Health section
Here’s the June 2023 dashboard summary. We continue semi-regular COVID-19 dashboard numbers from the Vermont Department of Health, and MA and NH counties that surround Brattleboro, as long as they continue providing them. It could be ending soon. Scroll down the new comments for the latest.
We live in a world that has become dependent on prescription medications. It has been that way for decades despite the fact that too many people cannot afford them. And although cost remains a major barrier, people now have to contend with worsening shortages in the supply of drugs.
There have been shortages of critical drugs in the past, but it seems as though the current shortage of life-saving drugs may be showing us how the pharmaceutical industry is driven by profit while the value of human life is marginalized. Nothing new. Not exactly a revelation.
One of the greatest privileges working in health care is to be able to make the passage into death a little bit easier for people and their families. Nurses and doctors and other providers do their best to ease pain and provide comfort despite the fact that we know almost nothing about the process of dying.
Death is something that has mostly been dealt with in religious and philosophical realms. The fact that we can’t experience death and then come back to talk about it makes it difficult to know anything about the passage.
Of course, there is something of an exception to this when people have what are called near-death experiences surviving after cardiac arrest or remembering being brought to the brink under general anesthesia. The common thread is seeing a bright light and a long tunnel and having a feeling of complete calm. Beyond that we don’t know much, but a study done in 2014 at the University of Michigan with four patients opens a new window into the act of dying.
Here’s the May 2023 dashboard summary. We continue semi-regular COVID-19 dashboard numbers from the Vermont Department of Health, and MA and NH counties that surround Brattleboro, as long as they continue providing them. It could be ending soon. Scroll down the new comments for the latest.
Regular physical activity has always been an important part of my life. Baseball was my go-to sport growing up and it was a rare day (weather permitting) that I was not riding my bike. If there is a day without movement I feel as though I should be guilty of some sort of crime.
As the years have passed it has become necessary to make accommodations for the constant decay of the body. But despite that decay I have always found a way to figure out how to get some sort of exercise on a regular basis.
After spending a working lifetime in healthcare and reading all kinds of medical reports it is clear to me that if you want to prevent a lot of health-related problems one of the best things you can do is to exercise on a regular basis.
Here’s the April 2023 dashboard summary. We continue semi-regular COVID-19 dashboard numbers from the Vermont Department of Health, and MA and NH counties that surround Brattleboro, as long as they continue providing them. That won’t be much longer. All seem to be wrapping up in the next month or so. Scroll down the new comments for the latest.
VT, NH, and MA all seem to be doing weekly updates now, near the end of the week.
If you want to have the experience of being powerless and victimized by an elite corps of professionals simply seek dental care. I have watched the prices of dental care soar to obscene limits over the years and have felt helpless and hopeless because I know there is nothing I can do to change the situation.
The dental profession’s expertise is not in question. Practitioners are extremely well trained and they provide a high level of care. The problem is the business model that controls the delivery of dental care.
Most dentists are either private business owners or work for entities that are private businesses. While there are a number of health related regulations that dental practices must follow, when it comes to cost it is the wild west.
On the surface it looks like an amazing step forward. Eli Lilly, one of the major producers of insulin, (among the three companies that control 90% of the insulin market)1 announced that it is lowering the cost of some of its older insulin products by 70%. It was a shrewd and coldly calculated move to make the company look good in the public eye and fend off the inevitable mandates that the U.S. government is working to implement.
Recently, legislation was passed to cap the price of insulin at $35 a month for people enrolled in the Medicare D program. Democrats tried to get the bill to apply to all Americans but their efforts were stymied by the pharmaceutical lobby that owns more politicians than most other businesses.
Eli Lilly knows that it is just a matter of time before new laws are enacted to lower insulin prices across the board so they made a pre-emptive strike in the insulin wars. According to the New York Times, “Lilly trumpeted its decision as a victory for patients. In reality, though, Lilly’s moves are more limited than they initially appear. Lilly’s existing $35 cap on out-of-pocket payments will be easier for privately insured patients to take advantage of.
Here’s the March 2023 dashboard summary. We continue semi-regular COVID-19 dashboard numbers from the Vermont Department of Health, and MA and NH counties that surround Brattleboro, as long as they continue providing them. Scroll down the new comments for the latest.
VT, NH, and MA all seem to be doing weekly updates now, near the end of the week.
The hypervigilance phase of the COVID pandemic is over but the disease will, most likely, never go away. That’s not earth shattering news but many of us, especially people over 65, should be mindful of the disease and protect ourselves as much as we can. New variants pop up and each one seems to be more communicable than the next.
The fact that a significant number of people have had COVID and have been vaccinated makes casual transmission less likely, but the threat will always be there. Consider these statistics from the CDC.
Every week over 260,000 people contract COVID, over 2000 people die from COVID in the U.S. every week and 3500 people a day are in the hospital because of COVID.
In Dec. 2022, Congress voted to eliminate the extra federal funding and requirement that states keep people on Medicaid. Vermont will be starting Medicaid redeterminations on April 1. According to the Urban Institute’s projections, up to 29,000 Vermont Medicaid recipients could be affected.
The Vermont Workers’ Center is hosting an informational session in the Meeting Room at the Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on Feb. 22 between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. All are welcome to stop in to find out whether they will be affected, what their rights are in this process, and how to be sure that they aren’t cut off for bureaucratic reasons. People who are not on Medicaid and have questions about health care access are also welcome, as there will be other health care resources available. For more information, email windham@workerscenter.org.
It shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone who has used the U.S. health care non-system that we have the worst health outcomes of any high-income nation. The health care statistics about the U.S. delivery of health care are alarming, but that has been the case for many decades and the situation shows no sign of changing anytime soon.
If we cut to the chase, the reason that we spend more per person on health care, that we have the lowest life expectancy at birth, that we have the highest death rates for avoidable or treatable conditions and that we have the highest maternal and infant mortality rate among high-incomes countries is because of the profit motive.
In Dec. 2022, Congress voted to eliminate the extra federal funding and requirement that states keep people on Medicaid. Vermont will be starting Medicaid redeterminations on April 1. According to the Urban Institute’s projections, up to 29,000 Vermont Medicaid recipients could be affected.
The Vermont Workers’ Center is hosting an informational session in the Meeting Room at the Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on Feb. 8 between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.
Here’s the February 2023 dashboard summary. We continue semi-regular COVID-19 dashboard numbers from the Vermont Department of Health, and MA and NH counties that surround Brattleboro, as long as they continue providing them. Scroll down the new comments for the latest.
Vermont and MA have very limited looks at what are going on these days, with weekly snapshots. NH attempts daily updates but doesn’t always give new totals, and didn’t update at all at the end of January.
There has been a movement over the past few years to energize the concept of providing some degree of hospital level care at home. Medicare has been modifying its rules to pay for projects that move in this direction and some policymakers are touting this concept as a welcome addition to the health care system.
The Hospital at Home program is quite simply a bad idea. Why would we want to beef up the hospital system of care when it is clear that we should be putting the majority of our health care dollars into prevention, not into patching things up after they go bad?
Hospital care should be the care of last resort. When things break and diseases take hold hospitals do a good job of fixing things. But hospital type care should not be a model for how a health care system moves forward into the future.
In Dec. 2022, Congress voted to eliminate the extra federal funding and requirement that states keep people on Medicaid. States will be able to start Medicaid redeterminations on April 1. According to the Urban Institute’s projections, up to 29,000 Vermont Medicaid recipients could be affected.
The Vermont Workers’ Center is hosting two drop-in informational sessions in the Community Room at the Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro. The sessions will be on Jan. 25 and Feb. 8, between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Members of the public are welcome to stop in to find out whether they will be affected, what their rights are in this process, and how to be sure that they aren’t cut off for bureaucratic reasons. People who are not on Medicaid and have questions about health care access are also welcome, as there will be other health care resources available. For more information, email windham@workerscenter.org.
A reasonable person might think that if a disease affects the lives of 38 million Americans, or 11 percent of the population, that measures would be in place to make life a little more bearable for them. Don’t hold your breath. Diabetes is a difficult disease to manage under the best of circumstances, but when people with the disease don’t have enough political power their needs take a back seat to the profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
This is not a revelation. What I am mostly talking about is the obscenely high price of insulin. People with Type I diabetes require daily insulin and they make up five to ten percent of all diabetics. About 30% of type 2 diabetics require insulin.
About eight million Americans rely on insulin to stay alive. Not a critical mass for politicians to get worked up enough, especially when you consider that lower income people and people of color represent a higher number of insulin-dependent diabetics.
It may be a case where we should be thankful that there is at least a recognition that the mouth needs insurance coverage as much as the rest of the body. According to a recent article in Health Affairs, “Medicare Parts A and B will begin coverage of dental treatment to eliminate oral infection prior to solid organ transplant and select cardiac procedures in 2023, and prior to head and neck cancer treatment in 2024. CMS will also generate an annual review process for coverage of other medically necessary dental treatment.”
This is extremely narrow coverage that will not affect a lot of people but it is a start. In 2019 and 2021 the U.S. House passed a Medicare dental benefit bill but the U.S. Senate did not adopt it. The Build Back Better Act originally included Medicare dental coverage but that was removed because of lobbying by the American Dental Association.
Richard Davis RN, long-time health care advocate, will be offering an information seminar for Windham County residents who are looking to find out the best way to buy prescription medications at the lowest price.
With the closing of Hotel Pharmacy and Brattleboro Pharmacy people are facing confusing and difficult choices finding out how to continue getting their prescriptions filled.
This seminar is for people who do not have insurance for medications. If you have Medicare D or are enrolled in a prescription drug insurance program this seminar is not for you.
Seniors continue to flock to enroll in Medicare Advantage plans. Most don’t know that they are helping to convert the program into just another private insurance plan. The insurance companies have been able to lure people in with low cost or no premiums and enticements that seem to good to be true.
There is a reason that the insurance industry advertising blitz has been so pervasive and relentless this year. Insurance companies are reaping higher profits from Medicare Advantage and, even though there is a high level of fraud and abuse, the companies committing these crimes simply pay fines and make it part of “just doing business”.
The Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) has been one of the few activist organizations working hard to educate the public about the threat to Medicare and to provide factual information about what is going on. They have launched a new effort to get the word out and I am extracting some of the more important points.
