Healthcare

“No thank you, I don’t want to join the national marrow donor program today. If you register, aren’t you forced to undergo an invasive, expensive surgery to save a stranger? I don’t want to risk my own health for someone else’s.”
It's shocking that people in our country have that mindset, let alone have the courage to say those thoughts out loud, right?

Working at “Be the Match” foundation, a part of the national marrow donor program, these past few weeks has really opened my eyes to the types of people and myths this foundation deals with and must overcome to ensure its success.

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Three years ago, when the Affordable Care Act was passed, the bill set up something that was unusually far-thinking by Washington standards: an ongoing funding source dedicated to preventing illness before it occurs.

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It will be downright unfair if Dr. Kermit Gosnell is found guilty of murder this week at his abortion-infanticide trial in Philadelphia.  His defense attorney made a convincing case in closing arguments that abortion doctors end pregnancies every day, so why single out Gosnell?    Perhaps he operated under particularly unsanitary conditions, was singularly incompetent, and committed medical malpractice, but, really, murder?

In fact, the judge in Gosnell’s case has already dropped three of the murder charges because the medical examiner said he could not prove those babies were alive after birth.  The murder case against Gosnell rests entirely on the location of the victim (in inches, mind you) at the time of death, not in the fact that the victim was killed. Read more...

There is an old saying that goes, “There are three sides to every story. Yours, theirs, and the truth.” I recently read in The Hill an opinion piece by one of the non-alcoholic beverage industry’s most vocal critics. That would be the “theirs” in the aforementioned quote. I would like to share with you some information about our industry and its products – information based on facts and science – that will help break through the many opinions and myths that exist about soda, so that you can make an informed decision on what is “the truth.”

This week, scores of surgeons are visiting Capitol Hill, and the Auto Alliance is pleased to join them in supporting “Decide to Drive,” a campaign to help reduce distracted driving. Their timing is perfect, because we have arrived at a crucial crossroads in addressing distracted driving.
 
Recently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released guidelines for reducing distracted driving that articulate a perfectly calibrated goal -- one with which automakers agree. That goal is to get drivers to connect their phones to the integrated, built-in systems in vehicles -- systems increasingly operated by voice commands -- so drivers can keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

In 1992, Congress acted to help indigent and uninsured patients gain better access to prescription drugs. It authorized the 340B drug discount program, which lets eligible hospitals and other providers purchase outpatient drugs and receive discounts from pharmaceutical manufacturers.

But today, 340B discounts have left needy patients behind. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the government agency that oversees the 340B program, has developed the program with a tangle of regulations, non-public private letters, clarifications, and “Frequently Asked Questions.” Aggressive hospital strategies, all technically legal, have stretched the program’s goals beyond recognition. Hidden rebates from pharmaceutical manufacturers are instead subsidizing the operations of highly profitable, multi-billion dollar health systems.

The soft-drink industry has been taking it on the chin in the last couple of years—from getting tossed out of schools to New York City’s effort to limit the size of sodas sold at restaurants and theaters to 16 ounces. Other than cigarettes and guns, few products draw more concern from health experts than soft drinks (along with their fruit drinks, energy drinks, and sports drinks) for promoting obesity, diabetes, heart disease, tooth decay, and even gout.

Americans are drinking about four times as much sugar drinks of all kinds since I was growing up (and imbibing) in the 1950s. Those drinks now provide almost half of all the refined sugars that Americans consume. And, not surprisingly, teens and young adults consume half again more than the average person.

I couldn’t be much farther away from Washington today – 5,978 miles, to be exact – but the Hill is still very much on my mind. 

In Garoua, Cameroon, I’m seeing with my own eyes how the work of the U.S. and the U.N. to expand immunizations is saving children’s lives every day. In particular, the progress UNICEF has made here to prevent polio infections shows exactly what we’re capable of when we work hand-in-hand with the U.N. — and when the U.S. does not have to go it alone.



This week marked World Malaria Day and the second anniversary of a remarkable effort to engage 3,000 Peace Corps volunteers across Africa in the fight against the mosquito-borne disease that kills 600,000 people a year, typically the most vulnerable among us—children under age five in Africa.
 
The Peace Corps Stomping Out Malaria in Africa initiative was launched in partnership with the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), a multi-agency program led by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented together with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The effort combines the grassroots focus of Peace Corps volunteers in villages and towns in 23 African nations, with promotion of the inexpensive, but effective, tools of malaria control: insecticide-treated bed nets, rapid diagnostic tests, and malaria medicines made with artemisinin, a plant extract long used in Chinese herbal medicine to cure children or adults with the disease.

Workplace wellness programs have been critical elements of many employer sponsored healthcare coverage offerings for over a decade. Recently however these programs have come under groundless criticism as nefariously motivated discrimination which some argue allow employers to illegally invade the privacy of their employees and unfairly underwrite premiums based on identified conditions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Efforts to strengthen the ability of these programs to modify behavior, improve health, reduce and mitigate incidents of chronic diseases, and control costs by directly engaging individuals have enjoyed broad bi-partisan support even in the debate over the partisan health reform law.