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Congress’ move on birthcontrol pills the right one
ROBERT THERRIAULT Albany

    I am a product of the ’60s, and one of the major issues of that time was women’s rights. One of the most famous slogans, and book titles, of that era was “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” This, of course, led to all kinds of socio-political-economic-legal changes. One of these changes was women’s access to birth-control pills.
    I have recently received correspondence from Planned Parenthood, of which I am a supporter and member, to the effect that Congress is tinkering with the price of birth control pills — so much so they will no longer be readily available to low-income women.
    Back in the ’60s, when I was in my 20s, I would say “Yea, free birth control pills for all women.” But back then I was an idiot. Now, I no longer think that birth control pills are the best method for women to attain “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”
    Women’s bodies, and also men’s bodies, operate on natural biological rhythms. There are natural ways for women to know whether or not they are fertile. Here is a women’s Web site which will tell you all you need to know http://www.epigee.org/  guide/natural.html.     

Too late Robert! The damage was already done over 40years ago. It was the 60's alright. The statement JFK was making was, 'ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU, ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY'! But the idiots were saying, 'ASK NOT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR SOMEONE ELSE, ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOURSELF!' That was the begining fo the 'It's all about ME' generation. And we wonder where the kids get it today.

Here's my thought on birthcontrol pills..... I don't really care how much they cost, and I don't care if they hand them out for free. However, I do have an issue with them being covered under medical insurance. And also believe that the minimum age should be raised to acquire these pills. I know some may be thinking that then there will be an even larger number of teen pregnancies, but when the hell are we, as a society, going to teach these kids morals, values, constraint and responsibility?

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HEALTH
Obese kids face higher risk of heart disease as adults
BY STEPHANIE NANO The Associated Press

    NEW YORK — The chicken nuggets are coming home to roost. By the time today’s teens are middle-aged, the rate of heart disease could be 16 percent higher because of the extra pounds they are carrying around today, a U.S. study suggests.
    A second study, by Danish researchers, documents a connection between excess weight in even younger kids and heart disease in adults, especially boys.
    The two reports in the New England Journal of Medicine may well be underestimating the future health effects of childhood obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, director of an obesity program at Children’s Hospital Boston.
    “We’ve simply never had a generation that’s been this heavy from so early in life. The consequences of that are unprecedented and unknown,” said Ludwig, who was not involved in the research.
NOT A COMPUTER MODEL
    While the U.S. projections were based on a computer model, the Danish study is a large, decadeslong look at what happened in real life to 277,000 children as they grew up. Some 14,500 of them — twice as many men as women — had heart disease or died from it before age 60.
    The researchers found that the more overweight a child was between ages 7 and 13, the greater the risk of heart disease was in adulthood. The relationship was strongest in boys and increased with age.
    For example, an average-size 13-year-old boy had a 12 percent risk. But for a boy of the same age and height who weighed about 25 pounds more, the risk went up by one-third, to 16 percent.
    “Our findings suggest that as children are becoming heavier worldwide, greater numbers of them are at risk of having a [coronary heart disease] event in adulthood,” said the researchers from the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Copenhagen.
    Today, about a third of U.S. youngsters are either overweight or obese. Increasing numbers of obese children are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, bad cholesterol and other obesity complications that were seldom seen in children before.
    Some of those complications are risk factors for heart disease, which could explain the link between childhood weight and a higher risk of heart disease, the Danish researchers suggest. Or it could be because many heavy children — although not all — become heavy adults, they said.
EVERY CHILD IN DENMARK
    Their study used detailed health records kept for every schoolchild in Denmark. They calculated the body mass index, which is based on height and weight, for children born between 1930 and 1976. Using hospital discharge records and a death registry, they tracked the children from age 25 to find out who had heart disease by age 60.
    One of the researchers, Jennifer Baker, said previous studies that have looked at the issue have been inconsistent, and this is the “first to convincingly demonstrate that excess weight in childhood is associated with heart disease in adulthood.”
    The U.S. researchers used obesity figures for U.S. teens in 2000 to estimate that as many as 37 percent of men would be obese when they reached 35, compared with 25 percent now. For women, as many as 44 percent would be obese; now the rate is 32 percent.
    Using a computer model, they estimated that by the time the teens are 50, the rate of heart disease will rise 5 percent to 16 percent — as many as 100,000 extra cases. They also projected heart disease deaths could rise by as much as 19 percent.
    “If we do nothing, the health consequences are really going to be quite dramatic,” said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, of the University of California, San Francisco, lead author of the study.
    Projections of increasing rates of heart disease and deaths between ages 35 and 50 were particularly striking, she said.
    “This is an age when people are normally working, they’re raising their families. They’re not worried about going to the doctor or worried about dying or having a heart attack,” said Bibbins-Domingo.
    The researchers noted that their predictions are based on current treatments and trends for obesity and heart disease, and changes in prevention and treatment could make a difference.

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Study: Taking meds at night may help

    WASHINGTON — Taking a blood pressure pill at bedtime instead of in the morning might be healthier for some high-risk people.
    New research suggests that simple switch may normalize patterns of blood pressure in patients at extra risk from the twin epidemics of heart and kidney disease.
    Why? When it comes to blood pressure, you want to be a dipper. In healthy people, blood pressure dips at night, by 10 to 20 percent. Scientists don’t know why, but suspect the drop gives arteries a little rest.
    People with high blood pressure that doesn’t dip at night — the nondippers — fare worse than other hypertension sufferers, developing more serious heart disease. Moreover, heart and kidney disease fuel each other — and the 26 million Americans with chronic kidney disease seem most prone to nondipping. In addition to heart problems, they’re at extra risk of their kidney damage worsening to the point of dialysis.
    Most blood pressure patients need two or three medications. So Italian researchers performed an easy test: They told 32 non-dippers with kidney disease to switch one of those drugs from a morning to a bedtime dose. In two months, nearly 90 percent of these high-risk patients had turned into dippers. Their nighttime blood pressure dropped an average of 7 points, without side effects or increase in daytime blood pressure.

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Study: Uninsured cancer patients likely to die sooner
The Associated Press

    ATLANTA — Uninsured cancer patients are nearly twice as likely to die within five years as those with private coverage, according to the first national study of its kind and one that sheds light on troubling health care obstacles.
    People without health insurance are less likely to get recommended cancer screening tests, the study also found, confirming earlier research. And when these patients fi - nally do get diagnosed, their cancer is likely to have spread.
    The research by scientists with the American Cancer Society offers important context for the national discussion about health care reform, experts say — even though the uninsured are believed to account for just a fraction of U.S. cancer deaths. An Associated Press analysis suggests it is around 4 percent.
    Those dealing with cancer and inadequate insurance weren’t surprised by the findings.
    “I would just like for something to be done to help someone else, so they don’t have to go through what we went through,” said Peggy Hicks, a Florida woman whose husband died in August from colon cancer.
    Edward Hicks was uninsured, and a patchwork health care system delayed him from getting chemotherapy that some argue might have extended his life.
    “He was so ill. And you’re trying to get him help and you can’t, you can’t,” said his 67-year-old widow.
    The new research is being published in Cancer, the cancer society’s medical journal. In an accompanying editorial, the society’s president repeated the organization’s call for action to fix holes in the health care safety net.
    “The truth is that our national reluctance to face these facts is condemning thousands of people to die from cancer each year,” Dr. Elmer Huerta wrote.
    Hard numbers linking insurance status and cancer deaths are scarce, in part because death certificates don’t say whether those who died were insured.
    An Associated Press estimate — based on hospital cancer deaths in 2005 gathered by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality information and other data — suggests that at least 20,000 of the nation’s 560,000 annual cancer deaths are uninsured when they die. Experts said that estimate sounds reasonable.

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People without health insurance are less likely to get recommended cancer screening tests, the study also found, confirming earlier research. And when these patients fi - nally do get diagnosed, their cancer is likely to have spread.

basically everyone is a cancer patient.....why?

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Bill aims to preserve patient access
Congress acts to head off Medicare policy that could affect hospitals here
By LAUREN STANFORTH, Staff writer  
First published: Friday, December 21, 2007

Congress has passed a Medicare regulation that saves two local rehabilitation hospitals from potentially losing patients.
The regulation allows facilities like Northeast Health's Eddy Cohoes Rehabilitation in Cohoes and Sunnyview Rehabilitation in Schenectady to keep their population mix at current levels -- a mix that includes people recovering from immediate trauma, as well as others who need help after cardiac problems or knee and hip replacements.
     
The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services had proposed that 75 percent of patients seen at inpatient rehabilitation facilities and hospitals with rehabilitation units must meet one of 13 predetermined medical conditions by summer next year for them to qualify for Medicare reimbursement overall. Those conditions include stroke, brain injury, amputation or hip fracture.
Currently, 60 percent of patients must meet the predetermined medical requirements. The U.S. Senate passed a bill Tuesday, and the House followed suit Wednesday that would keep the cap at 60 percent.
Health officials said that under the 75 percent rule many patients would have to be turned away who wouldn't qualify for the list, such as people who needed rehabilitation after heart surgery or those recovering from cardiac and lung problems and joint replacement.
"It would have been hundreds of patients that would have lost access," at Sunnyview, said Edward "Chip" Eisenman, Sunnyview's CEO. Sunnyview has 104 acute rehab beds, while Eddy Cohoes has about 22 beds for that population.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., visited Sunnyview in October to protest the measure and announce his own bill that would cap the requirement at the current 60 percent. Sunnyview and Eddy are two of the only four rehabilitation hospitals in New York state. Hospitals that have their own rehab units, such as Albany Medical Center and St. Peter's Hospital, would also have been affected.

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Girl dies hours after insurer agrees to pay for transplant
BY ALICIA CHANG The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — The family of a 17-year-old girl who died hours after her health insurer reversed a decision and said it would pay for a liver transplant plans to sue the company, their attorney said Friday.
    Nataline Sarkisyan died Thursday at about 6 p.m. at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center. She had been in a vegetative state for weeks, said her mother, Hilda.
    Attorney Mark Geragos said he plans to ask the district attorney to press murder or manslaughter charges against Cigna HealthCare in the case. The insurer “maliciously killed her” because it did not want to bear the expense of her transplant and aftercare, Geragos said.
    District Attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons declined to comment on the request for murder or manslaughter charges, saying it would be inappropriate to do so until Geragos submits evidence supporting his request.
    The family’s “loss is immeasurable, and our thoughts and prayers are with them,” Cigna said in a news release Friday.
    “We deeply hope that the outpouring of concern, care and love that are being expressed for Nataline’s family help them at this time,” the company said.
    Nataline had been battling leukemia and received a bone marrow transplant from her brother. She developed a complication that caused her liver to fail.
    Doctors at UCLA determined she needed a transplant and sent a letter to Cigna Corp.’s Cigna HealthCare on Dec. 11. The Philadelphia-based health insurance company denied payment for the transplant, saying the procedure was experimental and outside the scope of coverage.
    The insurer reversed the decision Thursday as about 150 teenagers and nurses rallied outside of its office. But Nataline died hours later.
    “They took my daughter away from me,” said Nataline’s father, Krikor, who appeared at the news conference with his 21-year-old son, Bedros.
    Despite the reversal, Cigna said in an e-mail statement before she died that there was a lack of medical evidence showing the procedure would work in Nataline’s case.
    “Cigna HealthCare has decided to make an exception in this rare and unusual case and we will provide coverage should she proceed with the requested liver transplant,” that statement read.
    In their letter, the UCLA doctors said patients in situations similar to Nataline’s who undergo transplants have a six-month survival rate of about 65 percent.

This is absolute bullsh** people!! And this is just the tip of the iceberg...just wait until we end up with socialized medicine! Our medical decisions should be between us and our doctors. We are NOT stupid. We don't need an advocate to speak in our behalf when it comes to our medical needs.

Clearly, there was NOT an advocate needed for this 17year old girl. It seemed pretty cut and dry to me! I'd sue their a**!!

And I know people who have Cigna Insurance....and they say it 'sucks'!

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We don't need an advocate to speak in our behalf when it comes to our medical needs.

but, we have allowed insurance companies(not just health care) to be our 'managers'.....now we dont like it.....the government wont do any better....the government just makes things "equal"....which means your liver transplant isn't any more important than mine...so be ready for the first come first serve system.....no different than waiting in line at your local fast food joint.....

we are not the same or equal inside our bodies when disease happens.....unless there were super-duper environmental controls(this would include the amount of pollen in the air, to the amount of rain, temperature, food supply etc) we are all affected differently and respond differently to ALL medical treatments,,,,that is why the use of the term healthcare gives false ideology about the systems to the people,,healthcare itself is VERY individual and multifaceted........

WE HAVE MADE OUR CO-PAY COSTS OUR ADVOCATES....

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That speaks volumes about us as a society and our priorities----I saw ALOT of full bars the nite of the game---I'm sure they were filled with who----
"My baby's daddy."

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Without quality primary care, we can’t cure system
BY KEVIN KARPOWICZ For The Sunday Gazette

    There is a serious and deepening crisis in the primary care delivery system in Schenectady County. If we do not address this crisis, any hospital reorganization solution will fail.
    High-quality primary care services are critical to ease the burden of preventable hospitalizations. Although more money is spent in and on hospitals, the best way to save money is not just reorganizing the hospital system, but reorganizing the basic primary health care system, which could handle a significant portion of the care now delivered in hospitals.
    Access to quality primary care services for the poor in Schenectady has been limited, and will only become more so unless we solve this crisis.
    A healthy primary care system would provide quality care to all, including preventative care and care of chronic medical conditions. Chronic disease is responsible for the majority of health care costs. Consistent, quality primary care can prevent a vast majority of the chronic disease complications that are responsible for many hospitalizations — especially among the poor.
PERSONAL CARE CRUCIAL
    I have been providing primary health care, primarily for disadvantaged children in Schenectady, since 1980. Without a doubt, the most important care that can be delivered is personal care, within a relationship, following quality principles. It is this health-guiding relationship that can improve the status of those afflicted with a chronic disease. It is this chronic care model of health care delivery that is the key to eliminating the many health care disparities that exist in this country and in this community.
    There are wonderful health care providers in this community — physicians, physician assistants, nurses and nurse practitioners —who have dedicated their careers to the same purpose: quality care for those born into or fallen into disadvantage. What these wonderful individuals do not have is an infrastructure enabling them to work together to provide the best quality and coordinated care.
    The various institutions delivering health care services in the community have followed the Schenectady Curse, which began in the 1600s when infighting over who should guard the city gate allowed the gate to be unguarded and the city was burned down.
GREAT ASSETS PLUS FLAWS
    No current organization is sacred. Each has great assets, the most important being the individuals who are serving their fellow man, and each is flawed.
    The Schenectady Free Clinic has been a remarkably successful effort of mostly retired physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other volunteers, helped greatly by our community hospitals and by private-practice physicians, optometrists and podiatrists. It provides high-quality care to the very vulnerable uninsured people of Schenectady County. But it is struggling to meet the ever greater demand. Hometown Health Centers, a federally qualified health center dedicated to serving all, regardless of payment source, also is struggling. St. Clare’s Hospital and St. Clare’s Family Health Center, with its Family Practice Residency Program, tries to provide the ultimate safety net within an environment where quality care and teaching the next generation of health care providers can occur, but also struggles as the county’s end-ofthe-line provider.
    For most of my 28-year career I was in the for-profit system, sort of. I served primarily the disadvantaged and cared for all, regardless of income or insurance. With some of the innovative programs of New York State Medicaid, in particular the Preferred Provider Program, I was able to survive, even eke out a slight profit in some years. When Medicaid became more managed care, I thought this would improve access for the disadvantaged. But then disparities resumed.
    Physicians could opt out of the managed-care Medicaid product, limiting access again. Then the insurers selectively decreased reimbursement for the children with publicly funded insurance. When the main insurer for the children I cared for decreased the reimbursement by $5 per visit, my margin and my mission were over.
    It was for this reason that I chose to join Hometown Health Centers in 2005; the Medicaid rate of reimbursement at a community health center is substantially more than a private practice. On the surface, it appeared to be a positive move for both of us.
SAFETY NET TATTERED
    It is clear that the politics of health care force the disadvantaged out of the for-profit sector and into a different tier of health care. How does underfunding the primary care of children in the private sector help anyone — except forcing the poor to prop up struggling clinics? Can these organizations be capable of providing the kind of safety net the disadvantaged truly need?
    I believed at one time the answer was yes. But as the struggles to provide care are overwhelmed by struggles for the survival of the institution, the answer is now a resounding no.
    When the focus of the administration of health centers is solely on the financial struggles and fi - nancial recovery, the quality of care becomes secondary. When the quality of care becomes a secondary consideration and the patient is no longer at the center of the health care delivery system, the patient suffers. I could not work in such an environment and chose to resign from Hometown Health Centers.
    Schenectady needs a new infrastructure to provide the primary care safety net. It is clear that the three current institutions serving the poor are all going to fail separately. If they do not fail outright, they will fail to provide the quality care for all who need it. If the safety net fails, then it doesn’t matter what the state Health Department does to implement the Berger Commission recommendations, for it, too, will fail.
    We must, as a health care community, collaborate and plan a new infrastructure that will be comprehensive and will place patients and the relationship with their health care providers at the center.
    We have all of the pieces and we have all of the individuals to create this new infrastructure. I do not know if we have the will or the fi - nancial backing to make it real.
STATE BEARS BURDEN
    Some of the Berger Commission funding derives from state Medicaid audits. I suspect that health care institutions in Schenectady County have already contributed substantially to this fund via this audit process. The extent of these penalties have yet to be made public.
    These penalties, too, contribute to the failure of our local institutions.
    I urge that a primary focus of the state Health Department be to fund both the planning for and implementation of this infrastructure. The uncertainty that arose due to the Berger Commission and the implementation of public financed health insurance both are directly responsible for the crumbling safety net. New York state bears the responsibility. The people of Schenectady can fix it, but only with help from the state.
    Partner with us to look closely at the needs of a primary care safety net. Help us make this collaborative plan the focus of the health care system in Schenectady. Propping up failing institutions may be needed in the short term, but this must be linked with a long-term, comprehensive plan to provide primary care for all.
    We need an organized and funded planning system. And we need individuals in leadership who are willing to put aside their own ambitions and their own organizations and place the needs of our citizens first. For without this in place, no hospital reorganization plan will work.

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U.S. to study bizarre medical condition
By MIKE STOBBE, Associated Press
Wednesday, January 16, 2008

ATLANTA -- It sounds like a freakish ailment from a horror movie: Sores erupt on your skin, mysterious threads pop out of them, and you feel like tiny bugs are crawling all over you. Some experts believe it's a psychiatric phenomenon, yet hundreds of people say it's a true physical condition. It's called Morgellons, and now the government is about to begin its first medical study of it.
     
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is paying California-based health care giant Kaiser Permanente $338,000 to test and interview patients suffering from Morgellons' bizarre symptoms. The one-year effort will attempt to define the condition and better determine how common it is.
The study will be done in northern California, the source of many of the reports of Morgellons (pronounced mor-GELL-uns). Researchers will begin screening for patients immediately, CDC officials said Wednesday. A Kaiser official expects about 150 to 500 study participants.
Morgellons sufferers describe symptoms that include erupting sores, fatigue, the sensation of bugs crawling over them and -- perhaps worst of all -- mysterious red, blue or black fibers that sprout from their skin. They've documented their suffering on Web sites.
Some doctors believe the condition is a form of delusional parasitosis, a psychosis in which people believe they are infected with parasites.
In the study, volunteers will get blood tests and skin exams, as well as psychological evaluations, said Dr. Michele Pearson, who leads a CDC task force overseeing the study.
Pearson suggested the study will help determine if Morgellons is the same as delusional parasitosis or something new.
Study participants will be drawn from Kaiser's 3.4 million health insurance customers living mainly in the Sacramento and San Francisco areas and as far south as Fresno.
CDC officials acknowledged the study is limited and the results won't give a complete picture of the problem.
Randy Wymore, an Oklahoma State University pharmacologist, who believes the condition is not a psychiatric one, says there is distrust by some Morgellons sufferers toward the new study.
Some of these patients who are Kaiser Permanente members have said they don't like the way they've been treated by Kaiser doctors and probably won't participate, said Wymore, who formerly was a research director for a patient group and hears constantly from Morgellons patients.
"They felt that Kaiser was particularly unreceptive to treating them for anything other than a psychiatric disorder," said Wymore.
A Kaiser official said he had not heard such complaints. No patient will be excluded from participation, even if a doctor previously determined the problem was psychological, said Dr. Joe Selby, director of research for Kaiser Permanente Northern California.
Kaiser researchers will look in their records for previous patients who in the last 18 months reported Morgellons-like symptoms. They will be asked to participate in more medical evaluations.
Any fibers or specks that are collected will be analyzed at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Selby said. Doctors who believe the condition is psychiatric suspect fibers are likely just threads from clothing.

The CDC has been getting more than a dozen calls a week from self-diagnosed Morgellons patients for well over a year, and was urged to investigate by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and others.
Some say they've suffered for decades, but the syndrome did not get a name until 2002, when "Morgellons" was chosen from a 1674 medical paper describing similar symptoms.

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Any fibers or specks that are collected will be analyzed at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Selby said. Doctors who believe the condition is psychiatric suspect fibers are likely just threads from clothing.

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mysterious red, blue or black fibers that sprout from their skin

Maybe it is an effect of cooking on teflon pans and eating the teflon that flakes off into our food????