Migraine Medicine

The Power of the Gods: Medical infallibility.

The Universal Pander: There's nothing like a presidential election to bring out the healthcare crisis. And, since the presidential primary process is stretching into a two year long spectacle, there's been no shortage of proposals on how to fix our current system. Recently, Dennis Kucinich pointed out that his ideas are the closest thing to what the American people want:

In a CNN poll this spring, 64 percent of respondents said the government should "provide a national insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes," and 73 percent approve of higher taxes to insure children under 18. Those results track New York Times and Gallup polls last year, in which about two-thirds of respondents said it is the federal government's responsibility to guarantee health coverage to all Americans.

Such polls allow Kucinich to joke that, far from being in the loony left, "I'm in the center. Everyone else is to the right of me."

Ask the American public a different question about the healthcare system, and you'll get a different answer:

For the fifth time in six years, Harris Interactive has asked the insured public to rate their own insurance plans. Two thirds of them continue to give their plans an A or a B, with only 10% giving them a D or an F. Substantial but not overwhelming majorities continue to say that they would recommend their own health plans to family members who are basically healthy (76%) or who have a serious or chronic illness (68%).

Health insurance companies are like politicians. We dislike all but our own. We should be careful what we wish for, however, for it won't just be our own politicians designing a nationalized health insurance plan; it will be all the others that we dislike, including politicians who believe hospital pork is a public service, that healthcare and personal autonomy are mutually exclusive, and that the right to earn a living takes second place to health insurance.

What are people really wishing for when they say they wish for a single nationalized health insurance program? Security. Our current employer-provided system means that most of us are just a pink slip away from losing our insurance coverage. It also means that, deprived of the bargaining power of large corporations and unions, the self-employed are left with fewer choices and higher premiums. Handing over the whole kit and kaboodle to the government is a seductively simple solution. But it would also be a very expensive solution.

The British are often held up as the standard to which we should aspire. But we don't live under a British style of government. We live under a government that's truly government of the people, by the people, for the people. And what the people want, the people get. Witness the influence of disease activism even now on disease specific government funding and treatment mandates. In England, the government only pays for colonoscopies to check for colon cancer if there are symptoms suggestive of cancer or a family history of colon cancer. In the United States, the Medicare pays for a colonoscopy every ten years for everyone over 50, regardless of symptoms or risk. So do many insurance companies., sometimes if not by choice, by mandate. In England, mammograms are only covered for women between the ages of 50 and 70, and then only every three years. In the United States, we pay for mammograms beginning at age 40, yearly, and with no upper age limit. We just don't have the heart for rationing that they have in other countries.

A common theme in politician crafted health care schemes is that by paying for prevention we will save money, and thus be able to offer limitless healthcare services without bankrupting the country. Both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have explicitly emphasized the importance of preventive healthcare in their plans- even to the point of patient-directed mandates in the case of Edwards. But if preventive services save money and lives, then why is the United Kingdom, which offers less expansive preventive services than the United States, both healthier and cheaper? (Hint: Dead people neither spend health insurance dollars nor complain about their health.)

Don't be fooled by the promises of health and wealth to be found in government-provided, or even mandated, health insurance coverage. It may bring you health, but it will be at a very steep price - both in money and liberty.

(Note: Next installment, a look at the Republican candidates approach to "universal coverage.")

So here is the scoop. One of my best friends is pregnant and me being a guy I don’t have much first-hand experience so I need to find out some information in order to be as supportive as possible. I searched the web and came across a virtual all-in-one pregnancy site. It really does have everything you need to know, starting from the stages of conception all the way to birth.

My friend says twins run in her family and I was even able to find specialzed information topics like twins complications, best to be prepared for anything. I will let you know how everything ‘comes out’ in around 7 more months!

Biggest Loser’s Biggest Changes

Zing the Body Electric: Treating high blood pressure, circa 1907 (click images to enlarge and read the text):




A close-up view of the blood pressure machine:


- from Scientific American, August 24, 1907.

The report sounds so confident:

The important feature is that the cure - the reduction of arterial pressure to the normal value - is permanent, and that the progress of the arteriosclerosis is arrested by the removal of the excess of blood pressure.

Seems kind of silly today, but look - one hundred years on and we're still flirting with the idea.

Here's what else was going on in 1907, and here's an early twentieth century text on treating diseases with electricity.