The Uninsured Health Care Scam

There is a great recap at Power Line:

According to data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans officially classified as uninsured in 2007 was 45.7 million. This figure is being used, naturally, to promote the case for radical “reform” that in practice would amount to a government takeover of the health care industry.

However, Sally Pipes, in her Sunday Examiner column, shows that the 45.7 million uninsured figure is misleading as a barometer of the state of health insurance coverage in the U.S. She identifies four groups within that figure: (1) people who will quickly transfer from one insurance plan to another, (2) illegal immigrants, (3) individuals who make more than $50,000 a year but who elect not to purchase health insurance (usually because they are young and healthy), and (4) individuals who are eligible for government assistance with their health care through programs like Medicaid and SCHIP, but who do not avail themselves of that assistance.

According to Pipes, if one subtracts these people from the 45.7 million figure, the number drops to approximately 8 million. If one adds back in those who make between $50,000 and $75,000 a year, the figure is roughly 16 million.

1.  Why in the wide, wide world of sports would the illegals in this country be included in the uninsured number if not just to inflate it?

2.  Why would inflating the number of uninsured be something a fracking government agency would do?

3.  If people are too stupid to get the government benefits (or let’s give them the benefit of the doubt – they are too proud to take government benefits) why would they also be included in the number of uninsured?  By definition they would be insured if they would simply go and sign up.

How about these answers?

a.  The Census bureau has become a sub-committee of the Democrat party apparently.  We fight over this every census – just how many invisible people can we count so federal pork can be delivered to the unknown?  And now seeing that they willingly inflate the uninsured so that Democrats can justify taking over (directly taking over) 20% of the economy just proves it again

b.  Giving illegals government benefits (or proposed ones) is also Democrat policy.  Why?  Well, they know that if they keep the voter id requirements so low that any illegal can vote – they will get more power for the money they take from productive people.

c.  Pride?  Yes – I do believe there are some Americans who are too proud to beg.  Unfortunately I think that the number of people who are just too drug-addled or brainless to get the benefits already on offer is a vast majority of that number

However, with the 700 billion or 1 trillion or fill-in-the-blank Wall Street bailout – the talk about how the government also needs to take over health care seems to be very quiet now.  Thank goodness

The Trouble With Socialized Medicine In a Sentence

That Harvey – what a guy:

It’s an imprudent choice to provide the government with a financial incentive to prefer to see you dead rather than ill.

Denver Post – I Want The Schools To Parent My Children

Yesterday’s (Sunday) DP has a big front-page screed about the urgent need to teach children how to have sex. Mark Thrun is identified as a physician at Denver Public Health and the co-parent (tipoff – if you don’t want to be known as “father” you probably are more than a little bit of a pussy-whipped Alan Alda caring and weeping proto-male) of two spirited little boys. He’s also an Assistant Professor of Medicine at CU focusing on AIDS research.

So what’s the big issue for the Post? The schools are not teaching kids enough about how to use condoms. In fact, 30 percent of the public schools are teaching abstinence (the horror! – teaching the one absolutely assured method of not getting pregnant or a sexually transmitted disease).

Of course, its all the fault of “a few vocal opponents of comprehensive sex ed” – which we all know is code for the sexually repressed white Christians who hate all people who aren’t white and Christian like them – the filthy Christians!

So why is it so important that public schools teach sex?

Occasionally, the brave among us might begin the conversations at home. Awkward and stinted, we try to muddle through “The Talk” as best we can.

Some of us, however, never even get that far. Instead, we assume that the educational system will step in. Or, at least, that is what we hope.

So I’m such a pussy I can’t talk to my children about sex – I want some stranger to tell them about it. I completely abdicate my responsibilities as a parent to the all-knowing, perfect government education system who will fill my kids brain with some information about sex – just so long as I don’t have to do it.

But then in steps the filthy idiots who don’t want to teach my children some things that I want them to know about – condoms, birth control, homosexuality, bestiality, polygamy, whatever. It would seem that logically this would be the point where I would step in as a parent and start providing whatever sexual information I wanted my children to know. If you are a parent and you want your kids to know this information – tell them. They are, after all, your children.

But this is apparently far too logical a choice for Dr. Thurn. His choice – pitch a hissy fit to force the schools to tell the kids what YOU want them to know regardless of what anyone else believes.

We abdicate our parental and societal obligations to our youth by choosing not to prepare them to be responsible when they do become sexually active.

This is where we as parents need to step in. It is imperative that we take on the task of encouraging and collaborating with schools to develop appropriate sex ed courses.

So you are willing to stand up to your right as a parent to scream and yell about what is being taught to everyone, but take absolutely no responsibility as a parent to teach your children what you want them to know?

Typical gutless liberalism.  Force everybody to believe as I do, just don’t make me actually do anything myself.

Medical Future – Robots

u-BOT 5 is a robot designed by researchers at the University of Massachusetts. It was made to help old people should something happen to them. Its capabilities include “picking up small objects, dialing 911 and even using a stethoscope to check vitals.” It packs a webcam, microphone, LCD touchscreen, WiFi, and could potentially be used to make virtual housecalls . As you can see from the picture, if you ever fall and can’t get up there’s nothing to fear when uBOT-5 is near. He’ll just wheel himself over and, uh, kidney punch you with his little ball-hands.

Sterilize Teenage Girls

Here’s an interesting proposition mooted from the UK:

Last week, an intriguing proposition was mooted by Government minister Dawn Primarolo.

Teenage girls, she said, could be steered towards what is described as “long-term contraception”.

This is now possible thanks to the development of contraceptive jabs and implants which can last up to five years.

In other words, there is a way of effectively sterilising girls for a lengthy period of time.

At what age? Well, doesn’t 12 until 17 sound rather sensible?

Its the underlying assumption that I find most despicable. Do you own your body? Or does the government? After all, the UK government “gives” you absolutely 100% free health care. (Just don’t look too closely at what you actually get). So if the government is responsible for your health care, does that mean it should be able to control your actions and bodily functions?

This is just an extension of the thought process that treatment for smokers and fat people and sick old people costs too much and should be curtailed. Why not keep these young sluts from having babies? Just look at the positive outcomes:

• fewer abortions – theoretically
• no welfare payments for those illegitimate rug rats
• lots of time for these teenagers to practice sex without getting pregnant so they will be experienced, available, and willing
• less maternity health costs paid for by the all-knowing and kind government

While this might be considered some sort of hypothetical trial balloon to demonstrate absurdity – do you really think that there aren’t some government planners who are actually planning for this action? Of course, no one would actually try and implement mass sterilization, would they?

But remember that doctors organizations and government bureaucrats now consider it safe to say that some people should not be treated because of the choices they have made in their life.  20 years ago, would the average citizen believe that this would be considered mainstream thought?  Its funny that all the liberal hysteria about loss of freedoms completely misses the fact that the biggest loss will be coming as the “gift” of government.

Remember that this free Obambi-care or Hillarycare will change the basic standing between government and citizens. Once you give responsibility for your health care to government, government will own you and your actions.

Healthy People Cost More

So should governments encourage people to eat twinkies and smoke?

Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn’t save money, researchers reported Monday.

It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.

”It was a small surprise,” said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who led the study. ”But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more.”

And this really brings into sharp relief an interesting point about turning the responsibility over health care to a government.  While the initial jabber about universal healthcare is how wonderful it will be that no one has to worry about getting sick because the all-knowing Big Brother will take care of everyone – once you screw up the system and get government running  it, the focus becomes COST!  As in – holy crap this free health care costs tons of money.  And if we only have 25% of the population carrying everybody else, the productive ones will finally balk.

So it becomes a cost-benefit analysis – as in just how much cost can we shave off these silly people who are going to die anyway in order to keep the productive ones happy.  And government bureaucrats are really good at a) screwing over people who aren’t government bureaucrats and b) responding to political pressure.  So whoever screams the loudest gets the health care and the peasants are sent off to watch TV and die quietly in the corner.

Which this interesting little snippet in the story illustrates:

”This throws a bucket of cold water onto the idea that obesity is going to cost trillions of dollars,” said Patrick Basham, a professor of health politics at Johns Hopkins University who was unconnected to the study. He said that government projections about obesity costs are frequently based on guesswork, political agendas, and changing science.

Finnish patient gets new jaw from own stem cells

Yet another success for adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cells? still waiting on one single viable treatment.

clipped from www.reuters.com HELSINKI (Reuters) – Scientists in Finland said they had replaced a 65-year-old patient’s upper jaw with a bone transplant cultivated from stem cells isolated from his own fatty tissue and grown inside his abdomen. Researchers said on Friday the breakthrough opened up new ways to treat severe tissue damage and made the prospect of custom-made living spares parts for humans a step closer to reality. Using a patient’s own stem cells provides a tailor-made transplant that the body should not reject. Suuronen and her colleagues — the project was run jointly with the Helsinki University Central Hospital — isolated stem cells from the patient’s fat and grew them for two weeks in a specially formulated nutritious soup that included the patient’s own blood serum. The patient’s upper jaw had previously been removed due to a benign tumor and he was unable to eat or speak without the use of a removable prosthesis.

Hilllarycare Preview 2155

Mixed Sex Wards? Oh come on – there won’t be any more private or semi-private hospital rooms. You will be on a ward and its going to be with whoever they want to stuff in there. Women and Men together? Its cost-effective. After all – the health care bureaucrats need their year-end bonuses.And don’t you just love the weaselly worded response from the Health Minister. Does it remind you of someone parsing the meaning of the word “is”?

clipped from blogs.telegraph.co.uk Lord Darzi, the Health Minister, told the Lords yesterday: “The Government is committed to single sex accommodation, not single sex wards – they are two different things. The only way we are going to have single sex wards in the NHS is to build the whole of the NHS into single rooms (really?)…that is an aspiration that cannot be met. “We used to have single sex wards 15 years ago but medicine has moved on.” Note his words carefully. There is no mention of mixed sex wards – only “accommodation”. In other words, the Government is no longer committed to the provision of “single sex wards” but to “single sex accommodation”, a piece of fudging which means, in essence, that mixed sex wards will continue to exist

New Technology to Track Surgical Sponges

The system, which is FDA approved, is being used in all of Loyola’s operating rooms, its labor and delivery rooms, interventional cardiology laboratories in which surgical procedures are performed and its ambulatory surgery sites. As the technology grows, Loyola plans to use it to keep track of all medical equipment used during a procedure.

clipped from www.sciencedaily.com Every year, in the United States about 1,500 people have surgical objects accidentally left inside them after surgery, according to medical studies. This technology is very familiar to anyone who has ever used a grocery checkout system. Each sponge has a unique bar code affixed to it that is scanned by a high-tech device to obtain a count. Before a procedure begins, the identification number of the patient and the badge of the surgical team member maintaining the count are scanned into the counter. As an added safety feature, the bar code is heat sealed into the sponge to eliminate any danger of it becoming detached during a procedure. The counter has a color screen that keeps a running count of the sponges used. It provides visual and audio cues when a sponge is scanned in, scanned out and if one is missing or is being counted twice. Because each bar code is unique, the system will not allow a sponge to be accidentally counted twice.

New Scanner Provides 3D Images

Again, just how many of these new machines will Queen by Divine Right of Marriage and Its My Turn Hillary and her universal health care bureaucrats approve? It would only benefit the rich, after all.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk A new scanner has been unveiled which can produce 3D body images of unprecedented clarity while reducing radiation by as much as 80%. The new 256-slice CT machine takes large numbers of X-ray pictures, and combines them using computer technology to produce the final detailed images. It also generates images in a fraction of the time of other scanners: a full body scan takes less than a minute. Because the images are 3D they can be rotated and viewed from different directions – giving doctors the greatest possible help in looking for signs of abnormalities or disease. The scan is much quicker than current technology, as the machine’s X-ray emitting gantry – the giant ring-shaped part that surrounds the patient – can rotate four times in a single second – 22% faster than current systems. “It is so powerful it can capture an image of the entire heart in just two beats.”