many patients in Massachusetts will actually use the new information to choose a hospital or a doctor.)</P><P>In Manhattan people brag about how much their doctor charges, much the way a person might boast about how much he paid for a car. In other words, in this city, your cardiologist can be a status symbol, just like a house, an automobile, or a spouse.</P><P>The deeply ingrained belief that costlier is always better explains why some patients are so upset that in recent years, more and more insurers have been tightening their provider networks. Particularly in the exchanges, carriers are forced to compete on price and in an effort to keep their premiums competitive, many are not agreeing to the steep prices that “premiere” institutions like Memorial Sloane Kettering demand. </P><P>Obamacare’s critics complain that “top” hospitals are being excluded, but the truth is that Sloane Kettering itself initially refused to accept any Exchange insurance, because carriers were not agreeing to its sky-high charges.</P><P>Ultimately, after some hard negotiations, Sloane Kettering agreed to accept at least two Exchange plans. (Other renowned New York City academic medical centers were more flexible: NYU Langone Medical Center has signed agreements with four of the 19 insurers doing business on the New York Exchange, and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, which oversees the city’s biggest hospital system, has signed agreements with six insurers.) <BR></P><P>Under reform, as patients become accustomed to narrow networks, many may well find that out-of-network providers can be just as good—if not better—than those that top the of U.S. News & World Reports list of “Best Hospitals.” (Knowledgeable observers such as Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania,</EM> view the magazine’s methodology as “flawed to the point of being nearly useless,” adding that “the so-called quality criteria U.S. News cites can encourage investments in higher-cost and lower-quality care.) <BR></P><P>It’s worth keeping in mind that ultimately, the Schiffrin’s decided that Memorial Sloane Kettering (MSKCC) does not offer the “best cancer care anywhere.”</P><P>They are not alone. See patient reviews of Sloane Kettering on this website. Given Sloane Kettering’s reputation, I am surprised by just how mixed the comments are, with many families and patient echoing the Schiffrin’s complaints.</P><P>Let me be clear: there is no way to fact-check these comments. And my guess is that angry relatives and patients are more likely to comment on websites like these than those who went home grateful that a mother’s life was saved. Moreover, when a loved one disappears from this planet grieving families may search for someone or something to blame, even if the life could not have been saved.</P><P>But very few of these comments are charging Sloane Kettering with misdiagnosis, preventable medical errors, or some other form of malpractice. Rather, they complain about a lack of “respect” for patients—“arrogance,” too little caring, and too little empathy. This is what I find disturbing.</P><P>As one person put it: “The administration of this hospital must be asleep at the wheel. The docs are doing leading edge work and the patient experience is dreadful.”</P><P>Another patient offers what seems to me a fair summary of what goes on at many of our top academic medical centers: “Sloane Kettering is a great research institution and offers a lot to those with critical or unusual cancer cases. (Mine was caught early and treatment is routine). That being said, I feel I should be treated with courtesy and respect.”</P><P>Instead, she reports, her doctor “lashed out” at her on more than one occasion. “When I inquired about seeing a neurologist about issues from a pinched nerve that I developed during chemo she basically told me, ‘you’ve been diagnosed and you’ll have to learn to live with it.’ Very unsympathetic.”</P><P>This patient adds: “MSKCC is running commercials now on the radio selling compassionate care and a team of doctors. That sounds great and I keep wondering how I get that! I’m not now and wouldn’t return if I had to do it all over again (which hopefully I won’t!).”</P><P>The Schiffrins were delighted with the care Andre received in Paris because the hospital provided what Dr. Donald Berwick has called “patient-centered” medicine—treatment that is designed around “the wants and needs of the patient. When talking about her father’s treatment, Anya Schiffrin uses the word “humane.”</P><P>Too often, at our busy brand-name academic medical centers, care is “provider-centered.” Treatment is orchestrated (if it is “orchestrated at all) in ways that the administration believes will be most convenient for the hospital and its clinicians.</P><P>In part 3 of this post,</EM> I will explore the importance of collaborative, patient-centered care, what we know about the relationship between the cost and quality of healthcare in the U.S. ,and what we might learn from the Schiffrin’s experience in France.</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/02/single-payer-health-care-is-that-what-makes-cancer-care-in-france-so-different-the-french-way-of-cancer-care-part-2/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-14906452339838846652014-03-19T12:56:00.000-07:002014-03-19T12:56:00.558-07:00Why Are So Many Americans Confused About Obamacare? How a Video Produced by CBS’ Washington Bureau Misled Millions –Part 1 <P>For nearly four years, poll after poll has shown that the majority of Americans remain flummoxed by Obamacare. Many are confused; some are afraid. They don’t know what the Affordable Care Act (ACA) says, and they don’t know how it will affect their lives</P><P>From the beginning, many in the media have blamed the White House.</P><P>Early in 2011, when a CBS poll showed that only 56% of Americans said the bill’s impact had not been explained well—or even “somewhat well”– CBS senior producer Ward Sloane summed up the prevailing view: “To me, that is a Monumental Failure by the Obama Administration. . . . [my emphasis] And it opens up a big hole for the Republicans which they have driven through with, you know, several tanks.”<BR></P><P>Because Democrats had botched explaining the legislation, Sloane argued, Republicans “can say whatever they want about the healthcare bill … whether it’s true or not, and . . . it will resonate . . . People are afraid. People are afraid of things that they don’t understand and they don’t know. . . The Republicans are playing to this fear and they’re doing a masterful job.”</P><P>Sloane slid over the role that reporters might play in helping the public understand an enormous—and enormously important– piece of legislation. If Republicans were spreading disinformation, shouldn’t news organizations like CBS try to separate fact from fiction?</P><P>Network and cable news shows are in our living rooms every evening. President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are not. In speeches and in press conferences Obama and Sebelius can address a handful of questions, but they cannot explain the hundreds of interlocking details that will benefit millions of Americans. The public needs an independent, informed press that will dig into the major provisions of Obamacare and explain them, not once, but again and again.</P><P>There was just one problem: As Sloane suggested, the Republicans were doing “a masterful job” of misleading the public. What he didn’t take into account is that journalists are part of “the public.”</P><P>Fast forward two years to the fall of 2013.</P><P>Little has changed; most Americans still don’t understand the Affordable Care Act, and many are convinced that they have been betrayed by the president they elected.</P><P>Millions are now receiving letters from their insurers, telling them that they cannot renew their policies. The media blames the White House. According to NBC, CNN, CBS and Fox News, not only did the administration fail to warn the public that under Obamacare, some insurance that didn’t meet the ACA’s standards would have to be replaced, it deliberately concealed this fact. http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/10/29/media-surprised-by-obamacares-effect-on-insuran/196652</P><P>NBC broke the story: “The administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans,” yet Fox hissed, “they didn’t say a word.</P><P>This is simply not true. Back in June of 2010, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held a press conference to announce that, under Obamacare, millions would be moving to new plans. As I point out in this post, a HHS press release spelled out the numbers: “roughly 42 million people insured through small businesses . . . along with “17 million who are covered in the individual health insurance market.”</P><P>Even Fox covered the press conference, complete with a video of Sebelius’ speech. But somehow, by 2013, amnesia had set in.</P><P>But what about the president’s promise that “if you like your plan, you can keep it”? Wasn’t this proof that Obama had tried to hide the fact that millions of Americans would lose their insurance?</P><P>Obama first made that pledge in 2008, while debating John McCain. The context is crucial: Obama was addressing “the majority” of Americans (roughly 66% ) who worked for large companies that paid 75% to 80% of their premiums –not the minority who purchased their own insurance in the individual marketplace (5%), nor the 17% who were insured by small business owners.</P><P>As I have explained, at the time, Obama was trying to reassure Americans who worked for large corporations that they would be able to keep the generous benefits they enjoyed. Reform would not mean dismantling employer-based insurance, and moving everyone into a single-pay system. But over time, Obama made a critical error; he let his pledge become a one-liner, making it easy for his opponents to rip that line out of context.</P><P>Meanwhile, few in the media seemed to feel that it was their job to put the president’s words in context, or to help clarify why certain policies could not be renewed.</P><P>“Explaining”–that was the administration’s job. The media’s job was to stir emotions and assign blame. Or, at least, that’s what many journalists seemed to think.</P><P>Before long, the news about “policies cancelled” inspired portraits of “Obamacare’s victims,” people like Debra Fishericks, a Virginia Beach grandmother who was losing her insurance.</P><P>After a CBS reporter interviewed Fishericks, the network’s Washington Bureau put together a video, headlined “<B>Woman Battling Kidney Cancer Losing Company Health Plan Due To Obamacare</B>.” The Bureau then sent it to CBS affiliates nationwide.</P><P>WDBJ7, a CBS station in Roanoke, Virginia was among the first to run the video on November 24, 2013.</P><P>“We’ve heard about the computer glitches associated with the Affordable Care Act website.” observed WDBJ anchor Susan Bahorich. “Now, some are saying, you can add broken promises to the list of problems.</P><P>“CBS reporter Susan McGinnis visited a Virginia Beach woman who says her work insurance was fine –until ACA came along.”</P><P>McGinnis, a CBS Washington Bureau correspondent, narrates the tale:</P><P>“At her office in Virginia Beach, Debra Fishericks often sneaks a peek at her 3 year old grandson.”</P><P>“That’s my guy,” says Fishericks.</P><P>McGinnis sets up the story: “Debra is battling kidney cancer. During the 10 years she’s worked at Atkinson Realty, the company has provided group health insurance with manageable premiums.”</P><P>Betsy Atkinson, the owner of the real estate business, appears on the screen: “We had great insurance. We had continuing care for our employees.”</P><P>“’Great’” McGinnis adds, “until owner Betsy Atkinson learned the policy would be terminated because it doesn’t meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.”</P><P>“On June 30, 2014, I will probably not be offering company insurance to my employees. I just can’t afford it’.</P><P>“Debra has scoured the website looking for a new policy,” McGinnis reports, referring to Healthcare.gov. “So far,” she adds, “she cannot afford the premiums. “They just keep going up higher and higher when there is a pre-existing condition,” Fishericks explains</P><P>McGinnis wraps up the piece: “Debra hopes that eventually she will find a plan that fits her budget so that she can still makes trips to Indiana –to visit her grandson.”</P><P>“If I can’t go to see him—that’s the worst,” says Fishericks.</P><P>She begins to cry.</P><P>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</P><P>Watching the video, I thought: “Oh no, not again.”</P><P>A month ago I wrote about Whitney Johnson, a 26-year old suffering from MS who claimed that under Obamacare, she would have to pay $1,000 a month—or more—for insurance. http://www.cwalac.org/cwblog/</P><P>When I read her story in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, I knew it couldn’t be true. Under the Affordable Care Act) insurers can no longer charge more because a customer suffers from a chronic disease. I had thought that this was one part of the ACA that everyone understood.</P><P>Apparently not. In Fishericks’ video, the CBS correspondent tells viewers that a cancer patient who “has scoured the website . . . cannot afford the premiums” because, as the patient explains, “they just keep going up higher and higher when there is a pre-existing condition.”</P><P>I was stunned. The reporter, Susan McGinnis, who later told me that she oversaw the piece, has been a Washington Correspondent at CBS News for three years–following an eight-year stint as an anchor on CBS Morning News. She is a seasoned journalist; yet she didn’t flag the fact that what Fishericks said couldn’t possibly be true.</P><P>Granted, McGinnis didn’t actually interview Fishericks; she just did the “stand up” narration in D.C. Another CBS reporter from the Washington Bureau went down to Virginia Beach. And apparently that reporter didn’t realize that under the ACA, insurers cannot jack up premiums because the customer has been diagnosed the cancer.</P><P>Finally, someone at CBS’ Washington Bureau must have edited the video.</P><P>I can understand why any one person might not have spotted the problem. We all make mistakes. But no one?</P><P>Let me be clear: Fishericks had shopped the Exchange and honestly believed what she was saying. The problem is that no one at CBS corrected her.</P><P>Perhaps this was because after four years, the debate over health care reform had dissolved into sound bites, creating what Nancy Pelosi rightly called a “fog of controversy,” obscuring the facts about health care reform. Reporters were printing and parroting the fictions and half-truths that conservatives fed to the media. And in an era of cut-and-paste journalism, the myths became memes, iterated over and over again. Little wonder that many people—including journalists—didn’t know what to believe. This, I think, is one reason why no one at CBS caught the glaring error in Fisherwicks’s story.</P><P>Thus the network left viewers with the false impression that under the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” a cancer patient may not be able to afford care.</P><P>In late November, 50 CBS stations aired Fishericks story. (Hat tip to the Franklin Forum for this information) Within 48 hours, it began showing up in newspapers like Investors’ Business Daily and The Weekly Standard .<BR></P><P>Fishericks’ tale then was picked up by thousands of blogs. “Living Under Obamacare” (paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee) and “republicansenate.gov” both featured it.</P><P>Google “Debra Fishericks,” and you will get over 13,000 results. In other words, the story got around.</P><P>Trouble is, it wasn’t true. As Fishericks herself would tell me: “they got the whole story wrong.”<B> </B></P><P>When I began fact-checking this story, I wanted to talk to the CBS reporter who went down to Virginia Beach and interviewed Fishericks. Only she would know what questions she asked, and exactly what her source said. I phoned McGinnis and asked for the name and phone number of the reporter who actually interviewed</P><P>McGinnis explained that while several reporters were involved in the project, she had been in charge. She wanted to take a look at the transcript, “talk to my bosses,” and look into the problem herself.</P><P>I asked if I could see the transcript of the full interview.</P><P>No, that wouldn’t be possible.</P><P>McGinnis and I then exchanged e-mails, and I spelled out what I found misleading:</P><P>McGinnis’ reply was cordial:</P><P>“I understand your point regarding the ACA and pre-existing conditions.”</P><P>“Our piece was aimed at illustrating a small business’ experience with the law . . . We were trying to illustrate what Debra was going through, what she understood, and how she felt. She was having trouble with the website, was getting no help, and her impression was that having a pre-existing condition could make insurance more costly for her. </P><P>“Nowhere did <B>we</B> report that she would be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition, she was only worried about it. [my emphasis]</P><P>McGinnis was right– CBS didn’t say that Fishericks was denied coverage. But that was not my complaint.</P><P>Fishericks had suggested that, in the Exchange, she would have to pay far more than she could afford because she was a cancer patient.</P><P>McGinnis still didn’t seem to understand that by leaving Fisherwick’s comment in the piece CBS was misleading its audience. Viewers would believe that, under Obamacare, if you’re sick, insurers can gouge you.</P><P>In her e-mail McGinnis also insisted that reporters still have time to fact-check. Yet no one checked this piece. If they had, someone would have discovered <STRONG>another error: Fishericks was not “battling”cancer.</STRONG></P><P>But I wouldn’t find that out until I talked to Fishericks for a third time at the end of the week.</P><P>On January 8 I received a final email from McGinnis, conceding that: “the Affordable Care Act does indeed specify, in Section 1201, that . . . a health plan cannot deny enrollment, or the plan’s benefits, to someone based on that person’s preexisting condition.</P><P>“However,” McGinnis argued, “that certainly does not mean a plan has to include coverage for ongoing treatment that a patient started before obtaining coverage in an exchange plan on January 1, 2014.”</P><P>“Key to understanding this distinction” she added, “is that having ‘health coverage’ is not the same as actually obtaining ‘health care.’ The insurance plan has to take anyone who wants to enroll, regardless of their health status or health history – but they don’t have to provide the same treatments, the same doctors, or the same medications that a patient has been receiving.”</P><P>McGinnis seemed to have swallowed a rumor spread by so many “concerned trolls”: Just because a carrier sells insurance to someone who is sick, that doesn’t mean that the insurer must continue the treatment the patient needs.</P><P>I understand that few reporters had time to actually read the 2000-page law. But ideally, reporters would have dug into the in-depth briefs published by groups such as the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, or the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Concise and well-researched, these briefs corrected most of the misinformation about Obamacare floating around in what had become an increasingly toxic atmosphere.</P><P>But rather than concentrating on the policy, reporters tended to focus on the politics of health care reform.</P><P>I responded to McGinnis with the facts:</P><P>The ACA stipulates that insures must cover all “essential benefits.” As the American Cancer Society (ACS) explains, this includes “cancer treatment and follow-up.” The ACS also points out that the law bans “dollar limits on how much the insurer will pay out for care,” and “gives patients “new rights to appeal claims that are denied by the insurer.”</P><P>That last point is important.</P><P>While the law does not guarantee that a patient can continue to see the same provider, if a patient or her doctor believe that only a particular hospital or specialist can provide the needed care, Obamacare strengthens the patient’s right to appeal. </P><P>Under the ACA, if the case is urgent, the insurer must respond to the appeal within 72 hours. If the carrier says “No,” the patient then has a right to an “external review” by an independent reviewer, and once again, the law calls for a speedy decision.</P><P>Similar regulations apply if an insurer doesn’t cover a needed medication..</P><P>How likely is it that a patient will win an appeal? A 2011 GAO study shows that even before Obamacare “between 39 and 59 percent of denials were reversed on internal appeal and an additional 23 to 54 percent were reversed or revised on external appeal.” Today, a patient’s odds are significantly better. ht</P><P>McGinnis probably wasn’t aware of the new rules and, even if she has heard about them, she may have had doubts as to whether they would be effective. Fear-mongers on both the left and the right had planted seeds of suspicion, and by the fall of 2013, mainstream journalists were increasingly skeptical as to whether Obamacare would force insurers to do the right thing.</P><P>After swapping e-mails with McGinnnis I wanted to talk to Fishericks; I called her at the Atkinson Real Estate Agency where she works as a receptionist.</P><P>No surprise, she wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about talking to me. She was at work, she explained, covering seven phone lines. But in a brief conversation she did convey a critical piece of information: the story that CBS aired was wrong—form beginning to end.</P><P>“I wrote them a letter” Fishericks told me. “And do you know what I got in return? Two words: ‘Thank you.’”</P><P>Clearly she was angry.</P><P>But I could tell she didn’t want to continue the conversation. And I didn’t want to press my luck. I thanked her, and hung up.</P><P>I planned to call her again—when I had more information.</P><P>In part 2 of this post, I will discuss how and why the media wasn’t able to do a better job of lifting “the fog” of disinformation.</P><P>For one, our sound-bite culture makes it difficult to explain something as complicated as the ACA to the public. As one observer notes: “Americans aren’t into nuance.”,</P><P>In the second part of this post, I’ll also report what CBS’ producers (including Ward Sloane, who now is Deputy Director of CBS’s Washington Bureau) had to say about Fishericks’ story, why the Bureau ultimately removed the video from its server, and most importantly, what Debra Fishericks revealed in our final interview.</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/02/why-are-so-many-americans-confused-about-obamacare-how-a-video-produced-by-cbs-washington-bureau-misled-millions-part-1/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-45613171512504298322014-03-19T12:06:00.000-07:002014-03-19T12:06:00.463-07:00How A CBS Video About An Obamacare Victim Misled Millions- Part 2 (What the “Victim” Revealed in Our Final Interview) <P>“Woman Battling Kidney Cancer Losing Company Health Plan Due To Obamacare.” <BR></P><P>That was the headline on a story that CBS’ Washington Bureau sent to its affiliates last fall.</P><P>CBS correspondent Susan McGinnis narrates the piece: “During the 10 years that Debra Fishericks has worked at Atkinson Realty, the company has provided group health insurance with manageable premiums,” McGinnis explains –“until owner Betsy Atkinson learned the policy would be terminated because it doesn’t meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.</P><P>“Debra has scoured the website looking for a new policy,” McGinnis adds, referring to healthcare.gov, but “so far, she cannot afford the premiums.”</P><P>“They just keep going up higher and higher when there is a pre-existing condition,” says Fishericks.</P><P>McGinnis wraps up the story: “Debra hopes that eventually she will find a plan that fits her budget so that she can still makes trips to Indiana –to visit her grandson.”</P><P>The camera then turns to Fishericks, sitting at her desk, looking at a photo of her grandson. “If I can’t go to see him—that’s the worst,” she says. And she begins to cry.</P><P>I was astonished: I thought most people understood that, under the Affordable Care Act, insurers can no longer charge a customer more because she suffers from a pre-existing condition.</P><P>Later, when I interviewed Fishericks, I realized that she honestly believed she was going to have to pay more for coverage because she had been diagnosed with cancer. Like a great many Americans, she didn’t understand how the ACA would protect her. Given how hard Obamacare’s opponents have worked to obscure the law’s benefits, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised.</P><P>But what shocked me is that no one at CBS’s Washington Bureau seemed to realize that what Fishericks had said just wasn’t true: not the correspondent who narrated the story, not the reporter who went down to Virginia Beach and interviewed Fishericks, not the person who edited the video.</P><P>Fifty-eight CBS stations aired the piece. Newspapers and bloggers ran with it. Nationwide, millions of Americans were left with the impression that under Obamacare, cancer patients may not be able to afford insurance.</P><P>How had this happened?</P><P>As I explained in the first part of this post, I began by calling the CBS correspondent, Susan McGinnis, and we exchanged emails. In the end, she conceded that: “the Affordable Care Act does indeed specify, in Section 1201, that . . . a health plan cannot deny enrollment, or the plan’s benefits, to someone based on that person’s preexisting condition.”</P><P>I appreciated the fact that she had looked at the law, but I could not help but wonder: Was this the first time she had heard of this provision?</P><P>Meanwhile, she still seemed skeptical as to whether a patient like Fishericks would receive the care she needs. After agreeing that an insurer would have to sell her a policy without jacking up the premium, McGinnis’ e-mail continued:</P><P>“However that certainly does not mean a plan has to include coverage for ongoing treatment that a patient started before obtaining coverage in an exchange plan on January 1, 2014.</P><P>“Key to understanding this distinction” she added, “is that having ‘health coverage’ is not the same as actually obtaining ‘health care.’”</P><P> If the line sounds familiar it may be because it’s a favorite among the ACA’s ace fear-mongers. Back in 2012, Romney healthcare adviser Avik Roy headlined a Forbes column: “Why health insurance is not the same as health care.” <BR></P><P>In fact, as I explained to McGinnis, under Obamacare cancer treatments and follow-up are an “essential benefit” that insurer’s must cover. In the event that an insurer refused to continue a particular medication or procedure, the ACA strengthens a patient’s right to appeal—and requires a speedy answer, both from the carrier and from an external appeals board. </P><P>That McGinnis had swallowed a conservative talking point surprised me. Had everyone at the Washington Bureau drunk the Republican Kool-Aid? I wanted to talk to more people at CBS.</P><P>The first person I reached was a producer at the Washington Bureau who was familiar with the video. But when I brought up the misleading sound bite, the producer, who identified herself as “Heather” was adamant: “She never said that!”</P><P>“But it’s there, in the transcript, and I heard it in the video,” I insisted. “How can you deny it?’</P><P>(Later, I would find out that when Heather said “She never said that!” she thought I was claiming that McGinnis, not Fisherwicks, suggested that insurers could charge a customer more if she suffered from a pre-existing condition.)</P><P>Before I had a chance to ask any more questions, she announced in a slightly mocking, sing-song voice: “I’m- Hanging -Up -Now. Good-Bye.”</P><P>Frustrated, I decided to call the Washington Bureau Chief. His assistant was friendly, and took a long message.</P><P>Less than an hour later, I received a call from the bureau’s Deputy Chief—Ward Sloane.</P><P>He did not sound happy.</P><P>I explained my concerns about the story. He listened.</P><P>When I finished, he replied: “Or so YOU Say.” His tone was caustic.</P><P>“Hold on,” I replied. “Can’t we at least agree that under the Affordable Care Act, insurers cannot charge a customer more because he suffers from a pre-existing condition?”</P><P>“Is that the way it’s supposed to work?” he asked. “We really don’t know. . .”</P><P>He seemed to be saying that we don’t know how Obamacare will play out. (As I will explain in part 3, this has become a common theme in the mainstream media: “Nobody knows. . .” )</P><P>“Are you saying that we don’t know what is in the bill?” I asked, “Or that there is no provision which prohibits insurers from jacking up premiums if someone has cancer? Let me write that down.”</P><P>“No you won’t!” Now he was shouting. “I’m Done!” He slammed down the phone.</P><P>I wanted to know more about Sloane. When I Googled</EM> his name.” I discovered a 2011 “Political Roundtable” where Sloane blames the White House for failing to spell out how the Affordable Care Act would affect the average person. </P><P>“To me this is a monumental failure by the Obama administration,” Sloane declared. “Republicans can say whatever they want about the healthcare bill, whether it’s true or not, and . . . it will resonate . . . People are afraid of things that they don’t understand and they don’t know. . . The Republicans are playing to this fear, and they’re doing a masterful job.”</P><P>On another occasion, Sloane groused that President Obama is “great at soaring rhetoric, but when it comes down to explaining to the American public why this matters to them . . . .” The CBS producer made it clear that the president has fallen short. <BR></P><P>Up to a point, I agree with Sloane: Bill Clinton is far better at explaining wonky detail to the public (see this post and scroll down to this sub-head: “What the President Should</EM> Have Said”. ) And there is no question: Conservatives have</EM> done a “masterful job” of taking advantage of the uncertainty about Obamacare. As Nancy Pelosi suggested shortly before the legislation passed Congress, “the fog of controversy” has left many Americans befuddled as to what reform will mean for them.</P><P>But here is my question: why haven’t journalists done a better job of lifting the fog?Perhaps because they, too, have been confused by a blizzard of conservative sound bites designed to foster cynicism, doubt and suspicion</P><P>After Sloane hung up on me, I waited ten minutes, then called the D.C. bureau again.</P><P>This time, Heather, the producer who had hung up on me an hour earlier, answered the phone. To my surprise, she was much friendlier.</P><P>She confided that she had just been talking to Ward Sloane, and that CBS would be pulling the story from their website and taking it down from the server that goes to their affiliates.</P><P>But the story had aired in November—and then went viral. CBS was closing the barn door.</P><P>Heather agreed: ideally that sound-bite would have been eliminated when the story was edited. “The problem is with the Internet,” she added, “once something gets out there, it is impossible to reel it back in.” But isn’t this all the more reason why journalists should be very careful to check their facts?</P><P>She also explained that originally, she thought I said that McGinnis, the CBS correspondent, had made the misleading remark about pre-conditions. “I knew she wouldn’t say that!”</P><P>Later, I asked whether CBS was thinking about running a retraction.</P><P>“There is no really efficient way to get it out there” she replied. “And the problem is not what Susan (McGinnis) said. It was this other woman’s mis-characterization.”</P><P>CBS was still hung up on the notion that their correspondent hadn’t made a mistake. But “this other woman” was their source, and the heroine of their story.</P><P>I decided to phone Fishericks one more time. I suspected she would be pleased that CBS was taking the story down. And I had two or three more questions that I wanted to ask her . . .</P><P>She was, indeed, glad to hear the news.</P><P>But she was still furious with CBS.</P><P>“They told me that they would send me a release, and that they would let me know when the story was going to air. They never did.”</P><P>I wanted to give CBS a chance to respond, so I emailed McGinnis, who had told me that she was in charge of the project. .</P><P>She replied: “I know of no release. Our story was honestly found, honestly reported, and honestly aired.”</P><P>Debra was not impressed: “CBS is not looking very good right now. But,” she added, ”There is accountability. Thank you for being steadfast.”</P><P>I thanked her–and thanked her for taking my calls.</P><P>I also explained that I had finally reached her boss, Betsy Atkinson, and she had said that she thought Debra had finally found coverage. Was this true?</P><P>“I will be buying a new policy, early this year, before our insurance runs out,” Fishericks replied, “but I won’t be buying Obamacare.”</P><P>“Are you aware that you might get a generous tax credit from the government if you purchase a policy on the Exchange?” I asked. (Her boss had told me that Fishericks earned less than $45,000, and so I assumed that she would qualify.</P><P>“Not interested,” she replied smoothly, adding that she didn’t want to deal with “the red tape.”</P><P>I wanted to help. “But most people who earn under $45,000 are very happy to have the government’s help. Are you sure you can afford the premium?”</P><P>“I can manage it. I may go on my husband’s plan. Though there is also an Anthem plan that I like and can afford.”</P><P>This was the first I had heard for a husband who had health benefits at work. Had that come up in her CBS interview? If so, why did CBS portray her as someone who couldn’t afford insurance?</P><P>At this point I also realized that their combined salaries might well mean that she would not be eligible for a government subsidy after all.</P><P>What was clear was that she wasn’t worried about the cost. So much for that heart-wrenching moment at the end of the video when the CBS narrator suggests that unless she finds a plan that “fits her budget,” in the future Debra might not be able to afford a trip to visit her grandson.</P><P>Now, I asked her a question that I had been waiting to ask: “Debra, is your cancer in remission?”</P><P>I had been reluctant to ask this. For cancer patients, the whole issue of remission and recurrence is terrifying.</P><P>But both in the video and on the phone, Debra did not look or sound like someone fighting kidney cancer. And I knew that she was working full-time . . .</P><P>Still, I wasn’t ready for her reply:</P><P>“I don’t have cancer. I had a cancerous mass in my right kidney, but it was removed.”</P><P>“When?” I asked.</P><P>“In 2009.”</P><P>The CBS headline, “Woman Battling Kidney Cancer Losing Company Health Plan Due To Obamacare” didn’t just exaggerate her plight. It was flat-out wrong.</P><P>This is what she meant, in our first interview, when she said they had “gotten the story all wrong.”</P><P>Presumably, CBS was looking for a poster child for Obamacare<BR>“horror stories.”</P><P>But when a reporter went down to Virginia Beach to interview Debra couldn’t she see that Fishericks really didn’t look or act like someone struggling to stay alive? (Symptoms of kidney cancer include: pain in the side that won’t go away, weight loss, fever, and exhaustion.)</P><P>Should the reporter have known the signs of kidney cancer? No, absolutely not. But she might have asked Debra how she was doing. (Perhaps she did; I don’t know. CBS wouldn’t give me her name.)</P><P>Debra was still angry: “They wanted to “glorify’ the cancer angle—I don’t know why. I would Never play the cancer sympathy card.</P><P>She sounded so adamant, I asked: Why?</P><P>Again, I wasn’t ready for her answer.</P><P>Her three-year-old grandson has a malignant brain tumor.</P><P>“That’s why I was crying at the end of the video,” Debra confided. She spoke softly: “I was looking at his picture and thinking—not about me, but about him.”</P><P>No wonder she was so furious: She felt used.</P><P>CBS had used her and abused in a way that no professional journalist should ever treat a source. And in the end they blamed her for the error in their video.</P><P>Debra has not pretended to be a healthcare expert. She simply told the reporter what she thought to be true. And they ran with it.</P><P>But the problem is not confined to CBS.</P><P><STRONG> In part 3 of this post I will ask: “Why Do So Many Reporters know so little about the Affordable Care Act</STRONG>?”</P><P>Is not just that they haven’t read the 2,000-plus pages of legislation—that I understand. Most journalists don’t have time to wade through the bill.</P><P>But when one of Obamacare’s detractors makes a statement about the Affordable Care Act, few reporters fact-check it.</P><P>For example: No doubt you have heard the charge that Obamcare will turn us into a nation of part-timers: The ACA’s opponents point out that the law insists that small businesses with 50 to 99 full-time employees (averaging 30 hours a week) must start insuring workers by 2016. Those with 100 or more are required to begin offering insurance in 2015.</P><P>Small businesses are the engine of job growth, conservatives argue. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act they will hire fewer full-time workers. Even worse, many will cut current employees hours to 29 or less.</P><P>True or False?</P><P>“Google” makes it easy to check. Type in “Obamacare” and “small business” and “full-time” and Google will take you to “Obamacarefacts.com.” There, you will discover that “Small businesses with 50-99 full-time equivalent employees will need to start insuring workers by 2016. Those with a 100 or more will need to start providing health benefits in 2015.” http://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-employer-mandate.php</P><P>Any reporter who possesses just a smidgen of curiosity is bound to wonder<STRONG>: “What are full-time equivalent employees?”</STRONG></P><P>The Fact Sheer explains: “In simple terms FTE or “full-time equivalent” equals (the total number of full-time employees) plus (the combined number of Part-time employee hours divided by 30).</P><P>In other words, <STRONG>when the government count “full-time employees,” it doesn’t just count heads, it counts hours.</STRONG> If a business has 50 full-time employees working 30 hours a week, and cuts 10 back to 15 hours, it will have only 40 full-time employees. But it will have to hire more part-timers</P><P>Let’s say a small company hires 20 new part-time workers, each putting in 15 hours a week. Combined, they will be working 300 hours. Divide 300 by 30 and you have 10 “full time equivalents.” Add 10 to the 40 remaining full-time workers and the company now has 50 “full-time or full-time equivalent employees.”</P><P>The business won’t have to insure the 20 part-timers, but it will have to insure the 40 who work full-time, or pay the penalty. And it will have to train 20 new employees. Hardly a brilliant business plan.</P><P>A reporter who knows how to Goggle could figure this out in less than 10 minutes.But too many journalists just focus on “the news”—what a conservative said today, what the White House Press Secretary said in reply—without comparing the pols’ and pundits’ claims to the legislation passed in 2010. It’s there in black & white, waiting for fact-checkers.</P><P>In final section of this post, I’ll discuss other reasons why so many news outlets wind up spreading misinformation, and what “knowledge-based journalism” would mean.</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/02/how-a-cbs-video-about-how-an-obamacare-victim-misled-millions-part-2-what-the-victim-revealed-in-our-final-interview/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-77263933773394179652014-03-19T10:34:00.000-07:002014-03-19T10:34:00.427-07:00“Point of no return” <P>“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is playing in the conference hall in Nayarit following the chair’s declaration that this conference has been “the point of no return” in the humanitarian initiative to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.</P><P>Without getting overly specific, he called for an appropriate process in an appropriate forum that would have the goal of a legally binding instrument that would outlaw nuclear weapons by the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.</P><P>The ICAN campaigners erupted into applause at the conclusion of his statement. This is exactly what we wanted coming into Mexico, and we can now leave knowing that the road to Austria has been clearly marked.</P><P>More details in a more sober mood later. Now off the the ICAN party!!</P><br /><p><a href="http://peaceandhealthblog.com/2014/02/14/point-of-no-return/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-22883352822900856122014-03-19T10:06:00.000-07:002014-03-19T10:06:00.146-07:00How Losing Weight With LCHF Helps Save Children’s Lives in Amazonas <BLOCKQUOTE readability="18"><P>Hi Doc,</P><P>Two and a half years ago my partner and I stumbled on your site after reading a post on Facebook about the butter shortage in Sweden. We’d been struggling to find a way to lose the weight and the standard advice of eat less, low fat and more healthy whole grains wasn’t working. We bought a treadmill. We bought low fat stuff. We tried to starve ourselves. None of it worked and we were miserable. You know the story. After finding your site we started LCHF and never looked back. In 6-8 months I’d lost 60 pounds to get down to 140 pounds (5' 8?). Kerri, my partner, lost 40. All this time later we’ve kept it off and have never felt better. To say that your crusade of reason has saved our lives is an understatement. More importantly, in a round about way, it’s saved other lives as well.</P><P>I sometimes fly an air ambulance airplane in the amazon basin in Southern Guyana on a volunteer basis. 60 pounds is enough to enable me to carry an extra child out to the hospital from a remote village and a really short, dirt airstrip. Weight is everything when flying the edge of the envelope and there have been a few times when that lost weight allowed me to put another child on the plane whereas before I couldn’t.</P><P>Thank you Andreas!</P><P>Cate</P></BLOCKQUOTE><P>And thanks to you, Cate, for your inspiring story, and congratulations on your own health improvements!</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.dietdoctor.com/losing-weight-lchf-helps-save-childrens-lives-amazonas?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=losing-weight-lchf-helps-save-childrens-lives-amazonas" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-27447954611673772482014-03-19T07:46:00.000-07:002014-03-19T07:46:00.235-07:00Health Wonk Review Is Up <P>David Harlow, author of David Harlow’s Health Care Law Blog</EM> hosts the newest edition of HWR. Harlow offers a meaty summary of some of the most provocative healthcare posts that have appeared in recent weeks. <BR></P><P>–On Healthcare Collaboration</EM>, Dr. Kenneth Cohn suggests that if you want to herd cats, you probably have to let the cats figure out how to herd themselves: “Most physicians enjoy bottom-up processes more than top-down edicts. They prefer being inspired to being supervised. The only way that I know to develop a common culture is to allow physicians to play a role in shaping it</EM>. I agree. You can’t bribe them. You can’t bully them. They have to want to do it because they realize that if they work as a team, they and their patients will be better off.</P><P>–Over at Managed Care Matters</EM> Joe Paduda reports that recent analysis indicates that some states’ active efforts to hinder enrollment are working,, and are <B>partly responsible for the shortfall in Exchange enrollment<BR></B>He also points out that CMS may require health insurers selling via the federal exchanges to make sure at least 30 percent of “essential health providers” are in-network in 2015. This in response to some <B>complaints about networks that are allegedly too narrow.</B><BR><B>Paduda’s note: “Which is kind of ridiculous;</B> smaller networks are better at controlling costs and that’s a BIG part of the success criteria for health reform.” I agree. Moreover, if you Google “Consumer Reports,” and “NCQA” and “HMO’s” you will find that the best HMOs deliver higher quality care than open-ended plans.</P><P>–Writing on Colorado Health Insurance Insider,</EM> Louise Norris explains that folks purchasing health insurance on the exchanges need to be sure they understand drug formularies. An important point.</P><P>–As the demand for high tech and mobile surges, Julie Ferguson of Workers’ Comp Insider reminds us that more and more cell tower workers are being killed. The intense pressure to meet unrelenting deadlines is undermining workers’ safety.</P><P>–Brad Wright, at Wright on Health,</EM> wonders if we can make health care prices transparent so that patients can “comparison-shop.” Wright worries (rightly, I think, pun intended,) that even with better information, consumers aren’t likely to change their behavior much, because health care economics does not operate according to traditional market principles. When you’re sick, you’re not bargain-hunting. Most people assume (wrongly) that health care that is more expensive must be better.</P><P>–Folks from the Brookings Institution have a piece up on the Health Affairs Blog</EM>, titled “Paying For a Permanent, or Semi-Permanent, Medicare Physician Payment Fix. They emphasize that a plan that includes “off-sets for physician payment reform that support improvements in care as well as lower costs . . . could assure beneficiaries and other health care providers that these savings are not just payment cuts that must be absorbed, but steps to help reduce spending through reforms that improve care.”</P><P>This is just a small sample of some of the best recent posts. You’ll find more here. <BR></P><br /><p><a href="http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/03/health-wonk-review-is-up/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-67560133695558629142014-03-19T07:19:00.000-07:002014-03-19T07:19:00.236-07:00An Obamacare “Horror Story” That Just Isn’t True: How Did This Happen? Part 2 <P>For months, health reform’s opponents have been trumpeting tales of Obamacare’s innocent victims - Americans who lost their insurance because it doesn’t comply with the ACA’s regulations, and now have to shell out more than they can afford – or go without coverage.</P><P>Trouble is, many of those stories just aren’t true.</P><P>Below I posted about a Fort Worth Star Telegram article that leads with the tale of Whitney Johnson, a 26-year-old new mother who suffers from multiple sclerosis (MS). Her insurer just cancelled her policy, and according to Johnson, new insurance would cost her over $1,000 a month.</P><P>That claim stopped me in my tracks. Under the ACA, no 26-year-old could be charged $1,000 monthly – even if she has MS.</P><P>Obamacare prohibits insurers from charging more because a customer suffers from a pre-existing condition. This rule applies to all new policies, whether they are sold inside or outside the exchanges.</P><P>At that point, I knew that something was wrong.</P><P>When I checked the exchange – plugging in Johnson’s county and her age – I soon found a Blue Choice Gold PPO plan priced at $332 monthly (just $7 more than she had been paying for the plan that was cancelled). Co-pays to see a primary care doctor would run just $10 ($50 to visit a specialist) and she would not have to pay down the $1,500 deductible before the insurance kicked in.</P><P>My radar went up: Recently, I have been reading more and more reports regarding “fake Obamacare victims.” <BR></P><P>Now I couldn’t help but wonder: Who are these folks in the Start-Telegram story? The paper profiled four people who supposedly had been hurt by Obamacare. When I Googled their names I soon discovered that three (including Johnson) wereTea Party members.</P><P>The paper describes them as among Obamacare’s “losers,” but the truth is that they didn’t want to be winners. Two hadn’t even attempted to check prices in the exchanges.</P><P>Meanwhile, it appeared no one at the Star-Telegram even attempted to run a background check on the sources, or fact-check their stories. I couldn’t help but wonder: “Why?”</P><P>The answer will surprise you.</P><P>When I tried to phone the reporter, she didn’t return multiple calls. Finally, I reached an editor at the paper. He told me that both Yamil Berard, the reporter, and her editor were out of the office. I expressed my concern that inaccuracies in the story would discourage readers who were thinking about signing up in the exchanges. He suggested that I sounded like an “advocate” for Obamacare.</P><P>To my surprise, two hours later he called me back.</P><P>He had just received an internal email, he told me, which revealed that Whitney Johnson had found affordable insurance for $350 a month – just $25 more than the premium on her cancelled policy, and roughly what I thought she would pay in the exchange.</P><P>I asked the editor if he could send me a copy of the e-mail. “No,” he replied “It’s an internal memo.”</P><P>Would the paper publish a follow-up, acknowledging that Johnson would not have to pay $1,000 for coverage?</P><P>“I’m not sure what we’ll do with it.” He sounded cautious.</P><P>To this day – more than a month after the story appeared – the Star-Telegram still hasn’t published a follow-up, explaining that under Obamacare, no 20-something – including Johnson – will be charged $1,000 a month.</P><P>I then contacted Johnson, who confirmed that she had found a $350 Blue plan outside of the exchange. Based on the details she provided, I managed to locate it. (The premium is actually $347.92 a month.)</P><P>It turns out to be very similar to the exchange policy I had found. The premium is higher, but the deductible ($1,000 instead of $1,500) and co-pays for medications ($10/50/100 vs. $35/75/150) would be slightly lower. The provider network would be the same (Blue Choice).</P><P>The exchange plan offers a stronger safety net, and for someone with MS this could be important: If her husband’s income drops, or he loses health benefits at work, they would immediately be available for a subsidy. Because her new policy is not on the exchange, they would have to wait until open enrollment in November 2014 to sign up for a 2015 plan with subsidies.</P><P><STRONG>I Talk to the Story’s Editor–and the Reporter </STRONG></P><P>Next, I spoke to Steve Kaskovich, the editor who assigned the story to Berard. He explained that he had asked the reporter to write a piece about people whose policies were cancelled, and as a result were “caught in the quagmire.”</P><P>I originally wrote this post for www.healthinsurance.org, an independent website (not connected to the insurance industry)where I, Wendell Potter, Hal Pollack, LInda Bertghold and Louise Norris all blog.</P><P><STRONG>To read the rest of this post click here / and “Scroll down to Editor: Find People Caught In a Quagmire.” There you will discover what the editor had to say. When I finally talked to the reporter, the truth came out. </STRONG>You can also h<STRONG>ear me talking about the Star-Telegram piece –and problems with the way the media has been covering health care reform on NPR’s “Eye on the Media” . Click here: </STRONG></P><br /><p><a href="http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/01/an-obamacare-horror-story-that-just-isnt-true-how-did-this-happen-part-2/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-91954932500457301652014-03-19T05:01:00.000-07:002014-03-19T05:01:00.292-07:00“Ridding the world of nuclear weapons will take courage” <P>February 14, 2014</P><P>[Ray Acheson of WILPF's Reaching Critical Will</EM> project and a member of ICAN's International Steering Group, read the following statement during the closing session of the Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Nayarit, Mexico.]<BR></EM></P><IMG class="size-medium wp-image-2838" alt="Ray Acheson speaks on behalf of ICAN" src="http://ippnweupdate.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/raynayariticanstatement.jpg?w=300&h=225" width=300 height=225> Ray Acheson speaks on behalf of ICAN</P><P>I am speaking on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a coalition of over 350 organisations in 90 countries.</P><P>We have been given over the past two days a chilling reminder of what nuclear weapons are, and what they do.</P><P>They do not bring security. They bring death and destruction on a scale that cannot be justified for any reason.</P><P>The claim by some states that they continue to need these weapons to deter their adversaries has been exposed by the evidence presented at this conference and in Oslo as a reckless and unsanctionable gamble with our future.</P><P>The immediate effects of even a single nuclear weapon detonation are shocking and overwhelming. Its destructive force will cause nightmarish scenes of death and despair.</P><P>One detonation will cause tens of thousands of casualties and inflict immediate and irreversible damage to infrastructure, industry, livelihoods, and human lives. The effects will persist over time, devastating human health, the environment, and our economies for years to come. These impacts will wreak havoc with food production and displace entire populations.</P><P>As we have heard here from scientists and physicians, the use of less than one percent of existing arsenals against cities would have extreme and long lasting consequences for the Earth’s climate and for agriculture. This would put billions of lives in jeopardy.</P><P>The existence of nuclear weapons generates great risk. There have been numerous instances where the incidence of an accidental nuclear detonation has hung on a razor’s edge. And we have recently heard a number of reports of the declining operational atmosphere and disturbing behaviour of those in supposed “command and control” of these arsenals.</P><P>Such accidents are only made possible, however, because the military doctrines of the nuclear-armed states and some of their allies require preparations for the deliberate use of nuclear weapons – in many cases within minutes of an order being given. The risk of conflict between states possessing nuclear weapons is a direct consequence of possession and of nuclear deterrence relationships.</P><P>While nuclear weapons have not been used in acts of war since the United States dropped two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, they have nevertheless created health and environmental catastrophes around the world. Testing in the Pacific, Kazakhstan, the United States, Africa, South Asia, and China has caused profound damage to the environment and human health.</P><P>Nuclear weapons also undermine development and the achievement of global economic and social equality. The maintenance and modernisation of nuclear weapons diverts vast and essential resources needed to address real human needs, including the Millennium Development Goals.</P><P>Despite all this evidence about the horror, instability, and injustice generated by nuclear weapons, some insist that we will not see their elimination in our lifetime. That depends on whether we are willing to accept the risk we live with today. Unless we act, nuclear weapons will be used, either by accident, design, or miscalculation. The only questions are when, where, and how many.</P><P>Unlike the other weapons of mass destruction – chemical and biological weapons – nuclear weapons are not yet subject to an explicit legal prohibition. Now is the time to address this anomaly, which has been allowed to persist for far too long.</P><P>Those countries that have renounced nuclear weapons—the overwhelming majority—have made the right decision for the security of their countries and their populations and for the survival of life on Earth. Those same countries have the opportunity now to advance not only the humanitarian agenda but also our human future by negotiating a treaty banning nuclear weapons.</P><P>We would welcome the participation of the nuclear-armed states. But most of them have demonstrated their unwillingness to constructively engage let alone lead in such a process.</P><P>History shows that legal prohibitions of weapon systems—their possession as well as their use—facilitate their elimination. Weapons that have been outlawed increasingly become seen as illegitimate. They lose their political status and, along with it, the money and resources for their production, modernisation, proliferation, and perpetuation.</P><P>For us, the announcement of the next meeting in Vienna indicates a willingness amongst governments to move from a discussion about the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons to a discussion about what must be done to make sure they can never be used again.</P><P>Ridding the world of nuclear weapons will take courage. It will take leadership by states free of nuclear weapons. Show that leadership and you will have the support of civil society. It is time. It is time to change the status quo. It is time we ban nuclear weapons.</P><br /><p><a href="http://peaceandhealthblog.com/2014/02/27/courage/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-35573797531699238532014-03-19T04:54:00.000-07:002014-03-19T04:54:01.013-07:00Tabloid: “Eating Meat Is Like Smoking Cigarettes” <P><IMG class="alignnone size-full wp-image-10857" alt=kott01-650x234 src="/kott01-650x234.jpg" width=650 height=234></P><P>Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet</EM> wins the prize for sensationalism for its headline after yesterday’s confused questionnaire study on meat: <STRONG>“Steak is as dangerous as smoking”</STRONG>.</P><P>A bit later in the article comes the most bizarre: the increase in risk only applies to people between 55 and 65. After 65 the cigarettes, I’m sorry – the steak, suddenly becomes a health food. Confused? Don’t be – read yesterday’s post for the details: <STRONG>Is It Dangerous to Eat Meat Before Age 65?</STRONG></P><P>Funnily enough, the article includes comments from Dr. Dahlqvist and me on whether LCHF is dangerous or not. We address the two obvious issues:</P>LCHF is about – exactly what the acronym stands for – less carbohydrates and more fat</EM>, not necessarily more meat. You could even adopt a vegetarian LCHF diet, if you want.Yesterday’s study is only based on questionnaires and imaginative statistics, no evidence.<P>When the researcher behind the questionnaire study, Valter Longo, hears my comment he gets “annoyed”:</P><BLOCKQUOTE readability="9"><P>Instead of criticizing a minor part of what we’re saying, they should look at 20 years’ of work that we’ve done in this area. The results are conclusive. If this was only about 6,000 people and statistics I’d agree with him, but this isn’t the case, he says.</P></BLOCKQUOTE><P>So Longo agrees with me that his questionnaire study from yesterday doesn’t prove anything, but refers to a lot of other unspecified research.</P><P>The argument is familiar. In the absence of evidence some people will refer to “200,000 studies” or “20 years’ of work”. Unfortunately, this is fuzzy and suggests an inability to find real evidence.</P><P>As no one has the time to examine such claims, one can get away with just about anything.</P><P>I don’t doubt that Longo is convinced. But convincing others that meat causes cancer between the ages of 55 and 65 – and then suddenly after 65 is protective – will requires more than his word.</P><P>Reportedly, the author himself is a vegan. And the creator of a company selling meal replacements with small amounts of protein from vegetable sources only.</P><P>Moreover, apparently the association in the age group 55 to 65 was not something they were looking for, but dug up afterwards, when an association for the entire group was missing. Which gives the statistics even less weight.</P><P>Is It Dangerous to Eat Meat Before Age 65?</P><P>Swedish Tabloid Warns of “Low-Carb Cancer”</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.dietdoctor.com/tabloid-eating-meat-like-smoking-cigarettes?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tabloid-eating-meat-like-smoking-cigarettes" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-55554411238346947002014-03-19T02:44:00.000-07:002014-03-19T02:44:00.593-07:00Subsidies: Would You Qualify? Consumer Reports Has A User-Friendly Tool That Will Tell You <P>Check out this online tool from Consumer Reports. It allows you to quickly and easily find out if you–or a relative–would be eligible for a subsidy. A great many young people don’t realize how little insurance would cost after applying the tax credit. Do them a favor, and find out for them. https://www.healthtaxcredittool.org/</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/02/subsidies-would-you-qualify-consumer-reports-has-a-user-friendly-tool-that-will-tell-you/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-59385710663519901652014-03-19T02:29:00.000-07:002014-03-19T02:29:01.312-07:00The French Way of Cancer Treatment–Part 1 <P><B>By Anya Schiffrin</B></P><P>Below, the opening of a compelling essay describing what happened when a cancer patient who was being treated at NYC’s Memorial Sloane Kettering went to Paris. (I have included a link that will take you to the rest of the essay, which originally appeared on Reuters.)</P><P>For a great many years, we have been told that the U.S. offers the best cancer care anywhere. Anya Schiffrin will make you think about whether that is true—and what we need to do. </P><P>At the end of the piece I’ve added a note (MM)</P><P>When my father, the editor and writer Andre Schiffrin, was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer last spring, my family assumed we would care for him in New York. But my parents always spent part of each year in Paris, where my father was born, and soon after he began palliative chemotherapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering my father announced he wanted to stick to his normal schedule — and spend the summer in France.</P><P>I humored him — though my sister and I didn’t want him to go. We felt he should stay in New York City, in the apartment where we grew up. I could visit him daily there, bringing takeout from his favorite Chinese restaurant and helping my mother.</P><P>I also didn’t know what the French healthcare system would be like. I’d read it was excellent, but assumed that meant there was better access for the poor and strong primary care.. Not better cancer specialists. <STRONG>How could a public hospital in Paris possibly improve on Sloan Kettering’s cancer treatment? (my emphasis–mm)</STRONG></P><P>After all, people come from the all over the world for treatment at Sloan Kettering. My mother and I don’t even speak French. How could we speak to nurses or doctors and help my father? How would we call a taxi or communicate with a pharmacy?</P><P>But my dad got what he wanted, as usual. After just one cycle of chemo in New York, my parents flew to Paris, to stay in their apartment there. The first heathcare steps were reassuring: my parents found an English-speaking pancreatic cancer specialist and my dad resumed his weekly gemcitabine infusions.</P><P>My parents were pleasantly surprised by his new routine. In New York, my father, my mother and I would go to Sloan Kettering every Tuesday around 9:30 a.m. and wind up spending the entire day. They’d take my dad’s blood and we’d wait for the results. The doctor always ran late. We never knew how long it would take before my dad’s name would be called, so we’d sit in the waiting room and, well, wait. Around 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. my dad would usually tell me and my mom to go get lunch. (He never seemed to be hungry.) But we were always afraid of having his name called while we were out. So we’d rush across the street, get takeout and come back to the waiting room.</P><P>We’d bring books to read. I’d use the Wi-Fi and eat the graham crackers that MSK thoughtfully left out near the coffee maker. We’d talk to each other and to the other patients and families waiting there. Eventually, we’d see the doctor for a few minutes and my dad would get his chemo. Then, after fighting New York crowds for a cab at rush hour, as my dad stood on the corner of Lexington Avenue feeling woozy, we’d get home by about 5:30 p.m.</P><P>So imagine my surprise when my parents reported from Paris that their chemo visits couldn’t be more different. A nurse would come to the house two days before my dad’s treatment day to take his blood. When my dad appeared at the hospital, they were ready for him. The room was a little worn and there was often someone else in the next bed but, most important, there was no waiting. Total time at the Paris hospital each week: 90 minutes.</P><P>There were other nice surprises. When my dad needed to see specialists, for example, instead of trekking around the city for appointments, he would stay in one room at Cochin Hospital, a public hospital in the 14th arrondissement where he received his weekly chemo. The specialists would all come to him. The team approach meant the nutritionist, oncologist, general practitioner and pharmacist spoke to each other and coordinated his care. As my dad said, “It turns out there are solutions for the all the things we put up with in New York and accept as normal.”</P><P>One day he had to spend a few hours at Cochin. They gave him, free of charge, breakfast and then a hot lunch that included salad and chicken. They also paid for his taxi to and from the hospital each week.</P><P>“Can’t you think of anything bad about the French healthcare system?” I asked during one of our daily phone calls. My mom told me about a recent uproar in the hospital: It seems a brusque nurse rushed into the room and forgot to say good morning. “Did you see that?” another nurse said to my mom. “She forgot to say bonjour!”</P><P>You will find the rest of the essay here. Please return to HealthBeat to comment. </P><P>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</P><P>Note: As I read Schiffrin’s essay, I couldn’t help but remember a conversation I had with a close friend who married a Frenchman and lived in the Dordogne region of Southwest France, for a number of years. During that time, she was hospitalized and received medical care. When she returned, she explained that in France health care is so different because “The French believe that nothing is too good for another Frenchman.” (This includes poor countrymen as well as illegal aliens who have filed for residency).</P><P>If only we felt that way about each other.</P><P>In part 2 of the post, I will explain how France finances an extremely egalitarian system that provides high quality, patient-centered care for everyone. The cost of medical care is a problem in France, as it is in every developed nation. But while the U.S. devotes 17.6% of GDP to healthcare, France spends 11.8% of GDP, just a hair more than Canada, which has a single-payer system. In the next post, I’ll explore how they do it.</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/02/the-french-way-of-cancer-treatment-part-1/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-16030035988103016122014-03-19T00:27:00.000-07:002014-03-19T00:27:00.033-07:00Did President Obama “Lie” When He Said “If You Like the Policy You Have, You Can Keep It”? Context Is Everything <P>How many times have you heard that the President of the United State “lied” to the American people when he said “If you like the policy you have, you can keep it?” Even some liberals have swallowed this Republican talking point.</P><P>In December, Politifact, the Tampa Times Pulitzer-prize-winning online fact-checker, went so far as to name Obama’s statement “the lie of the year.”</P><P>Since then, the story has generated headlines like this one: ““Reporter Asks Obama, “What’s It Like to Be Called Liar of the Year?” <BR></P><P><STRONG>What most people don’t recall is that in 2008 m when President Obama first uttered those fateful words, Politifact—the very same fact-checking organization– graded his statement as “True.”</STRONG></P><P>What is going on here?</P><P>It should come as no surprise that Obamacare’s opponents ripped the president’s original statement out of context. This was easy to do because so few people remember the third Obama/McCain debate that took place in Hempstead, New York, on Oct. 15, 2008. During this debate then-Senator Obama uttered the words that would haunt him: “you can keep your plan.” <BR></P><P>A transcript of the debate reveals what he meant. In response to a question from the debate’s moderator, Obama laid out a thumbnail sketch of healthcare reform: “Here’s what my plan does. If you have health insurance, then you don’t have to do anything. <B>If you’ve got health insurance through your employer, you can keep your health insurance, keep your choice of doctor, keep your plan.” </B><BR><B></B></P><P>Obama had said something similar in his second debate with McCain a week earlier, in Nashville Tennessee. “If you’ve got health care already, and probably the majority of you do, then you can keep your plan if you are satisfied with it. You can keep your choice of doctor.” <BR></P><P>Few remember that when Obama assured Americans that the Affordable Care Act would not interfere with the benefits they had, he was addressing “the majority” of insured Americans–people who worked for large companies that offered comprehensive coverage. <B> More than two-thirds of the American work-force is employed by firms with more than 100 workers, and </B>at the time, 99% of large companies offered health benefits. He was not talking to the 5% of Americans who purchased their own coverage in the individual market, or the 17% who were covered by a small firm. (Only 35% of the U.S. work-force is employed by small companies and less than half of those firms offer health insurance.)<BR></P><P>In 2008 when Americans who had good health benefits at work heard the phrase “healthcare reform,” many worried that this would mean a “government takeover” that would eliminate their employer-sponsored plans. In short, they feared a single-payer system. Obama was trying to reassure them that this wouldn’t happen.</P><P>At the time, Politifact understood that this was the concern that Obama was addressing. Here is what Politifact’s Angie Holan wrote in October of 2008:</P><P>“Obama is accurately describing his health care plan here. <B>He advocates a program that seeks to build on the current system, rather than dismantling it and starting over</B>. People who want to keep their current insurance should be able to do that under Obama’s plan. <B>His description of his plan is accurate, and we rate his statement</B> <STRONG>True.”</STRONG></P><P><B> ”You Can Keep Your Doctor”</B></P><P><B> </B>The next year, in a speech before a joint session of Congress, Obama elaborated on the theme: “<B>If you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job . . . </B> <B>nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.”</B></P><P>Once again, Politifact commented on Obama’s pledge: “We concluded that nothing in Obama’s proposal proactively forced such changes, and the bill is clearly intended to leave much of the current health care system in place. So we rated the claim <B>True.”</B></P><P>In other words, the Affordable Care Act would not force employers to narrow their provider networks. But as The New Republic’s</EM> Jon Cohn has pointed out, over the next five years (2008-2013), many would decide to tighten those networks, in part because research revealed that employees and customers preferred lower premiums, even if that meant giving up pricey providers. The ACA did not cause</EM> that change; it was happening before the legislation passed. <BR></P><P>In 2008, “like” was the operative word.</P><P>Obama knew that the vast majority of Americans who worked for a large company and had employer-based insurance were happy with it. After all, even today, their employers pay an average of 75% of the premium for family coverage and 80% when insuring an individual.</P><P>By contrast, nearly one-third of employees at small firms who sign up for a family plan must pay more than half of the premium out of their own pockets. In the individual and small group markets, families also often face steep deductibles. And because individuals and small business owners have little leverage when negotiating with insurers, benefits can be sketchy. A recent survey from the Center for Health Research and Transformation shows that 45% of those who had bought a policy in the individual market rated it “fair or poor”; 82% of those with employer sponsored coverage called it “excellent” or “good.”</P><P>Back in 2008, Obama, like everyone involved in health care reform, knew just how dysfunctional the individual market was. Consumer Reports described it, quite rightly, as “the wild West of insurance”: </P><P>“Individual insurance is a nightmare for consumers: more costly than the equivalent job-based coverage, and for those in less-than-perfect health, unaffordable at best and unavailable at worst. Moreover, the lack of effective consumer protections in most states allows insurers to sell plans with ‘affordable’ premiums whose skimpy coverage can leave people who get very sick with the added burden of ruinous medical debt.” Indeed more than half of the plans sold in the individual market cover less than 60% of health care costs.</P><P>Customers might be “satisfied” with the price—but only, Consumer Reports warned, if they never got sick: “There’s no free lunch when it comes to insurance. . . . So if your insurance was a bargain, chances are good it doesn’t cover very much. . . . If you don’t see a medical service specifically mentioned in the policy, assume it’s not covered. We reviewed policies that didn’t cover prescriptions and chemotherapy, but didn’t say so anywhere in the policy document—not even in the section labeled ‘What is not covered.’”</P><P>My guess is that it didn’t occur to Senator Obama that a great many Americans who had “bare bones” insurance had never taken a close look at what the policy did and did not cover. They just knew that it was cheap. This is why they thought they “liked it”—until they tried to use it to cover a serious problem.</P><P>Most often, they didn’t keep the plan long enough to find out how skimpy it was. Pre-Obamacare carriers selling policies in the small group and individual markets companies regularly hiked premiums and canceled policies. This is why only 17% of the individual market’s customers managed to hold onto a plan for more than two years. In other words, even if the ACA had never passed, only a tiny number would have been able to “keep the policy” they had in 2008. This is something that those who blame Obamacare for “plans cancelled” in 2013 never mention.</P><P><B> When I called </B> Angie Holan, who wrote both the 2008 and the 2013 reviews of President Obama’s promise she was candid: “When Politifact rates something “Lie of the Year,” she explained, that doesn’t mean it is the biggest whopper of the year: “It’s not the most inaccurate statement. It’s the one that has the biggest influence.”</P><P>Holan also pointed out that in her 2013 review she did not suggest that the president set out to deceive the public. Rather, she wrote that “boiling down the complicated health care law to a sound bite proved treacherous, even for its promoter-in-chief.” This is true.</P><P>Over the years, President Obama let “You can keep your plan” became a one-liner. “Minnpost’s” Eric Black puts his finger on the problem: “It’s an oversimplification . . . . I personally observe a very high bar before I call something a lie,” he adds. “The word is thrown around too easily.”</P><P>I agree: Obama didn’t lie. He over-simplified.</P><P>Nevertheless, when Obama turned his pledge into a sound-bite he made an enormous mistake. It is all but impossible to sum up any part of the Affordable Care Act in one sentence without leaving out critical details. When you are talking about something as complicated as health care reform, it is inevitable that one-liners will mislead your audience.</P><P>Arguably, a sensible listener might have realized that the President of the United States could not guarantee that his insurer would never send him a notice telling him that his policy was no longer available. (As noted, pre-Obamacare, carriers had been doing this on a regular basis, both in the individual and small group markets. ) Nor could the president force a doctor to stick with a patient’s insurance plan. Physicians frequently drop out of insurance networks, for a variety of reasons.</P><P>But when voters are listening to politicians, most don’t think about the one-liners –they just swallow them whole.</P><P>Roosevelt senior fellow Richard Krisch suggests that “the more accurate message would have been, ‘If you have good insurance and you like it, you can keep it.’”<BR></P><P>But if Obama had qualified his statement as Krisch suggests ,that would have raised a question in a listener’s mind: “Exactly what is “good” insurance”? The candidate would not have had a chance to answer that question. This was a debate, and Tom Brokaw, the moderator was constantly reminding both Obama and McCain that they were exceeding their time limits.</P><P>Others have made different suggestions. On Yahoo.com/questions someone asks: “Why didn’t Obama just say: If you like your plan you can keep it if it conforms to the rules? <BR></P><P>The website offers an answer: “Americans don’t do nuance.”</P><P>Very true.</P><P>Moreover, “if it conforms to the rules” raises more questions: “What rules?”</P><P>An accurate response would require at least two paragraphs of explanation, describing “essential benefits,” caps on out of pocket spending, free preventive care, and the many other ACA regulations that prevent insurers from gouging patients.</P><P>The fact is that Americans have little tolerance for detailed explanation. That is why they like the slogans that many conservatives favor brief and to the point, they fit on a bumper sticker. Typically they are very clear– even if not true. “Obama lied” is a good example of a Republican talking point. “Government takeover” is another catchy phrase.</P><P>Unfortunately, some liberals have suggested that healthcare reformers should follow their opponent’s example: “Frame the issue,” they say. “Make it punchy.”</P><P>But the truth is that such rhetoric functions like an ad: it aims to “sell” a point of view. It is not meant to provoke thought; it cuts off thought. The ad-man wants just one response: “No question, I’ll buy it.”</P><P>Such rhetoric is not designed to educate. It aims to obfuscate. This is what reform’s opponents need to do; their goal is to confuse the issue, and conceal the benefits of Obamcare. By contrast reformers have little to hide: their goal should be to explain the full truth about the Affordable Care Act– even though that means asking their audience to pause, listen and think.</P><P>Bill Clinton is the one politician I can think of who knows how to hold an audience’s attention while delving into wonkish details. He insists that they pay attention: ”Listen to me now . . . [pause ].” Or “This is important. . .” [pause]–yet avoids sounding like a college professor. Relaxed and disarming, he’s not delivering a “speech”; he’s talking to his audience.</P><P>David Kusnet, Clinton’s chief speech-writer from 1992 to 1994 explains: “By improvising so often, and using so few freeze-dried and focus-grouped applause lines, Clinton continues to keep his speeches fresh, friendly and factual in the hope that his listeners will open their minds to what he says.”</P><P>Exactly. Clinton opens minds; he persuades an audience to think</P><P>President Obama got into trouble because he turned his own message onto one of those applause lines — a “meme,” that would “go viral” on the Internet.</P><P><B> Obama’s Mea Culpa</B></P><P>If the president did not lie, you might wonder, then why did he apologize for misleading the public?</P><P>In fact, Obama did not apologize. Granted, when NBC interviewed the president on Nov. 7 the network headlined the piece: “Obama personally apologizes for Americans losing health coverage.” </P><P>But as is so often the case, the headline wasn’t true. Take a look at what the president actually said:</P><P>We weren’t as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taking place, and I want to do everything we can to make sure that people are finding themselves in a good position, a better position than they were before this law happened. And I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me.”</P><P>The president is not saying that he promised the American people that they could keep policies that didn’t meet the Affordable Care Act’s standards for affordable protection.. He is saying that his wording wasn’t clear enough, and as a result, many Americans were blindsided when they received letters from their insurers. He is sorry for that.</P><P>Writing about the “mea culpa” the Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff makes an important point : “What Obama isn’t offering is an apology for the cancellation notices themselves. Eliminating certain health plans from the market — ones that the White House thinks are too skimpy — is a feature, not a bug, of the Affordable Care Act. ” The idea was to make insurance coverage more robust — and that means cancelling policies that offer less thorough coverage.” <BR></P><P>“There are lots of insurance policies, especially on the individual market, that are really bare bones. Some argue they shouldn’t even be called insurance coverage, because their coverage is too sparse to insure against financial ruin. <B>The whole idea of the insurance expansion isn’t to get Americans to purchase anything called ‘insurance,’” Kliff adds. “ It’s to get them to purchase a specific kind of insurance, a plan that is relatively comprehensive and helps protect against financial ruin. If Americans were going to be required to buy a product, the reasoning goes, it should be one that can actually do some good.”</B> .</P><P>In the NBC interview Obama goes on to try to reassure his listeners that the majority of customers will be able to get better coverage—for less– in the Exchanges: “Keep in mind that most of the folks . . . who got these . . . cancellation letters, they’ll be able to get better care at the same cost or cheaper in these new marketplaces. Because they’ll have more choice [and there will be] more competition. So– the majority of folks will end up being better off.”</P><P>“Of course, because the website’s not working right, they don’t necessarily know it right [now]” Obama acknowledges. . . “<B>And it’s scary to them. And I am sorry that they– you know, are finding themselves in this situation, based on assurances they got from me</B>. We’ve got to work hard to make sure that– they know– we hear ‘em and that we’re going to do everything we can– to deal with folks who find themselves– in a tough position as a consequence of this.”</P><P>Here, the president’s sympathy is real. He is truly sorry that many Americans feel that they have been left in limbo. The have lost the policies they had, and don’t know whether they will be able to afford the insurance the Exchanges offer. President Obama understands that they feel betrayed</P><P>If only the websites had been functioning properly, people who received a “Dear John” letter from their insurer would have been able to look for a new policy right away. It was the uncertainty that left so many both anxious and angry. And the media stoked their fears.</P><P>In his interview, President Obama does not say he is sorry that sub-par policies are being discontinued. He realizes that the majority who received the cancellation notices will be able to purchase better coverage for less in the Exchanges. (This would turn out to be true. We now know that, as of the end of December, 79% of the 3 million Americans who had enrolled in the Exchanges qualified for government subsidies. In addition, a new PwC Health Research Institute</EM> study reveals that, even before applying the subsidies, Exchange premiums have turned out be lower than premiums for comparable employer-based insurance. <BR></P><P>The president ends the interview with a heart-felt mea culpa: “I am deeply frustrated about how this website has not worked over the first couple of weeks. And, you know, I take responsibility for that.” Obama makes no bones about it: <B>“The American people have been burned by– a website that has been dysfunctional.”</B></P><P>And he confesses that he should have done a better job of overseeing the project: “If we had to do it all over again, that there would have been a whole lot more questions that were asked, in terms of how this thing is working.”</P><P>Here, Obama “owns” his mistake: “Ultimately, the buck stops with me. You know, I’m the president. This is my team. If it’s not working, it’s my job to get it fixed.”</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/02/did-president-obama-lie-when-he-said-if-you-like-the-policy-you-have-you-can-keep-it-context-is-everything/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-3109504919716239132014-03-19T00:09:00.000-07:002014-03-19T00:09:00.211-07:00Discovering Airline Diabetic Meal <IMG class="size-post-size wp-image-10928" alt="Airline diabetic meal " src="/Screen-Shot-2014-03-11-at-161407-650x338.png" width=650 height=338> Airline diabetic meal</EM></P><P>Airline food is hardly great, and it’s hardly healthy. How about the special “diabetic meal”, would that be an improvement?</P><P>A reader decided to try it out:</P><BLOCKQUOTE readability="34"><P>Dear Andreas,</P><P>I recently flew to Frankfurt from Canada and I ordered the diabetic meal. I have been doing LCHF for over a year and have lost 30 pounds (14 kg) and my blood sugar is much better. I found that airplane meals are so high-carb that they make me ill, so I pack cheese, sausage, nuts and veggies for flights now.</P><P>I decided to order the diabetic meal just to see what it would be and hoped it might be LCHF or at least low-carb. It was worse than I ever expected. It was low fat, high carb. It was supposed to be some sort of chicken with coconut sauce. There was barely any sauce (I expect because they were trying to keep the meal low-fat). Most of the meal was some sort of grain – that my seat mates and I never identified. There were just a few pieces of chicken and some veggies, no sauce.</P><P>There was a bun that came with margarine! My neighbour with the regular meal got butter. So, for some reason, Air Canada thinks margarine is healthier for diabetics, or Air Canada hates diabetics, I can’t decide. There was a sugar free cookie, too. Also, a broccoli and red pepper salad that was frozen solid, so I couldn’t eat it, but I suspect it was low-fat.</P><P>I couldn’t eat most of the meal – just the chicken and veggies. I had forgotten my snacks at home, but luckily, a flight attendant got me a cup full of nuts because the meal was inedible and would have made me sick. It would have pushed up my blood sugar and it would have been difficult to lower it again, as I was stuck sitting on a plane for hours. Imagine if I had been a type-2 diabetic trying to control my diabetes through LCHF?</P><P>The “diabetic” breakfast was a processed fruit cup, a muffin and a V8. I ate nothing.</P><P>Thanks!</P></BLOCKQUOTE><P><IMG class="size-post-size wp-image-10929 aligncenter" alt="No sugar added" src="/Screen-Shot-2014-03-11-at-161638-650x519.png" width=650 height=519></P><P>High-carb low-fat food for diabetics? That’s insane. But it could have been worse, they could have added a bottle of fruit juice.</P><P><B>LCHF for Beginners</B></P><P><B>How to Lose Weight</B></P><P>More weight and health stories</P><P><B>How to Normalize Your Blood Sugar</B></P><P>Do you have a success story you want to share on this blog? Send it (photos appreciated) to andreas@dietdoctor.com, and please let me know if it’s OK to publish your photo and name or if you’d rather remain anonymous.</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.dietdoctor.com/discovering-airline-diabetic-meal?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=discovering-airline-diabetic-meal" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4845735516817376536.post-52196361340901865202014-03-18T21:44:00.000-07:002014-03-18T21:44:00.663-07:00“No greater insanity” is more like it <P>The other day I read a news article about churches in Kentucky that are offering incentives to “unchurched” men in order to bring them into the congregation. Do I even have to make you guess?</P><P>From the Courier-Journal</EM> of March 1: “In an effort its spokesman has described as ‘outreach to rednecks,’ the Kentucky Baptist Convention is leading ‘Second Amendment Celebrations,’ where churches around the state give away guns as door prizes to lure in nonbelievers in hopes of converting them to Christ.”</P><P><IMG class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2905" alt=AR-15 src="http://ippnweupdate.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/ar-15.jpg?w=120&h=300" width=120 height=300>Chuck McAlister, the Convention’s “team leader for evangelism” (I kid you not…there’s a video), goes on to say that his goal is to “help people have an encounter with Jesus” and that “the number of unchurched men who will show up will be in direct proportion to the number of guns you give away.” I guess Louisville Sluggers just won’t do the trick with these particular prodigal sons.</P><P>A few days later, Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s team leader for unrestricted gun violence, told the Conservative Political Action Conference (their motto: “Find someone who’s farther to the right than us…we dare you!”) that “there is no greater freedom than the right to survive and protect our families with all the rifles, shotguns and handguns we want.”</P><P>Sounds like Wayne should make a side trip to Louisville to restock, or maybe he can just enter the contest that showed up in my e-mail today. Readers of a blindingly right-wing online “news” service (“we accept your dare, CPAC!”) are being offered a chance to win a “top quality Colt 6920 AR-15 rifle.” To enter, just sign up with the National Association for Gun Rights, and support their “aggressive program designed to mobilize public opposition to anti-gun legislation.” You won’t even have to go to church.</P><br /><p><a href="http://peaceandhealthblog.com/2014/03/11/insanity/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>neerajseolinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05582130397527406131noreply@blogger.com