Testify

Gotta love this woman.

A Tough Call (updated)

...but it looks like I have to say something along these lines:  Nancy Brinker (Susan Komen's sister) can go fuck herself.

Politicizing a healthcare issue is bad enough, but using a lame excuse to politicize it as a result of Guilt By Association because some prick in Congress is abusing his power - that's as low as it gets.

It's never about what they say it's about - listen for the telltale signs from what Lizz Winstead says at the end of this clip.



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Update via The Atlantic:

Hammarley explained that the Planned Parenthood issue had vexed Komen for some time. "About a year ago, a small group of people got together inside the organization to talk about what the options were, what would be the ramifications of staying the course, or of telling our affiliates they can't fund Planned Parenthood, or something in between." He went on, "As we looked at the ramifications of ceasing all funding, we felt it would be worse from a practical standpoint, from a public-relations standpoint, and from a mission standpoint. The mission standpoint is, 'How could we abandon our commitment to the screening work done by Planned Parenthood?'" But the Komen board made the decision despite the recommendation of the organization's professional staff to keep funding Planned Parenthood. (emphasis added)

This fish stinks from the head down.

Sounds Kinda Important, Actually

via Balloon Juice yesterday:

Today is the day that a significant part of the Affordable Care Act took effect. Today is the day that companies that sell and provide health insurance have to start spending 80% to 85% of their income from insurance premiums actually delivering the services for which they charge their customers. Overhead like office space and supplies, marketing expenses, salaries, and yes, profits have to come out of the remaining 15-20%. The rule is called the the medical loss ratio, and in an important decision recently by the Department of Health and Human Services, the insurance companies cannot count the sales commissions that they give out to the people who sell you your insurance plan against the medical loss ratio.

So lemme see - Repubs are promising to "repeal ObamaCare", which (so far) means:

• they want 4,000,000 small businesses to lose their tax breaks
• they want state governments to lose federal help in meeting their Medicaid obligations
• they want the feds to stop cracking down on Medicare fraud
• they want people taking early retirement to lose their Gap Coverage
• they want 4,000,000 seniors to lose the donut hole discounts on Brand Name meds
• they want the 15,000,000 young adults who can now stay covered by their parents' insurance to lose their coverage
• they want insurance companies to go back to using tricks and traps to justify rescinding coverage; and they don't want any way for a patient to appeal rescission. 
• they want the 20,000,000 Americans who used to be subject to denial of coverage due to "pre-existing conditions" to lose their coverage
• they want the insurance companies to arbitrate payouts according to business considerations instead of clinical evaluation.
• they want 20,000,000 low-income Americans to lose access to Community Health Centers
• they want Americans living in (mostly rural) underserved ares to lose support for the docs and nurses who want to stay in those places, but can't afford it

And as of 02-DEC-2011, they want the insurance companies to continue to have the option of jacking up your premiums in order to pay sales bonuses, and to pay out nice fat stock dividends, and, and, and - the law now requires the insurers to pay out 80% of their revenues to healthcare providers.  As much as I hate strict regulation on actual levels of profit and reward, I can't help but see this as a common-sense attempt to get us all to understand that healthcare is just one of the things that can't be shoehorned into the standard business school model.

Take a quick peek at the ObamaCare Timeline.

Reconstruction

Yikes.  Got the main bill for the Hospital side of things for my Total Hip Replacement.  The bill from the surgeon should be following shortly.

Previously, I had an XRay for diagnosis, and then another XRay Study to measure for the device itself.  Those two totaled close to $1400.00.

Right now, I'm getting two visits per week from a nurse who checks me over and tests my Coumadin level, plus two visits per week from the Physical Therapist.  Once they turn me loose and I'm no longer considered "house-bound", I switch to Out-Patient status, and I go to a rehab center twice a week

Thank God for good insurance coverage. 

Reconstruction (update)

Pretty good day yesterday and a good night last night.  Up at about 5 this AM.

I had the first of what will be several home visits from Lee (nurse) and Laurie (PT) yesterday.  They both told me I'm doing a lot better than most of the people they see.  This is one of those things that you can't possibly take any credit for, but find it hard to say anything other than thank you.  Kinda like when somebody says you have beautiful kids:  "Why thank you - I made them myself, you know; and I don't mind telling you how hard it is to get all that genetic sequencing just right..."  Anyway, it's nice having a winning ticket on that little slice of Life's Grand Lottery.  Pain levels have been very reasonable so far, and the pain is what they worry most about.  If you can't knock down the pain, then you can't do the exercises, and it'll take longer to get back to a healthy state; and many times, you never get back to where you need to be.  So they send you home with a basketful of meds, most of which are aimed at the pain.

My drug regimen for the next couple of months has me taking a daily cocktail of 5 medications (all of which are added to whatever I was on before the surgery of course).  Luckily, I've always resisted the paradigm of Health Management by Prescription, so other than my One-A-Day vitamin supplement, I started with a more or less clean slate.

Coumadin (to prevent blood clotting)
Indomethacin (anti-inflammatory)
Tramadol (non-narcotic pain killer)
Oxycodone (narcotic pain killer)
Colace (stool softener - constipation is always number one on the list of side effects for pain meds)

Anyway, I have a set of 10 exercises that I need to do 2 or 3 times a day that are aimed at simply getting the musculature back into place to support the new joint.  God's design (particularly of the lower back and hips) became obsolete once we started walkin' around on our hind legs.  When the joint deteriorates to the point where you have to replace original equipment with steel and plastic, you have to cut away most of the tendons and ligaments, and rely on the body's amazing adaptive capabilities to substitute muscle as the support structure.  Obviously, they have to cut thru a good inch and a half of meat and then pry the muscles away from the bones to expose the parts of the joint that have to be removed and sculpted in order to accept the replacement parts. (Orthopods often refer to themselves as carpenters, btw)  So the rehab is all about training the muscles to take over the functions of keepin the joint in place as the wound heals and the muscles re-attach to the bone.

I'm still working on some of the different angles of this thing, primarily looking for the If/Then/Else algorithms that drive this weird system of ours.  Some of the costs outlined on the Explanation(s) Of Benefits we've gotten so far are a bit shocking, so more on all of that later.

Reconstruction

Here's an approximation of what my left hip looks like, compared with normal:

By this time tomorrow, I should be chillin' in the recovery room under the influence of heavy sedation, with my brand new, store-bought hip joint in place.

Not looking forward to 3 days in the hospital, and 6 weeks of nuthin' but rehab before I can start doing what I wanna do, but if I get to walk around like a normal human again, I'll take whatever they're offering.

I hope to be able to do some updates while I'm stuck in bed over the weekend.  If nothing else, I'll see y'all on the other side.

Getting What We Pay For(?)

As a devout capitalist and a proud adherent to most of Ayn Rand's preachings, I just can't see how anybody can make an honest assessment of the US healthcare system and still contend we're getting a solid return on our investment.

Measuring a system's effectiveness solely on Life Expectancy is kinda tricky, but really, if we reduce the goal to simple terms; and we say the main point of the exercise is to keep us alive and kickin'; well then I think it's pretty obvious we're gettin' snookered.

If your task was to make healthcare work for your company, and you brought this graph in to the meeting thinking it would support your argument that "we have the best healthcare money can buy", you'd be bounced out of that company so fast your feet wouldn't touch the ground.

So why do we continue just to put up with this shit?

(with a hat tip to Nick)

Homeopathy Sendup