Category Archives: medical news

medical news

Romney vs. Holyfield: Keep it clean, fellas

Let it never be said of Mitt Romney that the 2012 Republican presidential nominee lacks a sense of humor.

The same can be said of the man he’s scheduled to “fight” tonight: former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield.

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/05/15/406986457/mitt-romney-to-fight-evander-holyfield-you-read-that-right?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=politics&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews

These men are going strap on the gloves and “fight” to raise money for Charity Vision, a Utah-based non-profit that helps people in Third World countries with vision problems.

National Public Radio reports that Romney is taking the “fight” quite seriously. Sure he is.

So is Holyfield … not!

Actually, this kind of event speaks well of both men: that a well-known American politician is willing to get punched around —Ā more or less —Ā by a professional prize fighter and that the boxing pro is able to pull his punches enough to avoid inflicting any actual damage.

It’s all for a great cause. Charity Vision is expected to collect about $1 million which, according to NPR, willĀ pay forĀ medical supplies, screening, surgeries and training.

So, gentlemen?

Keep your punches up, break when we tell you to break — and have some fun.

 

medical news, national news, political news

Listen to one of your own, GOP, on 'Obamacare'

Brent Budowsky is singing Karl Rove’s praises.

And why not? Budowsky is an economist of some repute and is a former aide to the late, great U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas. He thinks Rove — aka “Bush’s Brain” — is spot on in telling his fellow Republicans to give their futile effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

It’s a loser. Any remote chance the GOP has of tossing the ACA aside is going to cost them dearly, especially when — in Budowsky’s eyes — the first person dies because he or she is denied affordable health insurance because Republicans have won their fight to repeal the ACA.

Karl Rove surrenders to ObamaCare

And why should the GOP high command listen to Rove?

Easy. The man’s a brilliant political strategist.

He helped engineer George W. Bush’s winning campaigns for Texas governor (in 1994) and two successful races for the presidency (in 2000 and 2004). The governor’s race should have been in the bag for the incumbent, the late Democrat Ann Richards. Rove came up with a strategy that held Bush to a tightly scripted line of specific issues and reforms he would enact if elected governor. He never veered off the script as he went on to defeat Richards.

The man knows a winning political cause and a losing cause as well as anyone.

As Budowsky writes in The Hill: “Rove’s surrender to ObamaCare, advising Republicans against pretending they would repeal ObamaCare, is politically very wise. Rove’s fear about what happens to Republicans if the court does overturn ObamaCare provisions and the world witnesses horror stories of Americans being hurt because of Republican anti-ObamaCare politics ā€” without any Republican policy to undo the damage ā€” is politically brilliant.

“Imagine daily stories on television about very ill Americans being stripped of healthcare, about children losing their insurance because they would no longer be covered by their parent’s policies, about Americans with preexisting conditions being thrown to the insurance wolves without ObamaCare, and about huge insurance premium increases that would punish many millions of Americans because of the Republican war against ObamaCare.”

Budowsky also predicts that the Supreme Court is going to uphold the ACA when it rules on its constitutionality before the end of the court’s current term.

Pay attention. Karl Rove might not be every American’s favorite operative/pundit/talking head. Howeve, he isĀ wise to counsel his fellow Republicans to give up a fight they’re certain to lose.

 

medical news, State news

Abstinence prevents STDs, but only if kids cooperate

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Hey, wait a minute!

Abstaining from sexual activity is supposed to be the only fool-proof method of preventing sexually transmitted disease. Isn’t that right?

And when school systems place a heavy insistence on abstinence in their sex education curriculum, then the occurrence of STDs is supposed to decline, if not disappear. Isn’t that also correct?

What’s going on with the Crane Independent School District in West Texas, which — despite its heavy emphasis on abstinence — has seen a spike in cases of chlamydia at its high school campus?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/abstinence-only-texas-high-school-hit-by-chlamydia-outbreak/ar-BBjf9nM

Oh, I almost forgot. We’re dealing with teenagers, who — and I was one of them myself — quite often don’tĀ heed their elders’ good advice.

You tell ’em not to do something and they, um, do it anyway.

Sex is an overpowering magnet for hormonally charged-up youngsters.

“Honestly this happens in any town,” said Diana Martinez, a Crane ISD parent.Ā “Parents need to be aware of the situation and make sure they tell their kids to be safe and practice safe sex.”

Sure enough, it does.

And parents need to take responsibility for telling their children to behave and to teach them about the difficulties of coming of age at a time when certain unsafe practices can endanger their health.

However, parents also turn their children over to public school systems for many hours during the day. It’s also incumbent on educators to drive home the points about such things as safe sex in addition to abstaining from sex altogether.

Anyone who’s ever been a parent also has been a teenager. There should be little need to remind grownups all around the world that teens do things against the wishes of those who care for them — be they parents or teachers.

medical news, national news, political news, Uncategorized

Repeal 'Obamacare'? Are conservatives nuts?

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Congressional conservatives have rocks in their heads. They’ve gone ’round the bend. They need some smelling salts.

They’re angry with House Speaker John Boehner who they believe is stalling their effort to get a bill that repeals the Affordable Care Act to the desk of the president of the United States — who hails the ACA as his signature domestic legislative achievement.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/conservatives-obamacare-repeal-republicans-117364.html?hp=t1_r

Gosh, what do you suppose President Obama is going to do when he receives a bill repealing the ACA?

Sign it into law? Guess again.

Put it on ice? Hardly.

Veto it outright? Yes.

The ACA happens to be working. It’s gaining popularity among millions of rank-and-file Americans — particularly those who now can afford health insurance whereas before they couldn’t.

Their effort is doomed to fail. As Politico reports: “House Republicans have already voted more than 50 times to try to defund, alter or overturn the health care law that conservatives despise. The latest effort, if it happens, would no doubt fail, too ā€” and there are some indications that GOP leaders are ready to move on. But getting a bill to President Barack Obamaā€™s desk and forcing him to veto it would send a powerful symbolic message to the Republican base that House conservatives havenā€™t given up on scuttling the law.”

That’s the point, I guess: make the base happy.

They want the law repealed, no matter what. The rest of the country? Well, the tideĀ appears to beĀ pulling in the opposite direction.

medical news, State news

'Gay conversion therapy' going strong in Texas

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Texas politicians seem to think they’re the onlyĀ correct thinkers in a nation that seems to be going in the opposite direction.

An example? Gay conversion therapy, which is drawing opposition from medical professionals and politicians throughout the land, appears to be showing no signs of slowing down in Texas, according to the Texas Tribune.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/04/18/opposition-gay-conversion-therapy-grows/

Have mercy on us all.

Gay conversion therapy seeks to persuade people that they aren’t actually gay. Never mind scientific evidence that someone’s sexual orientation is built into their DNA the same way, say, their hair and eye colors are built in.

That hasn’t stopped politicians from suggesting that a healthy dose of religious teaching, which the critics contend is occurring, will get rid of someone’s homosexual urges. As the Tribune reports, “TheĀ American Psychiatric Association hasĀ condemnedĀ it, and experts say it can cause mental harm to individuals.”

Hey, what does a group of trained medical professionals know?

The Tribune reports further: “David Pickup, who practices reparative therapy in California and Texas, said he was upset by the presidentā€™s words last week and feels reparative therapy has been mischaracterized.

ā€œ’Words hurt sometimes, and some of our clients have been upset about his public condemnation of these things ā€” it has really hurt their feelings,’ Pickup said. ‘Reparative therapy is there for people who believe that for them, homosexual impulses arise not because of something genetic but because of emotional and sexual abuse.’ā€

State Rep. Celia Israel, D-Austin, has been trying to get a hearing before the House State Affairs Committee. She’s been stonewalled so far. Israel is hoping at least to get the subject on the table for some open debate.

Something tells me that with conservatives owning a supermajority in the House of Representatives and a strong majority in the Senate, the chances of at least a hearing are somewhere between slim and none.

Meanwhile, Texas will stand increasingly alone in standing by the notion that you can convert gay people into something they are not.

 

medical news

ACA is working, if uninsured rate is an indicator

One way to measure the success of the Affordable Care Act comes from a new survey by the Gallup organization.

The number of uninsured Americans has declined to 11.9 percent.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/182348/uninsured-rate-dips-first-quarter.aspx

That’s down from 18 percent in the first quarter of 2013, when the ACA took full effect.

I’ll be the first — OK, maybe not the first — to concede that the ACA rollout went badly, with all the hiccups and meltdowns associated with healthcare.gov.

But the whole premise of the Affordable Care Act was to provide health insurance to Americans who didn’t have it and who — without insurance — faced the prospect of losing all their possessions if they were stricken with a catastrophic illness. Indeed, the very definition of “catastrophic” should be enough to frighten every uninsured American.

The decline in the uninsured was felt most dramatically among lower-income Americans, according to the Gallup survey. Those individuals, too, were among President Obama’s target demographic.

So, let’s take a deep breath before we start piling on the ACA, attaching ridiculous pejorative descriptions to it.

The results keep coming in: The Affordable Care Act is doing its job.

 

medical news, national news, political news

Obamacare lawsuit: Where does it stand?

Hey, it just occurs to me. There’s a lawsuit pending against the Affordable Care Act.

You remember that, yes? House Speaker John Boehner filed a lawsuit against the ACA, contending that President Obama didn’t have the authority to tinker with it through executive authority.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/obamacare-lawsuit/

He filed the suit after a lot of huffing and puffing about it.

Since its filing, though, some data have suggested something that foes of the ACA — aka Obamacare — don’t want to hear.

It’s that Americans are signing up for it. The ACA is working. Actually working. More Americans have health insurance now who didn’t have it before it was enacted.

Boehner, though, didn’t want to hear those silly thing. He said the president overstepped his constitutional authority by “rewriting the law,” a duty reserved solely for Congress.

I maintain the idea that the lawsuit is intended to please the Republican Party base that hates the idea of government mandating health insurance, even though it’s been done at the state level. Massachusetts, under the administration of then-Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, did so — and it became the model for the federal law enacted by Congress.

Several millions of Americans have health insurance these days. The lawsuit is out there. Somewhere. Waiting to be adjudicated.

The most fascinating political trick of the upcoming presidential campaign, meanwhile, may occur among Republicans who will vow to get rid of the ACA if they are elected — and replace it with … what?

 

medical news, Sports news

This basketball player touched nation's heart

How does a teenager who played basketball touch so many hearts?

When it’s a young woman with grit, determination and raw courage battling a fatal disease, only to lose that battle … well, that’s how you reach so many people’s deepest emotions.

Lauren Hill died Friday at the age of 19.

She played basketball for Mount St. Joseph University. It was her dream to play ball and she was able to fulfill that dream.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaabk/lauren-hill-dies-at-19-after-battle-with-brain-cancer/ar-AAaGwqW?ocid=ansUSAsports11

Lauren suffered from brain cancer. Yet she fulfilled her dream this past November when she scored the initial and final basket of Mount St. Joe’s victory over Hiram College.

Her death has brought forth statements of love and sympathy from all across the nation. One of the tweets came from none other than LeBron James, who wrote: “Until we officially meet again, take care and continue to be that LEADER we all love! #RIPLaurenHill”

Lauren declared her goal to be to find a cure for the rare form of cancer that took her life. Her courage inspired others to give thousands of dollars to fund research to find a cure.

She managed to play a few games for Mount St. Joe before her illness prevented her from playing.

Lauren’s courage has become something of a rallying cry for others who are stricken with fatal illness.

She suffered from Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, which normally affects children much younger. To play the game against Hiram, Lauren had to cope with crowd noise that made her lose her balance. She wore headphones to keep the noise to a minimum when she was sitting on the bench.

But her goal was to play ball. She accomplished her mission that day. She also helped raise about $40,000 for The Cure Starts Now Foundation, which she organized. The group’s efforts are ongoing.

This young woman was a champion in every sense of the word.

And that explains how she touched our hearts.

 

medical news, State news

Let's abstain from this sex education idea

We all were teenagers once. Those who aren’t yet teenagers will get there in due course.

Those of you who are teenagers right now, well, you know everything there is to know, correct?

You know, for example, that abstaining from sex is the most fool-proof way to avoid (a) pregnancy orĀ (b) sexually transmitted diseases.

Do you always follow the advice of your elders and abstain from sexual activity?

You can stop laughing now, and pay attention.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/dr-spitzer-may-abstain-teens-his-district-don’t

Texas state Rep. Stuart Spitzer, R-Kaufman,Ā is arguing that you should abstain from sex. He wants Texas public schools to teach abstinence-only sex education. ā€œMy goal is for everyone to be abstinent until they are married,ā€Ā Spitzer said during a Texas House committee hearing.

Well, Rep. Spitzer, good with that.

Here is where I should add that Rep. Spitzer also is a medical doctor. Also, as R.G. Ratliffe of Texas Monthly writes, he’s a deacon at a Baptist church in his hometown. He’s a man of deep religious faith — and I most certainly honor that commitment.

However …

Reality needs to take hold here as the state continues this debate over the best way to teach sex education in its public schools.

And the reality is that teenagers will have sex. No matter how many times you tell them not to engage in sex before they get married, they’re going to defy you. That’s what teenagers do. It’s in their DNA.

Believe it or not, teen rebellion against parental/school/legislative authority is all part of God’s plan. Honest. It is.

Dr. Spitzer persuaded his House colleagues to move $3 billion in AIDSĀ prevention toward abstinence education in public schools.

I happen to agree with Ratliffe onĀ a key point: Using religious faith to shape public policy constitutes a significant gamble. And when it involves the behavior of teenagers — those individuals who take pleasure in defying authority — then you’re asking for trouble.

Abstinence is one of those issues that needs to be taught at home and church. Parents shape their own children into who they hope they will become. I know from experience — both as a parent and as a former teenager — that as often as not you get mixed results.

It’s best to understand the inevitable. Teenagers are going to rebel and, by golly, they’re going to do things they shouldn’t do.

Having sex is one of them. How about teaching them about the risk of premarital sex — and then letĀ them know how to avoid pregnancy and disease if they choose to ignore what they’re being taught?

 

medical news, national news, political news

Cruz plays games with ACA

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Ted Cruz wants to “repeal every word” of the Affordable Care Act.

Now the Texas Republican U.S. senator and GOP presidential candidate has enrolled in the act he wants to eliminate.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/03/25/3638697/ted-cruz-wants-believe-hes-legally-required-sign-obamacare-hes-totally-wrong/

What gives with the Cruz Missile?

He says he’s obligated to sign up. He’s either (a) wrong, (b) confused or (c) lying.

Any takers on which one? I’ll pass for now.

The ACA doesn’t require members of Congress to sign up for health insurance. He could buy the coverage without having to participate in the District of Columbia health exchange set up under the ACA.

Does the former Texas solicitor general know this? Let me think. I’m guessing he knows that, sharp Harvard Law grad that he is.

Cruz is gaming the system and in the process is playing Republican voters for fools.