Too Bad About Your Kid's Cancer, But I've Got An Election To Win

As we enter another year of life under Obamacare the number of red states that still refuse to expand Medicaid eligibility is unlikely to change.

...the political environment heading into the 2016 presidential elections means it’s less likely for state lawmakers to approve expanding Medicaid.

In the latest tally from the Kaiser Family Foundation, the organization shows the  “status of state action” has only one state discussing adoption of the Medicaid expansion.

There's something inherently evil in denying healthcare to poor working people and their children in order to curry favor with more affluent voters.

Important Study Finds Healthcare Inequality

Medicaid enrollees has much poorer outcomes than patients with private insurance, according to a massive, 1.5 million patient study of stroke patients. But it's probably not due to Medicaid so much as the risk factors the Medicaid population carries.

That doesn't mean hospitals treat people differently based on their insurance status, said Maryam Rahman, M.D., an assistant professor in the UF College of Medicine's department of neurosurgery and the study's principal investigator. Rather, the difference in mortality rates and medical outcomes between Medicaid patients and those with private insurance may be influenced by what happens before they arrive at a hospital.

"This is most likely related to the fact that Medicaid and uninsured patients don't have access to primary preventive care the way insured patients do," Rahman said. "In general, they're going to be a sicker population with higher obesity rates and a greater rate of uncontrolled diabetes. That's going to influence how they do with any diagnosis."

It's Working

Even in a purple state like Colorado, the Affordable Care Act has had the intended results. It's a shame so many Republican governors and legislators refuse to let this law help their most vulnerable citizens, too. But is it just me, or has the "Repeal Obamacare" drumbeat sort of died down now that the Republican presidential candidate herd has other interests to "Trump" the ACA?

According to the Colorado Health Access Survey, the state's uninsured rate fell from 14.3 percent in 2013 to 6.7 percent in 2015.

Don't Mess with Jen, Ben

"...for heaven’s sake if you want women to have fewer abortions you should stump for long-acting reversible contraception. To ignore this elephant in the room means you care nothing about medicine and everything about pandering to a sub set of voters."

https://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/ben-carson-mansplains-there-is-only-a-war-on-whats-inside-of-women-not-actually-on-women/

The Next Generation of Fitness Trackers May Do More Than Take Your Pulse

A wearable that monitors your health and reports to your physician may be on its way soon. But what if your insurance company or your boss wants to see that data, too?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferelias/2015/08/27/research-says-basic-activity-trackers-are-dead/

Senator Grassley Solves the Healthcare Crisis

Flailing Opposition to Healthcare Reform

TheHill.com - Graham calls Dem tactics Rove, DeLay politicsThe elder generation of Republican leaders are apparently trying every Rovian tactic in memory to slow or derail the healthcare reform process, including using Rove's name as a negative. Instead of addressing the issues and offering alternatives, it seems talking points are all the opposition party can offer. In fact, it's starting to look like an almost generational divide. Witness longtime pol and healthcare critic Charles Grassley's latest.

"When we're restructuring 16 percent of our economy, that's what healthcare is, and we're affecting every person in this country, then we ought to have bipartisan support," Grassley said.

It does not, apparently, occur to Senator Grassley that his party had an excellent window of opportunity, about eight years in width, to create a bipartisan effort to address the problem.

Memo to Grassley - don't like the way things are going in Congress? Win a few elections.

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Gas Prices Affect Health Care Access

Rising Gas Prices Affecting Home Health Care Workers

Gasoline prices have increased by more than 80% in the past 18 months, and experts say it is "a particularly knotty problem for nurses, aides and other employees of home health care agencies -- many of whom are responsible for their own travel expenses and depend on government reimbursements that haven't yet caught up with the rising prices at the pump," the AP/Tribune reports. A survey by the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging found that 50% of home care employees said they have already cut back on home visits because of fuel costs and 90% expect to make cuts in 2009.