Tag Archives: health care

medical news

House prepares to burn Obamacare to the ground

I told you I would say something good about Donald J. Trump when the opportunity presents itself.

It just has.

The president-elect has admonished Republican members of Congress about whether they should repeal the Affordable Care Act without having a replacement law ready to go.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/us-house-republicans-to-vote-on-obamacare-repeal/ar-AAlQhoT?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

According to Reuters: “The president-elect, who takes office on Jan. 20, pressed lawmakers this week to repeal and replace it ‘essentially simultaneously.'”

Yes, Trump has applauded House members’ swift action to repeal the ACA. He’s also been mindful of the consequences of peeling away health insurance for 20 million Americans who have purchased coverage under the ACA.

It’s not as if congressional Republicans haven’t had time to cobble together a replacement plan. For six years, since the ACA was approved, the GOP has been harping and carping about the need to replace it — with something! House Republicans filed a lawsuit to repeal the ACA. They wrung their hands and griped out loud continually about an insurance law that was patterned — interestingly enough — after a Massachusetts law endorsed and pushed by Republican Gov. Mitt Romney.

House repeal doesn’t spell the end of the ACA. The repeal effort still has to jump through the Senate hoops, too.

However, the president-elect’s insistence that Congress have a replacement plan ready to go “simultaneously” is the more reasonable and humane approach.

local news, medical news, military news

Faith in VA medical care remains strong

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I hereby declare that my faith in the Department of Veterans Affairs health care system remains strong.

I told you I’d inform you of what I learned from my health-care provider regarding an injury I suffered while walking with my wife through the ‘hood the other day.

Her diagnosis? “You’ve injured something in your knee,” she said. She said I need to use an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drug, keep the compression bandage wrapped around my sore knee, and “rest it as much as you can.”

There. Problem solved … I hope.

As is almost always the case, my appointment this morning at the Thomas E. Creek Veterans Health Care Center in Amarillo went like clockwork.

I showed up at 7 a.m. to get blood drawn at the lab; I was out of there by 7:25.

I grabbed a burrito at a nearby convenience store, brought it back and wolfed it down while waiting for my 8 a.m. appointment with my nurse practitioner.

She called me back at 8:15. We visited. I told her about my injury. She took a look at my leg and said, “Yep, it’s swollen.” She gave me her diagnosis and her proposed remedy.

I walked out of the Lone Star Team clinic at 8:50.

Not bad at all.

I still have this minor hitch in my step stemming from the “pop” I felt while walking the other morning with my wife and Toby the Puppy.

I also told you I’d keep the faith. It’s working well for me.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/06/va-might-face-a-stern-test-soon/

 

 

 

local news, medical news

VA might face a stern test soon

1 Comment

veteran-health-care-1140x641

I have shouted my praise to you already about the quality of health care I receive at the Thomas E. Creek Veterans Health Care Center.

Luck and good fortune have been on my side so far. I have enjoyed tremendous health and I feel fairly spry for a 66-year-old red-blooded American male.

My next visit, very soon, might provide a bit of a test for the health care providers at the federal agency’s facility in Amarillo.

I have a sharp pain in one of my legs. I didn’t think much of it until Saturday morning when, while walking through the ‘hood with my bride and Toby the Puppy, I felt something go “pop” on the outside of my right knee.

It … hurt … like … hell!

I managed to gimp my way back home and I put ice and a heating pad on the knee for the rest of the day.

Good thing I had an appointment already scheduled with my health care provider at the VA, a quite competent nurse practitioner who I’ve been seeing since I enrolled at the Creek medical center in 2013.

I’ve always considered this “benefit” to be of the “pre-paid” variety. I am grateful for it beyond measure.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/10/va-a-federal-agency-that-actually-works/

I also have been horrified and mortified at the scandal that erupted in Phoenix over the care that the VA failed to provide for veterans in need. The tumult cost a fine American, retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki, his job as secretary of Veterans Affairs.

I continue to place my faith in the care that our local VA hospital is delivering the goods to veterans who need them. My hope at this moment is that my nurse practitioner will be able to schedule an appointment with an X-ray tech, who’ll take pictures of my leg and tell me why it hurts so damn bad.

Then, my hope is that I’ll be able to get it repaired in a timely fashion.

I’ll report back when I learn more.

Until then, I shall keep the faith.

local news, medical news, national news

ACA adds another insurance client

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The number of Americans insured by the Affordable Care Act grew by one today, I am happy to announce.

I also am happy to disclose that the enrollment process went quite smoothly.

You’ve heard of the ACA, I’m sure. It’s the federal health insurance program also known as Obamacare. It is President Obama’s signature piece of domestic legislation. His critics like calling it Obamacare, adding the appropriate derisive inflection in their voices at times whenever they want to make some kind of critical point about it.

Yes, it got off to that rocky start a couple of years ago. The healthcare.gov website broke down right out of the chute. Then the government computer geeks went to work to fix it. They did.

They rolled it out a second time it and then millions of Americans got signed up.

Oh, but congressional Republicans are still angry about the ACA. They’re trying to sue the president to get it tossed out. Indeed, a federal judge recently ruled that the GOP has legal standing to actually file suit.

Never mind that the insurance is working. Or that millions of Americans will lose their health insurance if the law gets tossed out.

Oh, but hey. It’s only us out here.

Well, today my wife got enrolled. Her previous health insurer is getting out of the health insurance business at the end of the year. So, with a good bit of help from our trusted insurance broker — with whom we’ve done business for as long as we’ve lived in Amarillo — we got my much better half signed up with a new insurance carrier.

And you know what? It’s going to cost us less than my wife’s previous policy did.

On that note, I want to offer a word of thanks to the president of the United States for pushing through the legislation that enables us to purchase health insurance at a price we can afford.

medical news

Glad to be enrolled in VA health care system

VA_Health_care_

Count me as one red-blooded American military veteran who’s glad to be enrolled in the health care system the federal government provides for us.

I had another remarkably positive experience this morning in that regard. I thought I’d share it here.

The medical staff at the Thomas Creek Veterans Medical Center here in Amarillo had asked me to seek an abdominal ultrasound; the purpose is to look for any sign of an aneurysm in my gut.

So, I signed up with an insurance provider that contracts with the VA and made the appointment at Baptist St. Anthony’s Hospital, one of two acute care hospitals in the city.

My appointment was set for 9:15 a.m. They told me to report to the front desk at 8:45, get registered and then wait for my turn.

I got there at 8:35, reported to the front desk. They took my info down, told me to go to a waiting room … and wait.

I waited all of about six minutes. A young woman came out, asked me for my date of birth and Social Security number and led me back to the lab area.

I waited there for, oh, maybe 10 minutes. Out came a lab tech named Chris, who took me to the treatment room.

He asked me to lie down on the table. He left the room and returned about two minutes later. He then ran the ultrasound machine over my abdomen.

Twelve minutes later? I was done.

I looked at my watch: 9:20 a.m. That’s five minutes after my visit was scheduled to begin.

I’m not yet sure what the VA had to do with the promptness and efficiency of this visit, but I’ll give the agency some measure of credit. It might be, although I likely cannot prove it, that BSA staffers give VA patients a little higher priority … maybe?

Whatever. There’s something quite positive to be said for this pre-paid health care benefit.

political news

Mike Huckabee: closet liberal

Bill Press is a Democratic Party operative and commentator. He once co-hosted “Crossfire” on CNN and he’s been sort of a progressive/liberal TV talking head for many years.

He posted this item on Facebook that I have to share on this blog. It seems to be quite revealing.

***

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee announced he’s running for president yesterday, the sixth Republican to do so.

Now, here’s what’s funny: As a presidential candidate, he may talk about his time as FOX NEWS talk show host, but he won’t talk about his time as governor. He can’t. Because today he’s running as a conservative – but, back then, he governed as a liberal!

As Igor Volsky from Think Progress told us on the show yesterday, Governor Huckabee had a record which Bill Clinton, another Arkansas governor, would have been proud of.

One of his first acts as governor was to raise the sales tax to pay for improvements in schools. He also convinced voters to raise taxes to pay for improvements to Arkansas highways. As governor, he supported in-state tuition and scholarships for students who came to this country illegally.

Like President Obama, Huckabee’s signature achievement was health care. He expanded health coverage to kids whose parents earned too much to qualify for Medicaid but still couldn’t afford private insurance – and the number of uninsured children dropped from 22 percent to 6 percent.

As Governor, Mike Huckabee built a strong, progressive, pro-government record. Too bad he can’t run on it today.

***

That’s quite a record. Gov. Huckabee ought re-own it.

medical news

That's it, flush the cancer from your body

Here’s an item that requires you to suspend your disbelief, so get ready for it.

Nevada state Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, a Republican, thinks you can flush cancer from your body using baking soda. She wants to change state law to allow more treatments that aren’t approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Hey, it gets better.

Fiore runs a health care company, apparently licensed by the state.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/02/24/3626567/nevada-assemblywoman-cancer-fungus/

Fiore also has a radio talk show, in which she told her listeners:  “If you have cancer, which I believe is a fungus, and we can put a pic line into your body and we’re flushing, let’s say, salt water, sodium cardonate [sic], through that line, and flushing out the fungus… These are some procedures that are not FDA-approved in America that are very inexpensive, cost-effective.”

That’s it. Cancer is a “fungus,” kind of like, oh, the stuff that makes your toenails ugly.

What in the name of medical malpractice is this individual suggesting?

Read my lips, Michele: Cancer ain’t a fungus. You can’t treat it with salt water. My mother went through two bouts of cancer in her life; an aunt and two uncles fought it like crazy, although the disease took my aunt and one of my uncles. A cousin of mine was stricken with it as a teenager.

This isn’t the kind of disease you treat in the manner she suggests.

Assemblywoman Fiore needs a serious reality check. Furthermore, someone ought to take a look at what kind of health care she’s providing at that company she owns.

 

Uncategorized

VA reform deal struck

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sander, I-Vt., can stop being mad at U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla.

The two lawmakers have worked out an agreement that reforms veterans health care with the aim of ending the scandalous delays that have rocked the Department of Veterans Affairs.

This veteran thanks them.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/veterans-affairs-reforms-deal-109425.html?hp=f1

The deal will be revealed Monday.

Sanders had grown testy in recent days as Congress prepares to take a five-week recess. He had expressed anger at Miller’s unwillingness to negotiate a deal that closes the gap between the House and Senate versions of the reform. The men chair their bodies’ respective veterans affairs committees and so they got together over the weekend to hammer out a deal that should pass both houses of Congress and end up on President Obama’s desk.

Politico reports that specifics aren’t yet clear but the reforms are expected to give the VA secretary broader authority to fire administrators who mess up and it allocates more money for veterans seeking health care if they cannot be seen by medical staff at a veterans medical clinic.

As Politico reports: “While Sanders and Senate Democrats prefer the bill’s costs to be treated as emergency spending, there is a strong push from Republicans to raise revenue or make other cuts to offset the bill’s costs as much as possible.”

There must be no more delays on improving veterans health care. Politicians of both parties keep proclaiming their deep, abiding respect for veterans and vow to give them top-flight medical care. I appreciate their kind words.

Their bickering over what should have been a slam-dunk, though, is testing a lot of veterans’ patience.

Get it done.

Uncategorized

Health care law faces huge day

There are big days … and then there are those days on which everything seems to ride.

The Obama administration is facing one of those “everything” days.

It’s supposed to get the healthcare.gov website fixed by the end of the day. This is the site that all but crashed in early October when millions of Americans tried to sign on to the federal exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/healthcaregov-tech-team-scrambling-to-create-workaround-for-site-before-deadline/2013/11/27/f5affc7c-577c-11e3-ba82-16ed03681809_story.html

Turns out the website wasn’t ready for prime time. Then came the cancellation notices that President Obama said wouldn’t come. He’d promised that we could keep our insurance plans if we were happy with them. That, too, turned out to be incorrect. Did the president actually “lie,” meaning did he make that promise knowing he couldn’t keep it?

I’m not proficient enough of a mind-reader to know that, unlike the president’s critics who’ve called him everything but the Son of Satan. Oh, wait a minute, come to think of it, I’m pretty sure he’s actually been called that too.

We’ll get to see now if (a) the administration’s computer geeks can deliver the goods on the website and (b) whether the critics will keep their mouths shut if the geeks actually make good on their promise to make the website user-friendly.

I’m cautiously optimistic on the first part; not so on the second.