9 Million

That is the number of uninsured children in this country.

Have you ever had a tooth infection? It can be painful - but is hardly ever fatal... unless you don't take care of it.

Yes, Medicaid does offer aid. But what if you can't find a dentist that took Medicaid and you can’t afford the treatment? This is what occurred to a 12 year old. The (common) tooth infection became a brain infection which would require emergency treatment at a cost of ¼ million dollars. Unfortunately, this victim died before he could receive the emergency treatment he needed.

"When uninsured children do get medical care, that care is often inferior." According to Families USA, "an uninsured child is twice as likely to die when hospitalized, when compared to an insured child."

Take a look at some photos of our uninsured children.

Aren't our children this country's future? If so, they why isn't this country taking care of them?

Clinton's new health care agenda

Presidential candidate, Hilary Clinton, unveiled an outline of her health care agenda (the full plan will not be disclosed until later this year) which includes:

• a requirement for insurers that cover federal employees to pay for preventative care. Based on past experience, this practice is expected to spread to the private sector.
• "Cutting payments to private manage-care Medicare plans." Mrs. Clinton believes the "government overpays them to participate."
• "changes in the malpractice arena that would give liability protection to doctors who disclose errors and enter into mediation with injured patients."

Mrs. Clinton's overall plan will also include ideas for improving the quality of health care and a plan for universal health insurance. She has also proposed "insurers be required to sell coverage to anyone who wants it and said companies should be barred from charging sicker people higher premiums."

As the Wall Street Journal stated, this is the "first step" toward her health care agenda; however, we would be extremely interested in the details of her plan. Presidential candidate, John Edwards, has already unveiled his plan for universal health care coverage and Presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, is expected to do the same next week.

The great news is...healthcare is at the top of the democratic candidates' agendas. We've been gouged for too long... Americans will finally get better health care.

Complete control over our personal heath data

How many of you have had problems getting access to your own health records? If insurance companies, employers, and the government can have access to your own records, why is it so difficult for you to gain access to your own records?

Well, Google is planning to put an end to this inefficiency (one of many) in our health care system.

Adam Bosworth, VP of engineering at Google, gave a speech at the 2007 American Medical Association of Informatics (AMIA) Spring Congress on Tuesday regarding a vision of what we all should expect from our health care system over the next decade (and we believe Google will be the key player in helping this vision become reality).

As Adam said:

This vision for the future of health care starts with the premise that consumers
should own their own total personal health and wellness data (I'll call it PHW
for short) and that only consumers, not insurers, not government, not employers,
and not even doctors, but only consumers, should have complete control over how
it is used. As an additional premise, we believe consumers should have the right
to all data that is about their personal health and wellness in electronic form.

And three principles that are core to the future of health care system are:

Discovery - Consumers should be able to discover the most relevant health information possible

Action - Consumers should have direct access to personalized services to help them get the best and most convenient possible health support

Community - Consumers should be able to learn from and educate those in similar health circumstances and from their health practitioners

It's about time consumers and their needs are put on the forefront in our health care system.

If anyone can realize this vision, Google can! We're with them!

Sicko

The much anticipated (and for many, much dreaded) new documentary by Michael Moore premiered on Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival. And from the reviews that have been written, Sicko promises to cause much debate.

We all know Mr. Moore is very politically opinionated and is not a fan (to put it mildly) of the Bush administration and the corporations/pharmaceuticals that support (monetarily) those in Washington. However, as Mr. Moore says himself, the problems with the US healthcare system transcend all party lines -- after all, we all have health care problems. And let's face it, how many of us are happy with our health insurance or with the way the US health care system is? As mentioned in yesterday's posting, the US has a higher infant death rate than most other developed nations and ranks 45th in average life expectancy. How about the fact that about 47 million Americans are without health insurance – and those who do have it, are sometimes denied coverage for certain treatments/medications despite the fact they pay outrageous premiums?

In the film, two healthcare whistle-blowers say "The point of the system is to treat as few people as possible as cheaply as possible, and those who get ahead in the healthcare industry are those who find ever more devious ways to deny coverage. (For example, you can now be denied for certain preexisting conditions you didn't know about, on the premise that you should have known about them.)" (Salon.com)

Should have known about preexisting conditions? How would you even know unless you went to the doctor and had a series of tests performed (which you would think are covered under the health insurance you are paying high monthly premiums for)? It is these cases that Mr. Moore focuses on -- "the horror stories of middle-class working folks who believed they were adequately covered."

So what is Mr. Moore hoping to accomplish with this film?

"Moore is trying to rouse Americans to action on an issue most of us agree about, at least superficially." (Salon.com)

It is time we demand an end to the inefficiencies of our health care system. Let's make a statement by watching this film which opens in the US on June 29th!

Links to Sicko reviews:
"Sicko" (Salon.com)

Michael Moore Gets Ready to Rumble (Time.com)

Sicko is Socko (Time.com)

"Best health care system in the world today"

Many politicians – past and current, from both parties- have used this phrase when describing the health care system in the United States.

How can anyone suggest the US health care system is the best in the world? How many articles have there been to the contrary? How many millions of Americans are there with no health insurance while other countries are able to provide universal health care to their people? According to a prominent ethicist at the National Institutes of Health, "Americans' average life expectancy of 78 ranks 45th in the world, behind Bosnia and Jordan. And the U.S. infant death rate is 6.37 per 1,000 live births, higher than that of most developed nations."

Our politicians need to stop ignoring the facts and saying everything is peachy. We need a plan to action -- not just rosy words. The United States has the resources to have the best health care system in the world -- however, we need to use these resources efficiently (and stop giving the pharmaceuticals a windfall). It is time the politicians take care of its people -- and not just the corporations and pharmas.

The dysfunction on the health care system in this country is the topic of Michael Moore's new film, Sicko. (Check back tomorrow for more on this film).

Walk a Day in My Shoes…

Have you ever heard of this program?

Well, let us tell you... It's a campaign by the SEIU (The Service Employees International Union), the largest health care union in this country, inviting all presidential candidates to walk in the shoes of their member -- professional caregivers--for a day. With this program, presidential candidates get to experience first hand what professional caregivers have to go through everyday and the issues that concern them, such as being able to receive a paycheck that will support a "family, affordable health care, a secure retirement and a better life for themselves and their families."

We had written previously about the fact that professional caregivers--- those who care for your loved ones day in and day out, those who must clean and bathe and accompany your loved ones--- don't even have health insurance themselves and can't afford to have a professional caregiver care for them when they need it.

If the presidential candidates are serious about changing healthcare --as they all say--then they need to experience firsthand what the challenges and issues are that the average health care worker faces.

As the "Walk a Day in My Shoes" website states:

"Because if presidential candidates understand the struggles workers face each day, they will be better able to offer the 21st century solutions this country needs."

We agree!

Watch the coverage of presidential candidate, John Edwards, Thursday morning on Good Morning America as he Walks a Day in the shoes of an SEIU member.

What exactly is the "best" care possible?

Many of you may have read about Adam Bosworth's, VP of engineering at Google, latest posting regarding health on the Official Google Blog. In it he asks several questions that we all, as consumers, patients, and caregivers, have asked ourselves regarding our health care. Mainly... "How do you know you're getting the best care possible?"

Here is Adam's blog:

Official Google Blog: How do you know you're getting the best care possible?
Posted by Adam Bosworth, Vice President

When I talk to people using Google to search for information about their health questions and how well search answers these questions, I hear several common concerns. I want to list them and discuss our thoughts about them.

How do I know if the information is trustworthy and reliable?
There is a lot of material out there about drugs, diseases, procedures and treatments. How do you know what is trustworthy and what isn't? Search is great at finding us places with relevant information, but it is hard to know which links are reliable and which are less so.

Honestly, this is a hard problem. At Google, we have tried, as I said in an earlier post, to enlist the help of the health community to help us know which links contain medically reliable information, sift these reliable links so that they tend to show up relatively earlier in the search results, and then let you decide which groups in the health community you trust. If you go to Google and type in [Lipitor], for example, and then you click on the "For patients" link and look carefully, you'll see that the search results often include at the bottom the word "Labeled By," followed by words like NLM and HON. NLM stands for the National Library of Medicine, the world's largest medical library, and HON stands for Health on the Net Foundation, an organization which is in the business of certifying web sites with health content that is reliable. These are organizations that have marked the part of the web that this link in the search results points to as medically reliable. It seems that we at Google may not have done a great job of making this clear enough. Unfortunately, many of you either don't notice these words when you're searching about health questions at Google or have no idea what they mean. Clearly, we can do better at making this kind of labeling noticeable and your ideas on how we could make it clear to you that a site is medically reliable or trustworthy would be greatly appreciated as we think this through.

Am I getting the best standard of care?
There is, actually, a lot of information out there about generally accepted medical guidelines for care. For most diseases, the medical literature lists the medically agreed-upon standard of treatment, rules to follow, and guidelines for which tests to administer and the best course of treatment - although it is hard to pull together from the various medical organizations and texts as it is constantly evolving. Experts determine which drugs make sense based upon a patient's condition, other conditions and drugs, age, gender, weight, and so on. There are of course always cases where doctors need to make exceptions to these rules about which drug to administer due to side effects and/or prescribe an alternative drug due to the patient's specific medical history. The point is that there are guidelines to help doctors with these decisions. However, this information isn't really accessible to those of you who aren't health professionals.

Speaking, I think, both for those of us at Google and most of you, given our specific condition or conditions and medicines, just knowing what the guidelines and generally accepted standard of care is for us specifically would be hugely helpful in knowing what to discuss with our doctors and what to research further. Today, even if we can figure out which sites upon which to rely, it is hard to find this out. We don't know where to start. Our treatment scares us, or our drugs have worrying side effects, or we're just frightened that we're not getting the treatment we should be getting.

Honestly, this information can even help our doctors sometimes. They are over-worked and often pressed for time and it cannot ever hurt to double check. Sometimes they didn't get accurate or complete information from us. While most drug-to-drug and drug-to-condition interactions are known to our doctors, they do change and the doctor might miss a new one or not know about all your drugs because we forgot to tell your doctor about one. The statistics show that mistakes happen. In fact at some point in a patient's life, the odds of them being treated in a way which doesn't follow the guidelines and rules is about 45%. There are estimates that somewhere between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die every year from a preventable medical error at a hospital — or about 150 to 300 preventable inpatient death a day. And approximately 770,000 people are injured or die each year in hospitals from an adverse drug event. There are roughly 5,000 preventable medical errors a day taking place at doctor's offices.

So it seems that it would really help to let people know. It is tricky, however. Everybody's condition is unique. It isn't possible to just play doctor and tell you exactly what your treatment should be and why. Even doctors have a hard time with this because of the incredible and ever changing complexity of modern medicine. What is the best way to help people searching for answers to their health questions to know the right standard of care they should be receiving, what treatments or classes of medicines they should be researching, and what procedures might be indicated?

Who is the best doctor or institution for you?
Isn't it strange that you can find out a lot about a restaurant on the web or about a movie, but not about a doctor? In fact you usually don't even know who to go to and just accept whoever your general practitioner recommends? You clearly don't just eat at restaurants other restaurants recommend, even though you might take it into account. Now admittedly there is a difference here. When it comes to food, you know what you like and the worst that can happen is you don't like it. But when it comes to your health you may not know what is best, and you can't necessarily tell if we're getting the best possible care. Still, here is a common situation: You've been diagnosed. Your primary care physician and you have discussed it and it is clear that you need a specialist and your doctor has referred you to one, but you're wondering how you know who is the best out there for you. How do you know whether they cover your insurance? How do you find them? Today, often you just take your doctor's referral.

Normally there are lots of doctors who could treat or diagnose you. And in point of fact there is a lot of information about doctors floating around in the ether. Where they went to school is known. Whether they are board certified is known. What is their specialty is known. CMS (Medicare) and insurance companies actually know how many procedures of various types most doctors regularly perform. And this turns out to matter. There is an excellent book out called Complications, by Atul Gawande, discussing a lot of these matters, but in particular the book notes that practice really does make perfect.

But how do you know who is well seasoned? Do you always judge who to take care of you by how long they've been in practice? What does "best" really mean? This is a hard question. Mortality rates, for example, may not be a good indicator. Some specialists only treat the patients that others can't handle, and so, naturally, even though they are the best in the world, their rates might not be the best. Sometimes your choice may be dictated by other considerations. If there are two possible specialists, one is a man and the other is a woman, then sometimes people care about that.

It isn't clear how we can best help. We don't want to inadvertently steer you away from a brilliant doctor just because his or her mortality rate appears too high. What do you think, and what would you like to see made available on the web when you are searching for doctors?

Summary
At the end of the day, all these questions are about how you find the information you need. They are deceptively simple. If they were about restaurants, they would be trivial. But they are actually matters of life and death in the extreme and quality of life in the common case. In short, they matter profoundly.

I'd like to say that we have all the answers. But we don't. Mostly, at the moment, what we have is questions and we’d love to hear from you (health@google.com).

---------------------------------

Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-do-you-know-youre-getting-best-care.html

47 Million

That is the number of people without health insurance in this country – and it has INCREASED in the past ten years! According to the NY Times/CBS Poll, even those who DO have insurance do not get certain tests because of out-of-pocket expenses.

This lack of health insurance coverage MUST be a priority discussion of ALL CANDIDATES for the 2008 Presidential Elections. They need a clear, detailed plan that can be executed. Many candidates are saying the right things/the right words--- but where is the detailed plan of how to fix the problem?

We ALL need to keep a vigil that this election does not offer a pass for this critical issue -- this time around. Each candidate has a channel on YouTube:

Democratic Candidates

• Joe Biden: http://www.youtube.com/joebiden
• Hillary Clinton: http://www.youtube.com/hillaryclinton
• John Edwards: http://www.youtube.com/johnedwards
• Dennis Kucinich: http://www.youtube.com/denniskucinich
• Barack Obama: http://www.youtube.com/barackobama
• Bill Richardson: http://www.youtube.com/BillRichardson

Republican Candidates

• Rudy Giuliani: http://www.youtube.com/RudyGiuliani
• John McCain: http://www.youtube.com/johnmccain
• Mitt Romney: http://www.youtube.com/mittromney

Keep up to date on the issues each candidate addresses. Make sure these are the REAL issues. It is time for Americans to become THE priority of our governments – federal, state, and local.

Annie... get your gun

Everyone -- especially those in NY--should be keeping an eye out on the fight over Governor Spitzer's proposed budget cuts. It is getting ugly--and this is just the start!

The Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) and 1199SEIU have joined forces "to become one of the most powerful lobbies in Albany" and they (along with others at the power breakfast on Friday that included "business executives, civic leaders and former mayors") were stunned when Governor Spitzer included a slide in his presentation titled "Guardians of the Status Quo" with the logos of the two health care groups.

Many of you may have seen the television commercials by GNYHA and 1199SEIU -- the newest ones featuring "a series of nurses, in their scrubs, saying things like, 'I don't understand why Governor Spitzer is attacking me and my hospital,' and, 'Let the governor walk in my shoes for a day, and then call me a crybaby.' " These were a rebuttal to the commercials Governor Spitzer had featuring "a group of newborns in the hospital, with the implication that budget critics were 'crybabies.' "

Get ready. This battle will get ugly.

Price comparisons--- for medical procedures

There are price comparisons for everything we purchase --- which is only natural because we want to purchase items/services at the best possible price (everyone loves a bargain). This is why sites like Froogle.com, shopping.com and shopzilla.com exist.

If we have to pay more and more out of pocket expenses for procedures we have to undergo, shouldn't we be able to compare prices and choose where we want to have the procedure (such as X-rays or CT scans?). Where in our lives do we just hand over our credit cards and say "charge it"—no matter what the cost? (ok, some people do this-- but either they have the money to do this or they're not fiscally responsible). With the economy where it is (and where it’s going) most of us can’t afford to do this.

We guess it would be "ok" if the prices for each procedure where fixed so that no matter where you go, what insurance you had, the price was the same for a certain procedure (ie. an X-ray would be the same price at hospital X and hospital Y--- and the price would be the same whether you had insurance A or insurance B). Unfortunately, this isn't the case. According to The New York Times article, "Bargaining Down That CT Scan Is Suddenly Possible," " the average provider — doctors or hospitals — has between 5 and 100 reimbursement rates for the exact same procedure. A hospital chain with multiple locations may have 150 rates for the same procedure."

Why is it so complicated?

Because each insurance health plan (more than 6,000) has a distinct reimbursement schedule the parent insurance company negotiated with the nation's 850,000 providers.

Considering healthcare costs are on the rise and it is already estimated that 12% of adults has out of pocket medical expenses greater than 5% of their annual income, there should be a better way to know how much you are paying for something --before you get that dreaded bill. Online companies with knowledge of the negotiated prices reimbursed by the insurance companies, are already tapping into this opportunity by providing the consumer an opportunity to lower their medical bill (the company itself would negotiate a lower fee for the procedure). Then there are the other online companies who try to estimate the fees negotiated by extrapolating the data from Medicare. Even the local hospital associations are starting to provide the information--"just this month, the Georgia Hospital Association started a Web site listing fees of common medical procedures at each of the state's 141 acute-care hospitals."

Many may say giving this type of information is hurtful for the consumer because the consumer would naturally want to have the procedure where they can get it the cheapest -- which may not be the best place. First of all, the procedures would be performed by hospitals and doctors qualified and certified to perform such procedures. Secondly, consumers know that a diamond ring bought at Kmart is not the same quality and caliber as, say, a ring bought at Tiffany & Co. However, they still want to be able to make that choice.

Where will this all end?

Hopefully with the consumer being empowered to make informed decisions.

Special Posting: MISSION CONTROL: American Healthcare!

Healthcare consumers ARISE!!!

The distractions of modern life, disastrous troop surges and the soap operas of new mothers -- Ms. Spears and Ms. Smith -- have overtaken our senses and common sense. Boomers' third age is on deck and our corporatized healthcare infrastructure and delivery systems are about to co-opt our (Internet) healthcare information resources as well. As the military industrial complex rachets downward (which it must as boomers begin signing up for Medicare en masse), the same lobbyists and financial interests who drive it will be refocusing on healthcare as the bastion of HUGE returns.

How will Congress and the next President allocate these redirected resources? Who will decide?

There is already evidence the money-guys/gals are staking out (Internet) healthcare information resources for the very same establishment interests who have held 40+ million Americans from a basic human right -- healthcare insurance. Many millions more fear the loss of insurance if jobs are lost.

American jobs are portable. Their insurance is not.

Boomers and their children have been otherwise engaged. New technologies and amazing medical advances have lulled us into a state of ignorance that would be unthinkable in any other area of our lives. We receive the healthcare and long-term care services and security we deserve.

GoogleHealth is coming.

CareTALK will be part of this REAL healthcare revolution. We are meeting with Chairman Rangel in two weeks. I pounded the pavements for his first campaign against the wonderful, but flawed Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. many years ago -- and that deserves a meeting! We have seen the movie over the last 7 years and we know all the entrenched and arriving players. Not many care very much for caregivers -- professional or family/friends -- who have been served pabulum for years, and have been deliberately kept ignorant or worse, misinformed. Medicare does NOT cover long-term care expenses. Families need to arm themselves NOW with modern, cutting edge information resources, tools, utilities -- and we, as Americans, all have a RESPONSIBILITY to MANAGE a change in course. Government resources have been SQUANDERED. A PLAN for how to reconcile boomers' HUGE Medicare and long-term care requirements with the needs of younger generations must be prioritized. That plan will not and should not exclusively come from entrenched interests. The plan must be driven by an informed and resourced American healthcare consumer. A demographic tidal wave of seniors will make demands on us all. Corporate interests cannot and should not define Americans' healthcare future -- alone.

GoogleHealth is coming.

YOU will be in the drivers' seat -- FOR REAL! Information comes with responsibilities.

Sorry, Brittany and Nicole -- we're changing the channel.

- Renata

PS. Visit The Concord Coalition, as mentioned in 'Baby Boom' about to lower boom on overextended U.S. budget ..., to see what we, as a nation, can do to help our lawmakers and the 2008 presidential candidates focus on the growing fiscal crisis we are currently in-- and will be in with healthcare costs rising and the ratio of "workers paying into Social Security and Medicare relative to the number of beneficiaries will fall by roughly one-third."