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Posts Tagged ‘health care’

January20

In attempt to limit patients’ rights, GOP trots out tired and false medical liability arguments

By: Christine Hines

It’s telling that before the membership of the House Judiciary Committee for the 112th Congress was even finalized, incoming chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) scheduled a hearing on medical liability. The new House leadership apparently can’t wait to get started in pushing forward draconian measures to limit patients’ rights. It is heeding its party’s talking points without noticing the facts.

Today’s hearing, creatively called “Medical Liability Reform – Cutting Costs, Spurring Investment, Creating Jobs,” will undoubtedly dig up the same old arguments trotted out in years past to support policies that would absolve negligent medical providers of responsibility for actions that injure or kill their patients.

Despite the fact that malpractice litigation and payments are at historic lows, according to the federal government’s National Practitioner Data Bank, proponents of limiting patients’ rights continue to incorrectly blame ideas like “runaway jury awards” and “defensive medicine” for the nation’s escalating health care costs.

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Posted in: Congress, Health, Litigation, Social Justice0 comments

January6

The Midmorning Update: Short-lived promises of transparency with new Congress

By: Dorry Samuels

Today’s Flickr photo:

Flickr photo by derekskey

If you read one thing today…

Well, that didn’t take long. The new Republican-controlled House is already backpedaling on the rules it just established, rules promising more transparency and reform. Talk about short-lived, eh?

The GOP is quite anxious to repeal the health care law and apparently things like committee processes and open amendments are too inconvenient to stand with their new pledges.

Politico’s Jake Sherman has the details:

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Posted in: Congress, Ethics, Health, Midmorning Refill, Open Government0 comments

December21

The Midmorning Refill: Nancy Pelosi says health care law is her crowning achievement

By: Joe Newman

Today’s Flickr Photo

On Fort Lauderdale beach in Florida. Flickr photo by ticktockdoc.

If you read one thing today . . .

Politico’s David Rogers sat down with outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and talked about the highlights of her term — passing health care legislation and financial reform.

“We came here to do a job, and we did the job. … Those two issues, Wall Street reform and health care, were two that changed the leverage for the American people. Whether you were a consumer or a patient, the leverage is now with you. And that, for me, is why I am a Democrat: to have the leverage to be with the average person.”

There’s some denial to be sure. In the course of an interview, Pelosi repeatedly spoke of her ranking Democrats as committee “chairmen” when they won’t be in the new Congress. Four years of restrictive rules on House debate seem a lost memory: “I’m thoroughly agnostic. If Republicans have a good idea, let’s go with it.”

And by her reckoning, little or nothing about November’s losses can be attributed to the enactment of health care reform.

“If we had never passed the bill, we would still have had these losses. We were told a year ago: ‘If you’re anywhere near 10 percent unemployment, there’s no chance you can hold the majority.’”

“Nothing compares — in anything I have ever done — with passing the health care bill.”

Overheard:

Someone should really do something about those damn environmentalists and their need to protect us from companies that want to pollute our air and water. Have no fear, Rep.-elect Bill Flores (R-Texas) is here and he’s ready to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency. Think Progress has a snippet from his appearance on something called the Tea Party Internet Radio:

I can tell you the House as a whole, the Republicans in the House as a whole want to get the EPA shut down on these bunny trails that’s going down that are throwing people out of work — particularly the way it’s abusing Texas. And I think that Texas can count on getting some relief from the EPA within the first few months of this Congress because they really have gone overboard.

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Posted in: Climate Change, Environment, Health, Midmorning Refill0 comments

November19

The Midmorning Refill: If Democrats and GOP voters agree on one thing, it’s that Wall Street is to blame

By: Joe Newman

Today’s Flickr photo

Flickr photo by philroeder

If you read one thing today . . .

Markos Moulitsas on the Daily Kos highlights some interesting exit polling from the midterm elections. More voters blamed Wall Street for our economic woes than either Barack Obama or George W. Bush. But among those who blamed Bush, 83 percent were Democrats and among those who blamed Obama, 91 percent were Republicans. No surprise there. What is puzzling, as Markos points out is that even though a lot of Republicans blamed Wall Street, it didn’t stop them from voting for GOP candidates who, by and large, push a pro-Wall Street agenda.

So why is that? It’s because people think there is no difference between the parties when it comes to the rich and powerful. And why should they? Obama’s finance team is essentially a branch office of Goldman Sachs and company. Treasury was more concerned with using HAMP as a way to protect the banks than help struggling homeowners stay in their homes. In a bizarre role reversal — the White House economic team tried to water down the finance reform bill that came out of Congress.

It’s not hard to see why people have gotten the sense that Democrats aren’t much better on Wall Street matters than Republicans (even if they are).

Overheard:

This whole new Wisconsin paradigm will take some getting used to. Red state? Wisconsin? Anyways, this once progressive bastion is now filled with legislators who want to tell the federal government where it can stick its socialized health care. Kevin Sack in the New York Times says the opposition to health care reform helped fuel the GOP rise in Wisconsin, as well as other states. Wisconsin’s Gov.-elect Scott Walker says that on his first day in office, he’ll tell the state’ s attorney general to join a multi-state suit challenging the constitutionality of Obama’s health care reform.

“I think the more free-market the better,” Mr. Walker, the Milwaukee County executive, said in an interview. “I think history has repeatedly shown the more the government gets involved the more it not only distorts the marketplace but the more likely it is to inflate costs.”

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Posted in: Midmorning Refill0 comments

July15

Public Citizen researchers on medical device safety

By: Harry Zieve-Cohen

On Tuesday, Public Citizen researchers published an article in PLoS Medicine about the safety of various medical devices. The authors of the article found that the FDA approval process does not adequately weed out ineffective and sometimes dangerous devices. From the press release issued Tuesday:

The weaknesses identified by the authors include:
• A lower approval standard for devices than for drugs;
• Lax interpretation of the requirements for the medical device approval process;
• A loophole that allows manufacturers of novel devices to circumvent the premarket approval process;
• Failure of the FDA to appropriately regulate many types of devices that were first marketed prior to the 1976 enactment of the current regulatory scheme; and
• A superfluous appeal mechanism that gives manufacturers a second go for approval after FDA has rejected a device.

The authors enumerated specific cases where FDA allowed dangerous products to be sent to market. In one particularly egregious instance, a device was approved by the FDA director after other FDA board members had expressed significant concerns about the device, the vagus nerve stimulator, which is supposed to treat severe depression. Currently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid considers the device to be of such questionable value that it refuses to reimburse for it.

In the words of one of the researchers, Dr. Sidney Wolfe,