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Op-Ed Contributor - Big Food vs. Big Insurance - NYTimes.com
This is a really interesting take on insurance companies as allies for better health.
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As for the insurers, you would think preventing chronic diseases would be good business, but, at least under the current rules, it’s much better business simply to keep patients at risk for chronic disease out of your pool of customers, whether through lifetime caps on coverage or rules against pre-existing conditions or by figuring out ways to toss patients overboard when they become ill.
But these rules may well be about to change — and, when it comes to reforming the American diet and food system, that step alone could be a game changer. Even under the weaker versions of health care reform now on offer, health insurers would be required to take everyone at the same rates, provide a standard level of coverage and keep people on their rolls regardless of their health. Terms like “pre-existing conditions” and “underwriting” would vanish from the health insurance rulebook — and, when they do, the relationship between the health insurance industry and the food industry will undergo a sea change.
The moment these new rules take effect, health insurance companies will promptly discover they have a powerful interest in reducing rates of obesity and chronic diseases linked to diet. A patient with Type 2 diabetes incurs additional health care costs of more than $6,600 a year; over a lifetime, that can come to more than $400,000. Insurers will quickly figure out that every case of Type 2 diabetes they can prevent adds $400,000 to their bottom line. Suddenly, every can of soda or Happy Meal or chicken nugget on a school lunch menu will look like a threat to future profits.
When health insurers can no longer evade much of the cost of treating the collateral damage of the American diet, the movement to reform the food system — everything from farm policy to food marketing and school lunches — will acquire a powerful and wealthy ally, something it hasn’t really ever had before.
By T.R. Reid -- Five Myths About Health Care in the Rest of the World
A little light on the subject - and from the Post, no less!
By T.R. Reid -- Five Myths About Health Care in the Rest of the World - washingtonpost.com
Nice to have a little light shone on all the mud flying around out there
Afterbirthers Demand To See Obama's Placenta | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
omg. This is AWESOME.
Healthcare Debate explained on the backs of napkins (All)
This is excellent! I don't think I've heard a clearer explanation of all of this anywhere.
The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists - TIME
Where IS the rational GOP who would say, as a Republican famously said to McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" to Rush Limbaugh and the others when they make their ridiculous and dangerous statements?
Op-Ed Columnist - Priority Test - Health Care or Prisons? - NYTimes.com
Astonishingly, many politicians seem to think that we should lead the world in prisons, not in health care or education.
What You Need To Know About Health Care Reform-Minyanville
The scariest thing about the health care reform bill is not the vision of granny-killers roaming hospital corridors. It’s the fact that few rational people seem to grasp how it really may change our lives. The facts have gotten lost somewhere between the howls of protesters and the sputters of proponents.
Rick Perlstein -- Birthers, Health Care Hecklers and the Rise of Right-Wing Rage
In America, Crazy Is a Preexisting Condition
The GOP's Misplaced Rage - The Daily Beast
"Until conservatives once again hold Republicans to the same standard they hold Democrats, they will have no credibility and deserve no respect. They can start building some by admitting to themselves that Bush caused many of the problems they are protesting."
Dr. Andrew Weil: Why I Am a Conservative on Health Care Reform
"Since when is it conservative to embrace new, overpriced, corrupt systems, like the health-destroying and ruinously expensive protocols of much of modern medicine? "Conservative" has several meanings, but two central ones are "favoring traditional views and values," and "avoiding excess."
I hold that nothing could be more wild, unconstrained, and downright liberal than the path medicine has taken in just the last 20 years -- an unprecedented bacchanalia of excess and contempt for traditional American values."
Op-Ed Columnist - Betraying the Planet - NYTimes.com
Powerful - an indictment of "politics as usual" in a time of extraordinary circumstances.
Limbaugh to GOP: 'Screw it' - The Plank
We already know what a nutjob Rush is, but still - omg. The best part of this post is the comments, though - hahahahahaha!!!!
Op-Ed Columnist - The Big Hate - NYTimes.com
How Fox News and others feed and incite the lunatic fringe - O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity and gang should be held accountable for the people whose hatred they enflame, IMO.
How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming | A Grist Special Series | Grist
Re-bookmarking this great reference - Grist re-designed/re-organized their website and the old link no longer works. Great stuff here!
FARK.com: (4291765) House GOP unveils its budget of fiscally responsible unicorns and market-driven rainbows
This is the most awesome discussion of the Republican "Budget Proposal" - oh god just please read it!! I can't stop laughing! This is the best thing since Sarah Palin!
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nstead of a budget they have a crayon drawing of a bald eagle high-fiving jesus...
doling out tax cuts to the needy, like middle class people who make over $5,000,000 a year. -
Here's the kind of logic Boehner's using...
"Two nights ago the president said, 'We haven't seen a budget yet out of Republicans.' Well, it's just not true because -- Here it is, Mr. President," - 9 more annotations...
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