Category Archives: Healthcare

The Tyranny of Credit Ratings

Posted on March 6, 2012 by

One of the features of modern life that typically goes unmentioned is the control your credit rating has over your ability to access the modern economy. So throw the dysfunctional U.S. healthcare system into the mx, and here’s what happens … Continue reading →

Posted in Bidness, Healthcare | 2 Comments

The Working Uninsured: It Doesn’t Have to Be Like This

Posted on February 13, 2012 by

For those of you familiar with the science bloggysphere, you’re probably familiar with Kevin Zelnio’s work (I link to it frequently). Like roughly 50 million Americans, Zelnio holds down a full-time job, but can’t afford healthcare insurance, which meant that … Continue reading →

Posted in Basic Human Decency, Healthcare | 3 Comments

Komen’s Karen Handel Is No Friend of the Sick or Healthy, Especially If They Want to Vote While Not-White

Posted on February 3, 2012 by

By now, you might have heard about the Susan J. Komen Foundation’s decision to cease funding Planned Parenthood because while Planned Parenthood spends much more contact time in cancer screening, they do perform safe and legal abortions. This appears to … Continue reading →

Posted in Cancer, Civil Liberties, Conservatives, Healthcare, Voting | 2 Comments

What’s Wrong With a Welfare Nation?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by

At The Atlantic, a post by Alex Tabarrok, “The Innovation Nation vs. the Warfare-Welfare State“, has been making its way around the bloggysphere, in part due to the big shout out to science, as embodied by this figure: Tabarrok: We … Continue reading →

Posted in Basic Human Decency, Conservatives, Ethics, Funding, Healthcare, Public Health, Social Security | 2 Comments

Patients Aren’t Consumers and Should Not Manage Their Own Healthcare

Posted on January 18, 2012 by

We should be focusing on how to stay healthy. Managing our healthcare is something best left to the professionals: We see three main reasons why treating patients as consumers can create problems. 1. Patients don’t want to be there: People … Continue reading →

Posted in Healthcare | 2 Comments

Rick Santorum’s Murderous Arrogance: The Healthcare Edition

Posted on December 15, 2011 by

In a sense, it doesn’t matter for the election outcome what rightwing theocrat and presidential hopeful Rick Santorum thinks since he’s not going to win. He does epitomize, however, the conservative penchant for ‘factiness’: the ability to create pseudo-facts, also … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservatives, Healthcare | 2 Comments

A Simple and Boring Connection Between Antibiotics and Obesity, Diabetes, and Stroke

Posted on November 26, 2011 by

While I’m loath to disagree with Maryn McKenna (aka Scary Disease Lady), I think both she and Ramanan Laxminarayan are overthinking the correlation between regions in the U.S. with poor health (high rates of diabetes, stroke, and obesity) and antibiotic … Continue reading →

Posted in Healthcare, Microbiology, Public Health | 6 Comments

A Secondary Cost of Antibiotic Resistance

Posted on October 10, 2011 by

As I mentioned a few days ago, I had a wee medical procedure. As post-operative prophylaxis, I had a total of five doses of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin (‘Cipro’) over two days (note: this is one of the legitimate uses of … Continue reading →

Posted in Antibiotics, Healthcare, Public Health | 3 Comments

“Why the HELL Didn’t He KEEP HER IN THE HOSPITAL?”

Posted on September 13, 2011 by

The set up and the question (boldface mine): But my sister’s grandchild, the “apple of her eye”, just died. She was ten. All of ten years old. She had the flu, you see. The doctor wasn’t concerned. And since her … Continue reading →

Posted in Basic Human Decency, Healthcare, Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Devil Take the Hindmost As Public Policy: Thoughts on Joblessness and Need

Posted on July 20, 2011 by

“That is what these [unemployment] numbers mean: millions of people, staring into the abyss of an empty future.”
Continue reading →

Posted in Basic Human Decency, Healthcare, Jobs | 7 Comments