http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/ A checkup on health, medicine and related issues. en Copyright 2008 Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:21:09 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss (via The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog). The report (*.pdf)analyzed almost 450,000 people who requested a price or asked to be contacted by a sales representative. Those deemed uninsurable (or who might have to pay a prohibitively high price for insurance) typically had pre-existing conditions or were obese, according to the information they provided. Two-thirds of those deemed uninsurable were women, with pregnancy or a prior c-section being major factors. But the significance of that figure is difficult to gauge because two-thirds of the online shoppers were women. It is not clear how proposals to allow more people to shop for their own health insurance might be affected by this finding. It suggests, however, that any such plan, if it aims for universal coverage, will have to take into account the large number of people currently deemed uninsurable.]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/uninsurable_at_any_price.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/uninsurable_at_any_price.shtml Insurance Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:21:09 -0500 here. John McCain is here. The journal also has a roundtable discussion on health care in the next administration. Video is here and a transcript (*.pdf file) is here.]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/in_their_own_words_or_words_of.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/in_their_own_words_or_words_of.shtml Health Care Reform Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:50:40 -0500 another analysis of presidential candidate Barack Obama's health-care plan, this one by Maggie Mahar of The Health Care Blog, based on a review by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan economic and social-policy think tank.]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/because_i_know_you_cant_get_en.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/because_i_know_you_cant_get_en.shtml Health Care Reform Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:13:47 -0500 comes this news: In case of an anthrax-related terrorist attack, doses of antibiotics might be coming your way via your neighborhood letter carrier. It sounds weird until you realize that postal workers cover the entire community six days a week. Letter carriers "are constantly helping out as just part of their job, and this is taking it one step further,” a union representative is quoted as saying. That's not just blowing smoke. Carriers frequently check on older residents on their routes, for example. And I can point to one example in my own life. The morning after my daughter was born, my mother-in-law accidentally left the oven on in our house when she left for the hospital. Our letter carrier heard the smoke alarm going off and, finding no one home, roused our next-door neighbor, who tracked me down at the hospital so I could come home and make sure the house wasn't on fire. ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/neither_rain_nor_snow_nor_gloo.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/neither_rain_nor_snow_nor_gloo.shtml Public health Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:53:49 -0500 here and here, respectively. Go check it out.]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/awareness_breast_cancer_lead_p.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/awareness_breast_cancer_lead_p.shtml Public health Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:44:44 -0500 here.]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/cdc_goes_viral.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/cdc_goes_viral.shtml Flu Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:37:59 -0500 an excellent article yesterday on how good medical research is supposed to work, how much weight it should be given and why its results are sometimes surprising. It's good background info for a general audience.]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/and_speaking_of_research.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/and_speaking_of_research.shtml Research Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:51:26 -0500 Health Blog notes, last year and prompted a review of several dozen studies that compared health outcomes of people taking statins with people taking a placebo. In short, reseachers found no significant difference in the rate of development of ALS between the two groups. A finding to the contrary would have been significant, given that statins, which lower cholesterol, are among the most widely prescribed drugs in the world. ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/do_statins_increase_your_risk.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/10/do_statins_increase_your_risk.shtml Research Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:43:23 -0500 recent events, the New England Journal of Medicine's Web site is chockablock this week with publicly available information related to the two major candidates' health plans. At a forum Sept. 12, co-sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health and the New England Journal of Medicine, health advisers to the two major presidential candidates offered their views. Links to video and the transcript are here. Also available online:

• An examination of the role of campaign contributions and lobbying in U.S. health care.
• Statements from John McCain and Barack Obama on their respective health plans.
• Critical outside examinations of both McCain's and Obama's plans.

There's a lot to chew over, and given recent economic events the temptation is to give up on any sort of health-care reform at all for now. But I suspect whoever wins isn't going to give up, so we might as well get some idea of what the winner will be trying to do starting in January.]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/at_least_a_rhetorical_exercise.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/at_least_a_rhetorical_exercise.shtml Health Care Reform Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:23:13 -0500 I wrote about how a lot of drugs and procedures either aren't effective or address symptoms without treating the underlying cause. Such waste constitutes roughly a third of the more than $2.1 trillion we spend annually on health care, and it's almost ten times the highest estimate of what we could save with a national conversion to electronic health records. The waste isn't just money, either. It's lives. The Institute of Medicine estimates that the number of annual U.S. deaths from preventable medical errors alone is between 44,000 and 98,000. The biggest reason why the waste is so enormous is, of course, how common such wasteful drugs and procedures are. And how common is that? Via The Health Care Blog comes an article in Miller-McCune magazine that says your odds of getting the best evidence-based health care are roughly 55 percent -- barely better than a coin toss. The figure differs according to the medical problem, the article says: Breast-cancer patients are likely to get the best evidence-based care about 76 percent of the time, but hip-fracture patients get it only about 23 percent of the time. More disturbingly, patients receive a type of care they actually shouldn't receive about 20 percent of the time for chronic conditions (diabetes, say) and 30 percent of the time for acute ones (such as heart attack or stroke), a trend likely contributing to the numbers noted by the Institute of Medicine. And socioeconomic factors don't appear to make any difference, so even the wealthy at the best medical centers aren't immune, so to speak. The article examines how doctors practice medicine as the basis for why the best evidence-based practices aren't followed. And it puts some blame on patients, who may insist on a type of care they don't actually need -- an insistence to which some doctors succumb rather than risk a malpractice suit. Changing this approach will be an enormous project, but the payoff in lives and dollars makes such change essential. ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/will_you_get_the_most_effectiv.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/will_you_get_the_most_effectiv.shtml Health Care Reform Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:06:23 -0500 UPDATE: There may not be any tax cuts for a while, either, and the sunsetting of the tax cuts of the early Bush 43 administration may now be a foregone conclusion, particularly if the Democrats strengthen their hold on Congress. ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/new_federal_health_plan_doa.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/new_federal_health_plan_doa.shtml Health Care Reform Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:42:31 -0500 I wrote in April about a Greensboro practice that offers CT scanning -- "virtual colonoscopy" -- as an alternative to traditional colonoscopy for detecting colon cancer or polyps that could become cancerous. A front-page wire story earlier this week cited a study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that found virtual colonoscopy 90% effective in detecting large adenomas and cancers (those measuring 10mm or more in diameter). That rate is roughly comparable to that of traditional colonoscopy. The article said Medicare is considering covering the procedure, and where Medicare goes, a lot of private insurers probably will follow. (We don't archive wire stories, but a similar story is here.)]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/a_study_of_virtual_colonoscopy.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/a_study_of_virtual_colonoscopy.shtml Research Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:20:41 -0500 a huge roundup of links to analyses and opinion pieces. It's got to be at least a day's worth of reading, but then perhaps one day isn't too much to spend looking at the country's health care problems and the various proposals on the table for addressing them. (Well, I say "on the table," but whether much of anything can get through Congress is a question for another day.)]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/drinking_from_a_fire_hose_of_h.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/drinking_from_a_fire_hose_of_h.shtml Health Care Reform Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:05:08 -0500 the Health Affairs blog, here are critiques of the health-care reform plans of major presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Health Affairs also links to an essay by an economist who sees potential areas of compromise in the plans. Endorsement of the candidates' respective health plans, the critiques and/or the essay is neither expressed nor implied; I'm just passing these on for whatever they might be worth. UPDATE: The articles will be freely available for only two weeks, so act now.]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/analyses_of_presidential_candi.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/analyses_of_presidential_candi.shtml Health Care Reform Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:08:32 -0500 e-mail or call 373-7088.]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/ice_in_case_of_emergency.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/health/2008/09/ice_in_case_of_emergency.shtml Safety Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:05:18 -0500