xkcd‘s Randall Munroe looks at how physicians explain health data.
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The annual Right to Meddle in Women’s Lives demonstration was held in Washington DC last Friday, sponsored by the Zygote Liberation Front and the Committee to Restrict Women’s Health Care, or something like that. Theme of this year’s pep rally was “Equality Begins in the Womb,” a bid to promote fetal personhood and negate the human rights of the, um, womb-owners. This biology-denying sect is said to have infiltrated the federal judicial branch recently.
More:
“Anti-Abortion Marchers Gather With an Eye on the Supreme Court,” Kate Zernike and Madeleine Ngo, New York Times
“As March for Life returns to D.C., antiabortion activists wonder: Is this the last march under Roe?” Casey Parks, Washington Post
Related:
“Catholic pro-choice activists project messages onto DC basilica in protest,” by Jack Jenkins, RNS, via National Catholic Reporter
“White nationalists are flocking to the US anti-abortion movement,” Moira Donegan, The Guardian
“‘You never forget it’: These are the stories of life before Roe v. Wade transformed America,” Shefali Luthra, The 19th
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On January 20th, before fleeing to Palm Beach (where his neighbors don’t want him) lame duck grifter Donald Trump granted clemency to fellow Floridians convicted of engaging in the Sunshine State’s flourishing industry, Medicare and Medicaid fraud:
Philip Esformes, a nursing home system operator convicted of a $1.3 Billion Medicare fraud, largest in the the nation’s history, won comutation of his 20-year prison sentence.
South Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen was serving a 17-year sentence for a $73 million Medicare fraud conviction, was pardoned by Mr. Trump, a Florida neighbor.
Also pardoned: Todd Farha, Thaddeus Bereday, William Kale, Paul Behrens, and Peter Clay, former executives of Florida’s WellCare Health Plans, were convicted of defrauding the state’s Medicaid program of over $35 million.
This should make him welcome in his new retirement home, a state represented by a Republican senator once involved in a $1.7 billion Medicare fraud.
More:
“The doctors Trump pardoned for defrauding the government,” Anjalee Khemlani, Yahoo Finance
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Wash your hands. Use soap.
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Kate Birch, a homeopath based in Minnesota, is a leading quack in the lunatic anti-vaxxer campaign behind the raging measles epidemic plaguing America’s children. Homeopathic products are essentially small vials of very expensive water or alcohol masquerading as preventatives and cures for diseases and ailments. Substances they contain are so diluted that the products are essentially placebos.
Why, you may ask, doesn’t the FDA regulate this kind of bunkum? An original Senate sponsor of the 1938 “Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act” was a dean at a Homeopathic Medical College, and made sure the act identified all homeopathic swill as drugs. Existing FDA regs are, appropriately, watered-down. Since umpteen-hundred scientific studies show that homeopathic medicine doesn’t work, even the woo-woo department of NIH, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, points out that homeopathy is bunk.
More:
“US homeopaths claim ‘therapies’ prevent measles and ‘cure’ autism,” Ed Pilkington, The Guardian
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Each year, 5 percent of the U.S. population is responsible for 50 percent of the nation’s medical spending. Animation by Yukai Du. Written by Yukai Du, Nicolas Pollock, and Andrew McGill for The Atlantic.
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The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provides health coverage to poor children, through both Medicaid and separate CHIP programs. CHIP is administered by states, according to federal requirements. The federal government provides matching funds to help almost 9 million poor children get medical care.
Until now. Congress let CHIP funding lapse over a month ago, and state governments are running out of money. Apparently the GOP is holding the health of millions of poor children hostage in an attempt to weasel out of more ACA requirements.
More:
“States prepare to shut down children’s health programs if Congress doesn’t act,” Colby Itkowitz and Sandhya Somashekhar, Washington Post
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Next week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will bring his Affordable Care Act Repeal bill up for a vote after all. If passed, the bill would repeal the ACA (aka ObamaCare) in two years, but doesn’t provide a replacement. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that, if the bill passes, 17 million Americans would lose health coverage next year, 32 million by 2026. CBO estimates that average insurance premiums would rise 25 percent next year, 50 percent by 2020, and double by 2026.
Worried insurers would probably start leaving the individual insurance market in the next few months or hike rates sharply.
President Trump threatened Senate Republicans with political retribution if they don’t vote for the homicidal bill. He’ll probably tweet them from the golf course this weekend to make sure they’re working on it [Update: Yes he did].
More:
“CBO Makes It Clear Repealing Obamacare Without a Replacement Would Be a Disaster,” Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine
“Here’s what health care looks like if Republicans’ Obamacare ‘repeal and delay’ plan succeeds,” Max Ehrenfreund, Washington Post
“H.R. 1628, Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act of 2017: Cost Estimate,” Congressional Budget Office
Update:
“Parts of Senate GOP Health Care Bill Break Rules, Parliamentarian Says,”Mary Ellen McIntire, Roll Call
Related:
“Trump can’t make a health care deal because he doesn’t understand health care,” Ezra Klein, Vox
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The GOP’s murderous senate health bill flatlined on Monday, but there’s a Republican Plan B. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will introduce a measure that would repeal the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) in two years.
That’s it. No alternative plan to replace it.
Your health insurance will self-destruct at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 2019.
More:
“McConnell’s ‘nuclear option’ after health care failure,” Mike Allen Jonathan Swan, Axios
“Republican senator announces no vote on ObamaCare repeal: ‘I did not come to Washington to hurt people,'” The Week
“Dem senator: ObamaCare repeal without replacement would be ‘humanitarian disaster,’” Aida Chavez, The Hill
“McConnell Obamacare repeal plan already taking fire from Republicans,” Daniella Diaz and Ted Barrett, CNN
“’Repeal and delay’: McConnell’s new, risky health care plan, explained,” Sarah Kliff, Vox
UPDATE:
“GOP’s repeal-only plan quickly collapses in Senate,” Jessie Hellmann and Jordain Carney, The Hill
Related:
“House GOP Budget Plan Cuts Medicare and Social Security,” Priscilla Alvarez, The Atlantic
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“Trump has now called for total repeal of the Affordable Care Act, with no guarantee of any specific replacement later, or even a guarantee that any replacement would ever materialize at all.”
“We can estimate the impact of repealing those things. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office has already done so, when it analyzed a previous version of a GOP repeal bill over a year ago. And that analysis found that repealing those things would result in 32 million people losing coverage by 2026, 19 million of them people who would lose Medicaid coverage.”
— “Don’t sugarcoat this. Trump just called for 32 million people to lose health coverage.” Greg Sargent, Washington Post
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