Diabetes: Drugs, Diet and Data
May 27, 2008
Picnic season is upon us – a time for cookouts and gatherings around the grill or at the park. This means burgers and hot dogs, potato salad and chips, ice cream and lemonade. This means we’ll be tempted to pack on pounds even as we’re trying to cram ourselves into shorts and bikinis.
For those Americans with diabetes, all the starch and sugar that come with summertime meals and outings are a serious hazard not just for their waistline but also for their health.
“Is Inequality Making Us Sick?”
April 4, 2008
As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in America, the gap between the healthy and the unwell also widens. Several weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released data showing that life expectancy for the most affluent group of Americans exceeds that for the poorest Americans by nearly 4.5 years or 6% on average.
- Health gains for the poor are decades behind those for the wealthiest Americans, whose life expectancy in 1980 was higher than that of the most impoverished in 2000.
New WhatIf Content on Health Care Costs, Resources
March 27, 2008
The newest pieces on our website expand from the interactive quiz we put up a couple weeks ago:
Do you think you know what’s behind rising health care costs?
Take our quiz and find out. The Top Ten claims about what’s causing health care costs to steadily climb are exposed as true, false, or a little of both.
For a brief explanation of the answers to the quiz - how common claims about rising health care costs fit into the whole story - check out our new Health Care Costs Summary.
Hurricane Katrina Also Destroyed Health Care
March 21, 2008
As of yesterday, heavy rains and melting snows brought rising floodwaters to the U.S., submerging areas stretching from the South through the Midwest towards the Northeast. Thousands of people were forced to flee 250 towns and cities. Images of people escaping their neighborhoods on rowboats and of the tornado that ripped through Atlanta last Friday may have evoked in some recent memories of another terrible weather event in a major Southern city.
This August will mark the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the costliest and one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. In 2005, the storm swept through coastal Louisiana and Mississippi, and Alabama.
Health Care Outlook Gloomy in the Golden State
March 10, 2008
The debate on health care in this country and how it needs to be reformed often centers around the issue of uninsurance. But getting insured in order to afford care is only half the battle; getting good quality care is also important.
There is an effort under way right now in California to expand and improve the state’s health system. While the first image that comes to mind when people think of the Golden State is sunshine, surfboards and muscle beach, the average Californian may not be that healthy.
Hospitals May Have to Publish Prices
March 4, 2008
A central belief fueling the growing promotion of “consumer-driven health care” is the idea that high deductible health plans will force people to take more of an interest in how much their health care costs, since they’re going to be paying more of it. The biggest supporters of this movement think informed consumers will force competition in health care delivery, lowering prices. As a Milwaukee newspaper notes, “Nowhere else in the economy do people buy a product or service without knowing the price.”
“Freedom and Unity” and Excellent Health
February 28, 2008
If you’ve ever wondered which of our 50 states has the healthiest populace, wonder no longer – someone’s keeping track. For the first time in its 18 years of rankings, the United Health Foundation has placed Vermont at number 1. The Green Mountain State has been steadily climbing in the rankings since taking 8th in 2001, up from an initial position of 16th in 1990.
- Second place went to Minnesota, down from its 1st place finish the last 4 years and in 7 other years since 1990.
- Third place went to Hawaii, followed by New Hampshire, Connecticut and Utah.
Black Market Benefits
February 22, 2008
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photo by Scott Maira |
With the ever-increasing difficulty of securing health coverage it shouldn’t be surprising that criminal agents are taking advantage of people’s desperation. Black market benefits – obtaining health coverage via medical identity theft - are a growing phenomenon. Opportunists can take the information from your health insurance card and use it to obtain medical treatment or prescription drugs without the real benefit holders’ knowledge.
Beware Drug Reps Bearing Gifts
February 21, 2008
Only 1 in 3 medical schools have policies to prevent conflicts of interest between their academic departments and the drug or medical device companies that may fund individual researchers. Only 6 U.S. medical schools are completely free from the “influence” of pharmaceutical kickbacks. While universities as private institutions set their own rules on ethics and proprieties, government can regulate medical professionals and health care.
Now Minnesota is leading the way in banning drug company gifts to doctors. In 2005, a state official decided that current law allowed the state to forbid drug makers from giving doctors more than $50 worth of food or other gifts per year. Since then, this kind of direct-to-doctor marketing has decreased, with the number of visits from drug reps declining twice as fast as the rate nationwide.
Election Results: RJ Reynolds Defeats Children’s Health
November 7, 2007
With the country’s election day 2007 now behind us, voters in Oregon have been defeated in their fight to expand public health coverage for needy children. Big Tobacco spent $100 million last year alone to fight cigarette tax increases and smoking bans on ballots in several states, winning in two states and losing in two others. Their recent campaign in Oregon against Measure 50, which would have allowed an 84.5-cent-per-pack cigarette tax increase, has broken that state’s spending record for ballots. Though the tax hike backers had raised over $1 million for their cause, mainly from hospitals and insurance companies, Big Tobacco spent almost ten times that, making a huge dent in the majority support that the measure initially had. Measure 50 was rejected by 60% of the state’s voters.
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