Amanda Bennet lost her husband of 20 years to a grueling battle with kidney cancer December 14, 2007. Bennet’s husband, Terence Bryan Foley, fought for seven years, and had been told several times that he was going to die, yet somehow made it through. Bennet and her husband were forced to make several difficult decisions throughout the seven years, and every choice they made was made to save Terence’s life regardless of the price. They had “robust” medical insurance, which allowed them to keep on fighting. Bennet says, “We didn’t have to think about money, allocation of medical resources, the struggles of roughly 46 million uninsured Americans, or the impact on corporate bottom lines.”
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Last week, high blood pressure was declared as a “neglected disease” that costs the U.S. health system $73 billion a year, states Julie Steenhuysen from Reuters. A major cause of high blood pressure is consuming too much salt, so the U.S. government is “looking for solutions to curb salt intake as a way to head off future heart attacks and strokes that help drain healthcare systems,” reports Steenhuysen.
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Experts say California might have to go solo on extending healthcare coverage to the millions of uninsured Californians because “the future of federal overhaul efforts appears uncertain,” reports California Healthline. Nearly 7 million people are uninsured in California, and about the same amount of people are enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal. “Although federal health care reform could extend coverage to more Californians, it also could burden the cash-strapped state with additional Medi-Cal costs,” states California Healthline.
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Dr. Pauline W. Chen from The New York Times says being a doctor involves knowing the clinical facts like the back of your hand, but it also involves being aware of a patient’s economic reality. She recalls a time when she told one of her patients that he was to pack gauze into his open abdominal incision every day in order to keep it clean and healthy, and then come back in a few weeks for a check-up. However, when the patient arrived for his visit, Dr. Chen noticed the patient had not been changing the gauze as ordered, and his wound was no longer healthy and clean. When Dr. Chen began to stress to him the importance of changing the dressing, he pointed to a stack of unopened gauze, and said, “Hey, Doc … Do you think I could have the extra? This stuff isn’t cheap.” She says she filled the patient’s pockets with gauze, and then began to realize the importance of embracing the social and economic aspects of health care. She says, “It [is] possible to learn about the economic and social aspects of health care while immersed in the details of biology, physiology and pharmacology. And it [is] impossible to become a good clinician without doing so.”
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A 10-point manifesto entitled “Declaration of Health Care Independence” was released Wednesday by Rep. Michele Bachmann and a crew of conservative House members. This document contains 10 ideas that Bachmann thinks should be the foundation for an effective health care reform that brings affordable health care to all and controls costs. Larry Bivins from the SC Times states that, “The group said the Republican victory in last week’s Massachusetts Senate race was a clear signal that Americans are disgruntled over the health care proposals pushed by House and Senate Democrats.”
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Millions of Americans are currently uninsured and the numbers keep on growing. If the health-care reform doesn’t pass, the numbers will continue to grow, and taxpayers will be footing the bill when the uninsured end up in the emergency room. “Families will continue to be paralyzed by the high costs and insecurity of medical coverage,” and “people will opt against entrepreneurial ventures and postpone retirement because of the need to stay on employer health plans,” states Barb Shelly from the Kansas City Star. People will be denied affordable coverage from insurance companies due to “preexisting” conditions, and money spent on medical care will continue to overwhelm the country. “People will continue to die from preventable hospital infections and other unnecessary medical errors,” and “physicians will continue to be paid for procedures, not results,” reports Shelly.
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