No More Band Aids to Healthcare
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A Good Day To Advocate for Better Healthcare
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Technology Tracking Pathogens (Good News)
A new way to map the spread and evolution of pathogens, and their responses to vaccines and antibiotics, will provide key insights to help predict and prevent future outbreaks. The approach combines a pathogen's genomic data with human travel patterns, taken from anonymised mobile phone data.
Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of the Witwatersrand and National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa, the University of Cambridge, and partners across the Global Pneumococcal Sequencing project, integrated genomic data from nearly 7,000 Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus)samples collected in South Africa with detailed human mobility data. This enabled them to see how these bacteria, which cause pneumonia and meningitis, move between regions and evolve over time.
The findings, published (3 July) in Nature, suggest initial reductions in antibiotic resistance linked to the 2009 pneumococcal vaccine may be only temporary, as non-targeted strains resistant to antibiotics such as penicillin gained a 68 per cent competitive advantage.
This is the first time researchers have been able to precisely quantify the fitness -- their ability to survive and reproduce -- of different pneumococcal strains. The insight could inform vaccine development to target the most harmful strains, and may be applicable to other pathogens. (Science Daily)
Public Option
Let’s make no mistake - it is a big step forward to transition to a public insurance trust as a universal healthcare system.
Our systems of healthcare are, as my thesis advisor used to say, bollixed up. The reason for it is that the systems grew in the telling. They changed and altered little by little. New laws were passed over and over again. Some benefited patients many benefited drug makers, more benefited commercial insurers. Laws were passed, like ERISA, to supposedly protect workers, while really protecting employers. I could go on and on.
Periodically you will hear someone posit that since we don’t have a universal healthcare system in the US, we should try an experiment to see how it works. They propose a so-called public option. (NB we do have such a public insurance trust - it is called Traditional Medicare and it works pretty well at reasonable cost).
Anyway, June 20, 2024, Senator Bennet of Colorado introduced the latest version of the public option. He calls it Medicare X. Here is a link to his press release. The bill text is available HERE. A summary is available HERE. This is at least the 3rd time he has tried this legislation. It showed up in both previous sessions of Congress.
It would be an option on the Affordable Care Act marketplace, mostly where there is limited ACA choice. It offers to negotiate all drug prices (good). It offers an affordability basis based on a family premium, not single person as the ACA does (good). It would be funded by a government insurance trust.
What could be the downside?
This is a band aid solution that covers only some and leaves the system in place that is screwing the vast majority of the country. A band aid for a small part of the problem that does not address the real problem.
The downside is that the population distribution will be unsupportable. That is, those that subscribe, likely do not have any other health insurance available. No employer plan, and no ACA plan. They are more likely to require significant care having been uninsured and so what you have is a high usage population. This could easily force the public option to fail because an insurance program requires a broad collection of policy holders with a wide variety of needs, some high some not so high in order for the plan to break even.
I would hate to see something that sounds like a Universal Healthcare experiment fail and then be lost to the dustbin of history.
It would be far better to just implement Universal Health care, like HR 3421. Cover everyone, cradle to grave, for $400 billion less than we do now (per the 2020 CBO analysis).
Let’s let our Senators know to choose the right option - Universal healthcare, HR 3421.
ACTION
Let’s let our Senators know this bill is a band aid and not what fixes the real healthcare problem. You can reach them here https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials.
Or use RESISTBOT on your cellphone and text SIGN PHEAOY to 50409 to send the message below.
“I am your constituent and I just learned that Senator Bennet has reintroduced Medicare-X (for extend) to provide health insurance to many who are unable to obtain an ACA policy. It is a band aid that proposes to fix the problem for those people but it is inherently risky since its population pool will likely be high usage customers and so it will be difficult to price effectively, especially with the subsidies proposed.
I recommend that you fix the real problem and build a single payer national health insurance trust for everyone. Even the Congressional Budget Office says it will save $400 billion each and every year, in their 2020 analysis.
We sent you to Congress to fix problems not put band aids on the wounds. Fix Healthcare insurance and pass a Single Payer Health Insurance Trust for everyone like H.R. 3421. Thank you.”
Gun Violence as a Public Health Threat
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence a public health crisis, as gun deaths and injuries punctuate daily life in America.
48,000 Americans died at the wrong end of a gun last year.
THAT’s 131 DEAD EVERY DAY. 7 DAYS A WEEK.
On nearly every day of 2024 so far, a burst of gunfire has hit at least four people somewhere in the country. Some days, communities have endured four or five such shootings.
Those are MASS SHOOTINGS - 1 EVERY DAY.
EXTRA CREDIT ACTION
We need better laws to protect all of us. Everytown for Gun Safety has compiled 10 things each of us can do.
They are all clickable links to notify our elected representatives that we want them to support legislation that will help lower the death toll.
Here is the list, https://www.everytown.org/actions/
Let our representatives know.
Resources
Find My Elected Officials
Contact State and Federal Representatives - phone and email
Healthcare Advocacy (Us) Website
Our Newsletter resources including reproductive healthcare - Healthcare Advocacy Reading List
Important Healthcare Resources
League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit
Organizations to Contact
National Nurses United Medicare4All
Physicians for a National Health Program
One Payer States
Healthcare Now
Reproductive Health
NARAL - Pro Choice America
Charley. chatbot abortion resource - make sure to use a secure incognito browser if you live in a state that has banned abortion
Planned Parenthood
Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline has references about where to procure abortion medications. They also assist women in the process of self managed abortion or miscarriage by phone or text and will respond in an hour. Details and hours of operation at their website.
United State of Women Reproductive health page (bottom of the page) has important resources such as medical support, access to Telehealth, prescriptions by mail, and legal support references.
Practice careful communications - The Digital Defense Fund has a number of tips to keep texts, calls, and internet use private. Here is their site.
If you need financial help with an abortion try abortionfunds.org
Claims Denials and Appeals & What to Do
Appeal a Healthcare Decision
Appeal/Negotiate a Hospital Bill
Disinformation Management
Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency
Save Democracy
Chop Wood, Carry Water by Jessica Cravens
RESISTBOT
Link to the RESISTBOT site to learn more
Link to Chop Wood, Carry Water RESISTBOT write up
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My opinion is that even universal health coverage will not address the problems with allopathic medicine. That system has come to rely on prescription drugs and surgery as disease mitigation without questioning the cause(s) of disease. We are making our bodies handle what is being constantly thrown at us by our toxic environment. If we cleaned up the environment by stopping the production of chemicals, most pharmaceuticals, plastics, inorganic farming and ranching practices, EMFs, nuclear weaponry, our bodies would not be in the business of not being able to keep up with fighting off “modernity.” Healthcare costs would decrease significantly. On the other hand, our economy would collapse…..because it is based on the production of toxics. What a dilemma.