What is Medicaid?

This is shocking. That is all.

Daily Op-Ed on Stem Cell Research

This is coming a little late, but check out the op-ed on stem cell research we got published in the Michigan Daily last week!

Not-so Socialized Medicine

Hopefully some of you have already seen this article in today's New York Times about the corruption in Romania's health care system. Basically, it's impossible to receive [any] quality health care--albeit universal coverage is provided to citizens by the government--without excessive bribes to doctors (about $1 million USD's worth of "informal payments" per day, according to a survey by the World Bank, mentioned in this article). Otherwise, patients are simply refused care.

There have been some measures to reduce the bribe system, but it has been a problem for many years (i.e., rule under the Communist party). Many doctors believe they deserve to earn more than they actually do--according to the Southeast European Times , Romanian doctors earn about 10 times less than those in western EU nations. In order to prevent an exodus of doctors, Romania has proposed measures requiring new doctors to remain in the country, in an attempt to prevent their health care system from crumbling any further.

It's tricky finding any current health sector reform projects from outside groups (WHO, World Bank) that directly mention dealing with bribery, although one specifies investigation of patient deaths "within 48 hours and discharge for patients with major trauma or cardiac emergencies arriving alive at the hospital emergency department." Hm. The NYTimes mentions that patients are regularly ignored if they don't appear to be 'emergency-cases' or if they fail to offer a substantial enough bribe.

Additionally, many Romanians are afraid to report making bribes for fear that they will not be accepted by other doctors! Interesting to see how 'socialized medicine' works in the EU's No. 2 Most Corrupt Country...after Bulgaria (surprise!).

10 Secrets Successful Bloggers Know

Laura McClure, Multimedia Editor of motherjones.com, created this awesome list for blogging best practices. Check it out...take from it what you will.  

10 Secrets Successful Bloggers Know

1) Everyone loves a list

2)Most people also love embedded video, polls, charts, photos, or primary source documents.  If you need a blog post idea and are coming up blank, try picking one of these options, adding "of the day," and matching topic to fit.

3)Longer than 600 words is too long.  When in doubt, make it two posts.

4)  Start with the assumption that all your blog readers have already devoured the NY Times that morning, and probably at least skimmed the Washington Post as well.  Use different sources than these.  BBC, the Guardian, Foreign Policy, Politico Der Spiegel, Grist, the LA Times, HuffPo, Mental Floss, The New Scientist, BoingBoing, MetaFilter, Neatorama, AndrewSullivan.com, Wonkette, Kevin Drum's MotherJones.com blog, the from page of Digg- these are good starting points; branch out from there.

5) Being timely matters.  Want to know what's timely right now? Try searching Twitter (sidenote: I just got a Twitter account so (if you have one too) find me and let's share tweets!)

6) Aim to include at least five links per post.  To maximize search engine optimization make your anchor tags proper nouns, catchphrases, and other keywords people might search for in Google.

7) Headlines really matter.  Start with a keyword when possible, and make it catchy.

8) Consistently link to the blogs you wish would link to you; also join their comment threads.  And don't be afraid to email posts you've written to blogs you like- a little chutzpah goes a long way.

9) If you're funny, be funny.  If you're not, be cocktail party conversational.  The best bloggers are both.

10) You can write about anything you want, as long as you make it interesting and leave people a small but useful factoid as a party favor.

Kristof - Franklin Delano Obama

To add to the health care debate, New York Times' columnist Nicholas Kristof (my personal favorite columnist in the country) wrote his last column discussing at first Obama's health care proposal, but more generally the state of the American health system in the rest of the world. [You can read the column itself here].

Kristof attacks the notion that the United States has the best health care system in the world by using a different methodology than is commonly seen when comparing health car systems. For example, he uses the fact that, "Even the people of Cyprus live longer than Americans, according to United Nations figures."

I have an immeadiate qualm with this argument: to narrow the level of the health care debate to life expectancy alone is inherently flawed, and does not account for other necessary considerations. Kristof is smarter than this, and is probably just using this for a punchline, but I was still disappointed to see him do so.

Anyway - Kristof continues his piece while analyzing how the bottom (in GDP per capita) of the population receive health care. And this leads me to my question for this post - what subset of the population should be looking at in order to rank health care (or more generally other institutions) across countries? I find it necessary, though extremely unfair, to single out the bottom to make a political point. For example, Japan's GINI Index is much lower than the US's, and therefore corresponds to less income disparrity across the population. Were we to manipulate statistics in such a fashion for Japan, one could make the argument that the top 25% of Japan receive substantially worse health care services than the corrseponding percentile in the United States.

Regardless of any of this, when did we start using the bottom of the population to measure a country's success? (I'm not necessarliy saying this isn't what we should be using - just raising a question) Were we to only look at the bottom of the American public school system, it would severely distort the fact that some of the greatest universities in the world are also in the public schools (including Berkeley, UVA, and of course Michigan).

All that being said, I generally agree with Kristof and Obama on the necessary policies we must enact for an improved health care system, but more for reasons like this: "Repairing the system is thus not only a moral imperative but also an economic one. American businesses are at a competitive disadvantage when they have to pay for health care and foreign companies don’t. Among General Motors’ burdens is that it has to pay health costs equivalent to $1,500 for each car it sells."

Those are the kind of statistics that are needed in this debate, not political manipulations of stats for a cheap point. (I'm sorry Nicholas, I really am a HUGE fan).

Jack Lessenberry on Health Care Reform in America

In honor of our Op-Ed writing event with Jack Lessenberry next week (March 11th, 5pm, Koessler Room at the League), I decided to post today on one of his recent essays about health care reform.  Here's Lessenberry's assessment of America's health care system today:

We have a health care system that for years has been held together by the equivalent of twine and paper clips, coupled with what used to be called "benign neglect." That's also known as the ability to overlook the millions without any health care coverage at all.

He also explains that hospitals are in crisis, laying off workers and facing problems due to the increasing number of uninsured.  

Michigan has more than 140 hospitals, and they are now losing money on patient care, according to the Michigan Health and Hospital Association.  Accordingly, a survey by Crain's Detroit Business found, they are laying off workers, cutting services, and delaying projects.

The hospitals will tell you that none of this affects the quality of patient care, but common sense will tell you that of course it must. 

This is a major problem since health care is supposed to be one of the next booming industries along with green technology.  

Lessenberry concludes his article by suggesting that eventually socialized medicine will not be looked upon so unfavorably in the U.S.  Do you agree with his conclusion?  Will circumstances lead Americans towards a socialized health care system or is the natural predisposition against socialized medicine too strong in America?  

Check out the full essay, here

BONUS:  Lessenberry interviewed Dr. Davis (our favorite doctor!) as a part of this essay/radio show.  Check out his interview!

Kathleen Sibelius...ready to serve?

Kathleen Sibelius, the newest nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, will be coming into the spotlight this week.  As Governor of Kansas since 2003, Sibelius has steadily risen in prominence within the Democratic Party.  She's well known for crossing the aisle to get legislation passed and is respected by both her Democratic and Republican colleagues.  

But the real question here is whether or not she is qualified to take charge on the proposed Obama health care reforms.  A former state insurance commissioner, Sibelius has been well received by the insurance industry, making me wonder whether her 'insider' status will be a benefit or hindrance to the reform process.  Also, her track record of moving forward health care reform legislation in Kansas is not extensive.  There has been some movement in the past few years to expand coverage for children and the underinsured, but nothing revolutionary to recommend her for this position.  

Tom Daschle had written a book about health care reform, served as a U.S. Senator for 18 years, and had an extensive rolodex.  Basically, he was a political operative with the knowledge, skills, and contacts to jettison health care reform into the mainstream consciousness. Unfortunately, he hadn't paid his taxes.

It's still unclear what exactly Sibelius will bring to this position.  If her nomination is passed, she'll have a long, hard road ahead of her.  Obama will most likely appoint someone different to head health care reform in the White House (he had originally planned to have Daschle serve in this role), making it unclear as to what role Sibelius will be playing in the reforms.  

While I have some doubts, for now I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.  Hopefully, she has studied the health care reform efforts of the Clinton era and learned from their mistakes.  And even more importantly, I hope she's paid all of her taxes.