Stop Obama's misguided global AIDS policy

Photo: Kaytee Riek, whose other photos of this recent demo can be found at kayteeriek.com

President Obama is making big mistakes on global AIDS. Click to read South African AIDS activist Zackie Achmat explaining why.

See also:

TakeANumber.org

New York Times

Zackie Achmat in New York, May 13 2010:

When you're done getting dressed, take the rooster to the front desk

Sue Lowden is a Republican running to capture Sen. Harry Reid's seat in Nevada. Recently she suggested that we should go back to the days when people paid their doctors directly, whether in money, or you know, if they didn't have the money right then, then maybe, barter, with, you know, like, chickens and stuff. That back-to-the-old-days nonsense is so phenomenally stupid, it nearly begged for someone to set up this site:

Prices of medical procedures in number of chickens.

Make sure to read the fine print to properly adhere to the plan's rules.

For big procedures, the site suggests possibly converting to cows.

On the other hand, teaching hospitals might consider accepting chicks in order to subsidize medical education--and to pay residents with. Residents, being mere doctors-in-training, should be paid in chicks rather than in chickens. This will also allow them to invest in their future. Once the chicks grow up, they can be used to pay off student loans.



The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has a different plan available.

Unbelievably, after taking a week of jokes (Jay Leno: "But what if your doctor isn't Amish?"), she continued to promote this idea, in the tone of making a helpful suggestion for the folks at home.

Repub's vow: no snitchin'

Someone called Stupak a "baby killer" on the Senate floor. (But... isn't a baby killer a guy who votes against the Children's Health Insurance Program? I must be confused.)

Campbell, initially suspected as the lawmaker who shouted the phrase, told reporters that he didn't say it and believed that it came from a member sitting a row behind him, where the Texas Republicans usually sit. Campbell said he heard "a Southern accent".

"The people who know won't give it up," Campbell told reporters.

He said the remark was "clear as a bell."

There'll always be a Texas: nurses prosecuted for reporting improper behavior by a physician

It's certainly possible that nurses might report a doctor to bosses or regulators just to be spiteful. But the system has to make reporting easy, and safe, to make sure that quality issues don't get missed. That's what makes it such a travesty to criminally prosecute nurses for reporting concerns about a doctor's conduct. It would be a travesty even if the nurses' concerns ultimately weren't legitimate. But it's especially egregious when what's being reported is, in fact, bad behavior--stuff like emailing patients to promote his own herbal supplements that he was selling on the side.

New York Times covers the case.
Texas Nurses Association offers updates and legal defense fund information.

And as a bonus, because the Internet is full of glory, and for your edification, are Amazon reviews submitted by the doctor in question, which may singlehandedly convince you that these nurses were truly noble fighters for healthcare quality.

Google is specifically full of glory, and yea, noble also, for it teaches that this same doctor donated $968 to Ron Paul, and is a Facebook fan of "Ladies of Liberty" which is an organization for libertarian ladies to get other ladies involved in libertarianism, and also is a fan of Leviticus diet tips; and that he also appears in a program on "God's Learning Channel" as a doctor who treats patients with Morgellon's Disease...

Joe Wilson's war

For all the fuss about Joe Wilson disrespecting Obama by shouting "You lie!" (to which, it can only be said, he never would have said that to a white president)--

the biggest crime is not disrespecting the president, but that he was doing so in the cause of trying to make sure some Guatemalan girl can't deliver her baby, and some Chinese guy can't get treatment for HIV infection, and some old Mexican lady is going to die for reasons regular medical care could have prevented.

And now, politicians are bending over backwards to say, Joe Wilson is disrespectful, but to his larger point, they only respond, please, fellow Americans, be assured, we won't be taking this love your neighbor thing too far.

The hybrid healthcare system

photo: from wikimedia commons, Barack Obama hearing from Ohio voter Marian Edwards about health insurance



At a small social gathering recently, a policy wonk doctor and I chatted about what the Obama era might bring to healthcare.

"I think he's going to try to do something quickly", the policy wonk said. "The difference between 1992 and now is that big business then was opposed to government involvement just on principle. But now they want it off their table. They can't keep bearing the cost of the whole system. They're ready."

I think the goal should not be a single-payer system. It should be a system that could eventually become a single-payer system in which the government runs an opt-in portion that gradually more and more people opt in to as business ditches health benefits. This is akin to building a hybrid car with the capacity, once a better battery is available on the market, to become a plug-in hybrid with a much greater share of electric power.