Oppose the Max Baucus proposal
Posted on | October 15, 2009 | No Comments
Here is more from sickforprofit.com on exactly why the Senate Finance Committee proposal is “a dream come true for the health insurance industry”.
P.S. If you really like numbers and real data, here is a chart that compares the Baucus Bill with the HELP Bill proposed by Kennedy that includes the public option. You can see the HELP bill is cheaper and it would provide competition for the health insurance industries so they can’t hike up the prices.
I got this chart from Health Care for America Now! article. They talk about other reasons why we should oppose the Senate Finance Committee Bill (Baucus Bill). Health Care for America Now actually has a whole pdf file with a bunch of cool charts like these. I promise you will be enlightened.
Max Baucus exposed by Bill Moyer
Posted on | October 15, 2009 | No Comments
I already told you about John Ensign, one of the members of Senate Finance Committee, and his motives for siding with the insurance companies. What a douche! But unfortunately, he is not the only one. Max Baucus, Democrat Senator from Montana, heads the committee and he is even more corrupt. Bill Moyers explains exactly why it is that even though 60% of the American people want public option, they are not going to get one. Watch the video. Please…
P.S. What do you say? I’m pretty sure that’s conflict of interest and unethical. I would love to see Baucus in jail. Oh and remember, that the latest plan from the committee does NOT include the public option. More scoop on that in the next post.
15% of Americans lack health insurance
Posted on | October 14, 2009 | No Comments
Bloomberg.com says 1 out of 7 people (43.8 million Americans) didn’t have health insurance in 2008. With economy showing almost no signs of improvement I doubt the number has gone down. Here is the application chart with all the numbers.
McCaughey gets it handed to her by Ratigan
Posted on | October 6, 2009 | No Comments
Ahh! What a pleasure to watch. She’s the same woman who helped kill Clinton’s health care plan in the 90s. How did she do it? Same way she is doing it now… by lying, fabricating facts, and misinforming the American public. Somebody needed to show her, her place and call her out on her lies. Dylan Ratigan of Morning Meeting on MSNBC did it beautifully. She should no longer be allowed on any genuine debates about health care.
Update: Btw, notice how she gets hella b****y. And Weiner completely breaks down her argument.
If you should want the whole scoop on Bitchy McCaughey (I’m sorry, I meant Betsy), or about her 2 hour debate last night with Anthony Weiner, in which he referred to as a “pyromaniac in a straw factory,” you should totally check out Talking Points Memo. (Just on a side note, they are amazing and I don’t know what I would do without them. But don’t tell them that!)
Exposing the hypocrisy of Republicans deciding your health care
Posted on | October 6, 2009 | 1 Comment
Remember John Ensign? Let me refresh your memory: He is the Republican Senator of Nevada who was recently humiliated for his extramarital affairs and therefore had to abdicate his position as Chairman of Republican Policy Committee, the fourth highest spot in Republican Party leadership. Blows my mind how people that run on moral values, family first, love the Lord, etc. are so often caught in extracurricular activities.
Anyway, now that you remember who he is, you should know that he is also on the Senate Finance Subcommittee for Health Care, which means he is part of the pack that decides whether you get affordable health care (previous blog article on this issue). Of course, he voted no on the first two proposals. Surprised? Gasp!
Here is a quote I pulled from NYtimes.com: “Does anybody believe Congress would let this public plan go away once it has a constituency? No way. Once it’s started, you will never get rid of it. Congress will subsidize it more and more, allow it to grow and grow.”
Apparently, he gets a lot of contributions from insurance companies. Health Care for America Now! has pulled together an ad they are playing in Nevada, which exposes Ensign’s hypocrisy. Don’t let him steal your and my affordable health care. Please?
Surgery videos from 1930’s (WiredScience)
Posted on | October 2, 2009 | No Comments
Wired Science pulled out some awesome black-and-white surgery videos from the 1930s from the annals of British Medical Association. Warning: They are pretty gruesome but show how complex surgeries were done back in the day with somewhat primitive tools and no computers. I highly recommend it just because it’s pretty fascinating.
How does the proposed health care plan affect you?
Posted on | October 1, 2009 | No Comments
I love NPR but that’s beside the point. NPR has got an excellent excellent interactive application that allows you to figure out just how the new proposed health care plan will affect you. It gives you the advantages and the drawbacks. So, don’t just listen to people feeding you their opinions, read the facts and decide for yourself.
A woman becomes pregnant, while being pregnant – WEIRD!!!
Posted on | October 1, 2009 | No Comments
An Arkansas woman, 31, became pregnant while already being pregnant. This happened two weeks into her first pregnancy. Basically, she will have a baby and then another one two weeks afterwards. Apparently, it’s only the fifteenth case known to us and is called superfetation (what an awesome name!). She has a super fetus!!! Btw, here is the link to the news article.
The mechanism behind it is not really known but some scientists think that it happens when the menstrual cycle keeps on going even after a woman becomes pregnant. Usually what happens is that a woman’s menstrual cycle ceases once she becomes pregnant because she stops producing Leutinizing Hormone (LH). LH is responsible for causing the ovarian follicles to grow and ovulate on the fourteenth day of the month. No LH means no ovulation, no egg, and therefore no fertilization.
More as I wrap my head around it and figure out more mechanisms and perhaps more hypotheses. I know, a nerdgasm but I can’t help being fascinated by this…
Wait! Somebody in my lab brought up an excellent point. What happens when she goes into labor? Is one fetus really just going to chill there while the other is being born? Contractions can’t be selective! This just keeps getting weirder and weirder! and that’s why I love biology. Help me understand this please, if you got any ideas.
Senate Finance Committee rejects two proposals for health-care public option
Posted on | October 1, 2009 | 1 Comment
I guess it was bound to happen. The Senate Finance Committee rejected two proposals for including the public option plan (one by Rockefeller IV of W. Virginia and one by Schumer of NY), which clearly is a huge setback for Obama. More importantly, it’s a step back for all Americans, especially for us not so well-off ones.
Being a college student, I get health care from our university, which is probably better than not having one because every time I have been there they have diagnosed me wrongly. Because of them, I have a huge scar on my head. Also thanks to them, somebody from our lab a while ago had to have his leg amputated, etc etc. I could go on.
I obviously can’t afford private insurance because I’m a broke a** grad student and I barely make rent myself. With the economy gone to ruts, there is a whole lot of people who can’t make rent and by extension have no health insurance. What happens to them, when they get sick or worse their children get sick? Shouldn’t the Congress be worrying about the 9.7% of the population that’s currently unemployed (U.S. BLS) and the other 15% people below the poverty line (U.S. Census of Bureau), rather than worrying about the interests of the insurance companies. Read more
Internet addiction, a mental illness! really?
Posted on | September 29, 2009 | No Comments
Yes it is true that people using blackberries or iPhone while having dinner or in other social situations, or even in class is really annoying if not infuriating, but a new Scientific American article suggests that there is actually a debate going on whether or not to include Internet addiction as a mental illness. That’s kind of going overboard, in my opinion.
First of all, you can’t call internet usage an addiction but rather what you do on the internet. Internet just provides a means to indulge in those addictions. For people whose job revolves around the internet are obviously not addicted to it but still may be on it for better part of the day like bloggers.
Secondly, as one of the comments that I really liked states, “Why do we have to separately label different addictions?… Why not just ‘He has a psychological addiction to the internet’, most span from the same things and have the same effect, it’s like making each virus that causes the common cold it’s own category.”
