Healthcare

Every month I receive a copy of Brain News from the non-profit Dana Foundation in New York. Lately, I've read the publication with increasing interest because it reports on wide-ranging research about how brains work or don't work - and what that means for our world's population.

Of special note this month is an article entitled Diabetes Research Could Aid in Alzheimer's Fight, first published by the Globe and Mail in Toronto. Here are the paragraphs that caught my eye:

Jack Diamond, scientific director of the Alzheimer Society of Canada, said there are whisperings in the scientific community that Alzheimer's disease may actually be "Type 3 diabetes," where a resistance to insulin causes inflammation only in the brain, just like it does in the pancreases of those with Type 2 diabetes.

Just in case your Monday isn't off to a good start, I found some happy talk this morning from Stagemanager John Hood over at the Art Pope Puppetshow. What's the subject of Mr. Hood's latest column? Why it's health care! Now that's something we can all laugh about!

I’m not a doctor, and I don’t play on TV. But my teenage nickname was “Doc,” one of my online-superhero alter egos is name after another famous “Doc,” and I have just successfully bandaged my son’s foot. So I’m taking the liberty today of prescribing a course of treatment for those suffering from Health Issues Confusion Courting Unwise Policy Syndrome (HICCUPS).

I have always been intrigued by the seemingly random nature of drug pricing and was inspired by a recent NPR story about Genentech to find a way to fill the Medicare Part D donut hole. It seems Genentech has a conundrum. It recently won approval for Lucentis, a drug to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which costs $1,950 per treatment. At the same time eye doctors have been treating AMD in patients with small off-label doses of Avastin, another Genentech drug approved to treat colon cancer. The cost for the amount of Avastin used for AMD is $50 per treatment.

I just received an email through the David Sirota network. It was a column from the Washington Examiner and it laid bare the lie that people don't support universal healthcare through a single-payer system (that is, government).

I know it isn't polite to cut and paste whole columns, but maybe this will help.

David Sirota is the author of the new book “Hostile Takeover,” a national best-seller (Crown 2006). He is the co-chair of the Progressive States Network.
The column beyond the break.

From the News & Observer, a story that a bill to insure North Carolina's high-risk population has been killed in the Senate. The idea came from a N.C. Institute of Medicine task force, which included such varying interests as business owners, health insurnace executives, hospital admins, docs, consumer advocates, and lawmakers themselves.

The bill was so finely crafted by this task force of experts that it passed the House 95-10 just yesterday. But, it has been killed in the Senate.

What is a high-risk person?

After hours of slogging through drivel from the Carolina Journal and the extended Puppetshow family, I finally came across something worthwhile today, a smart and well-written column by Don Stedman, dean emeritus in education at UNC Chapel Hill. His commentary about the state of mental health services in North Carolina is right on the money and well worth reading. And his closing line is an awesome response to free-market maniacs who want big bidness to take over everything.

No mistake -- residential care and treatment are badly needed as key parts of a mostly community-based service system, but they need to be downsized and more widely distributed and clearly connected to regional coordination centers with the resources necessary to carry out their missions. And forget privatization. There is no profit in human service. If there is, we have another kind of problem.

Now they want to spend $25 million or more of OUR money to tell us what we already know!!!!! Your hardearned tax dollars at work! It looks to me that the prediction they made about 200,000 veterans being forced out of the system as early as 2008 is comming to pass.

Why don't they just send every veteran $1 million...have them sign a release saying the matter is settled...and then we can all get on with our lives.

I'm serious about this. OK...so $1 million is too much. How about $100,000 for each vet? That would only be $2.65 trillion dollars. And, this would be great for the economy because the "average" vet who would get the money would dump it right back into his / her local community.

The problem may be too much of a good thing. The House had a plan to cap counties' contributions to medicaid and to appropriate millions of dollars to provide targeted relief to some counties, and eventually to phase out county contributions. (Details of that plan are here). Now Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand has added a provision that has split the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners and made passage seem like something less than a sure thing.

(Cross-posted at the new Appalachian Voices blog)

From the Fayetville Online

Its first nickname was “R2D2” after the “Star Wars” robot, butnow they just call it “the dog” when it’s time to drain the grease at Burgerville USA.

“The dog” is a small, stainless steel tank and pump combination on wheels that the Northwest restaurant chain has pioneered to channel used cooking oil to a biodiesel producer.