From the NYTimes, “Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Moving From South Asia to U.S.“: A dangerous new mutation that makes some bacteria resistant to almost all antibiotics has become increasingly common in India and Pakistan and is being found in patients in Britain and the United States who got medical care in those countries, according to new studies. …
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Fear Is the Mind Killer
Dr. Atul Gawande has a typically thoughtful article on hospice care in the August 2 issue of the New Yorker: … When there is no way of knowing exactly how long our skeins will run—and when we imagine ourselves to have much more time than we do—our every impulse is to fight, to die with …
Lawn Ardour, Justice Thomas!
It may still be possible for a poor, non-white American citizen mistreated by The Proper Authorities to get justice — or at least some media attention — under the most difficult circumstances. As long as said citizen is related to every Heartland Authoritarian(tm)’s second-favorite non-white Supreme Court Justice: Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas and family …
A Right to Arms, But Not Shoulders
Back in March, our gracious bloghost John Cole wrote a post about his shoulder surgery: … I fell on the ice while carrying my dog and managed to land in such a way that I dislocated my shoulder, shattered my glenoid in multiple places, wrecked my labrum, detached my bicep, and basically decimated my shoulder. …
Good News for California
From the AP, via the Washington Post, “Anthem Blue Cross withdraws big CA rate hike”: Insurance giant Anthem Blue Cross, the company criticized by President Barack Obama when it proposed raising rates for Californians by as much as 39 percent, withdrew plans for the proposed hike Thursday. __ Los Angeles-based Anthem made the decision after …
The Lowden Plan Medical Chicken Calculator
This (“A simple healthcare plan anyone with a few thousand live chickens can use!”) is hilarious… Senate hopeful Sue Lowden’s plan for Healthcare reform is to barter chickens for medical procedures. But you may be unsure how many chickens are required for your medical care. This handy calculator converts many common procedures into chickens so …
The Lowden Plan Medical Chicken CalculatorPost + Comments (42)
Death Panel by Algorithm
Murray Waas, award-winning investigative journalist, reports that “Insurer [Wellpoint] targeted breast cancer patients to cancel“: … None of the women knew about the others. But besides their similar narratives, they had something else in common: Their health insurance carriers were subsidiaries of WellPoint, which has 33.7 million policyholders — more than any other health insurance …