The group Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare held another rally in downtown Louisville Wednesday.
It was one of many demonstrations across the country in response to President Obama’s healthcare summit with lawmakers in Washington.
The demonstrators are opposed to most of the legislation on the table. They favor an expanded Medicare system that would provide single-payer healthcare to all citizens.
Kay Tillow helped organize the event. She says even if healthcare overhaul legislation is passed, her group will still call for more changes.
“We will continue to push because there’s nothing that they are now considering that will solve the problem,” she says.
Opponents of the single-payer plan say it would be too expensive or inefficient. Tillow says high costs and inefficiencies are caused by for-profit insurers.
Notice the low-cost sign the demonstrator is holding? They couldn’t even afford sticks to hold the signs up in the air. These are probably the folks we should listen to, at least they know how to save money on printing!
In this photo released by Wellpoint Inc., the company's CEO Angela Braly is shown. Braly is being called before Congress this week to defend planned rate hikes as high as 39 percent for some customers even as the parent company made billions. (AP Photo/Wellpoint Inc.)
The CEO of WellPoint Inc., the nation's largest health insurer, is being called before Congress this week to defend planned rate hikes of as much as 39 percent for some customers even as the company made billions last year.
The issue bubbled up earlier this month, as notices about rate increases for the individual health insurance business of WellPoint's Anthem Blue Cross subsidiary in California were widely publicized. Similar premium increases are being seen by policyholders in a handful of states.
The Obama administration has seized on the issue to renew its push for an overhaul of the health care system.
At the heart of the debate is the question of what should be a fair profit for health insurers. WellPoint CEO Angela Braly will likely be grilled on the issue when she appears at a Congressional hearing Wednesday. Here are some questions that explore the issue.
As I called it in a previous comment, this is what we call “making hay while the sun shines”, taking every advantage of vulnerable individuals who have have no group power, and just raising the rates.
BRISBANE: Queensland Health will offer free swine flu vaccinations at locations across the southside this weekend amid news a second wave of the deadly virus is likely to hit Australia.
Queensland Health community and primary health services executive director Glenn Bradley said vaccinations against the Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 (human swine flu) would be administered to the community at six Brisbane schools.
“Queenslanders can protect themselves, their family and their local community by taking advantage of the free immunisation clinics at state high schools,” he said.
This is a country taking swine flu very seriously, as they will for quite some time since we are told the seasonal flu of tomorrow is the swine flu of today. I would like to know more about the health system in Australia.
The Justice Department said Guidant discovered in 2002 that its Ventak Prizm 2 DR was prone to electrical arcing, which could keep the device from responding when the patient suffered irregular heart rhythms. (Bloomberg News file photo)
The U.S. Department of Justice filed charges against Boston Scientific Corp.’s Guidant division Thursday, saying it did not fully disclose problems with its devices to regulators.
The charges, filed in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, are part of a previously announced agreement for Boston Scientific Corp. to plead guilty to the two misdemeanor charges.
The company, based in Natick, Mass., agreed in November to plead guilty to the two counts, which had not yet been filed, and pay $296 million to resolve the investigation.
The investigation concerned three implantable heart devices. The Justice Department said Guidant discovered in 2002 that its Ventak Prizm 2 DR was prone to electrical arcing, which could keep the device from responding when the patient suffered irregular heart rhythms.
Guidant changed the design of the device in November of that year, but in August 2003, it told the Food and Drug Administration that the changes did not affect the safety or effectiveness of the device.
Just imagine how you would feel having a pacemaker recalled right out of your body because of arcing. Talk about a sinking feeling, but better to know than to not know about such an important problem.
One of one of Lydia Carranza's silicone implants took the force of the blow, stopping bullet fragments from reaching her vital organs Photo: CORBIS
Lydia Carranza was working in the office of a dentist in Beverly Hills, California when a gunman ran in and opened fire.
He aimed the weapon directly at her heart but one of her silicone implants took the force of the blow, stopping bullet fragments from reaching her vital organs.
The gunman had gone to the dental office looking for his wife, who also worked there. She was shot and killed in the attack. Mrs Carranza was sitting a few feet away when the gunman turned on her.
"She's just one lucky woman," surgeon Dr Ashkan Ghavami told the Los Angeles Times. "The bullet fragments were millimetres from her heart and her vital organs. Had she not had the implant, she might not be alive today."
I have never been a big fan of breast implants—at least I don’t think I have been—but this article indicates they are at least good for something other than amusement. What a horrible thing, to be shot.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — One of the first things Mike Ameroso asked while contemplating robotic surgery for his prostate cancer was how many surgeries his doctors had done with the robot.
He liked the idea of the robot's smaller incision and steady miniature "hands" and the promise of less pain and a quick recovery — but had his doctors put in time at the controls?
After all, "an aircraft is only as good as the pilot who flies it," concurred Thenkurussi Kesavadas as he and Ameroso took part Thursday in the rollout of a new robotic surgery simulator that lets surgeons practice endlessly in a field that's growing by leaps and bounds.
The "RoSS" simulator closely approximates the touch and feel of the widely used da Vinci robotic surgical system. It was developed through a collaboration between the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and University at Buffalo, where Kesavadas heads the Virtual Reality Lab.
This device looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Amazing way for a surgeon to practice an operation over and over until it feels right. This is truly a great training device for surgeons and a stunning-looking piece of equipment.
Posted
Feb 26 2010, 01:11 AM
by
Robert Gleeman