On the outrageous cost of American healthcare

In France, an MRI costs $280, while in the U.S., an MRI costs $1080. At the Washington Post, Ezra Klein discusses this huge discrepancy:

There is a simple reason health care in the United States costs more than it does anywhere else: The prices are higher. That may sound obvious. But it is, in fact, key to understanding one of the most pressing problems facing our economy. In 2009, Americans spent $7,960 per person on health care. Our neighbors in Canada spent $4,808. The Germans spent $4,218. The French, $3,978. If we had the per-person costs of any of those countries, America’s deficits would vanish. Workers would have much more money in their pockets. Our economy would grow more quickly, as our exports would be more competitive. . . . In America, Medicare and Medicaid negotiate prices on behalf of their tens of millions of members and, not coincidentally, purchase care at a substantial markdown from the commercial average. But outside that, it’s a free-for-all. Providers largely charge what they can get away with, often offering different prices to different insurers, and an even higher price to the uninsured.
What about the new health care reform law? Klein offers the bad news: "The 2010 health-reform law does little to directly address prices." This is a stunning conclusion, given that Barack Obama's opening sales pitch for health care reform is that we need to do rein in the high cost of health care.
On October 15, 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) promised the American people: “The only thing we’re going to try to do is lower costs so that those cost savings are passed onto you. And we estimate we can cut the average family’s premium by about $2,500 per year.

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More on the Catholic bishops and the HHS rule

The Catholic bishops' caterwauling over the proposed HHS rule on employees’ benefits is just more of the same type of anti-Obama shark hunting on the Mississippi that the bishops engaged in even before Obama was sworn as President. The issue then was the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) and it was "religious freedom" and "freedom of conscience" then too. All the same far right wing quasi-Catholics, pundits like George Weigel, decried the Obama administration then as now. Too bad there wasn't even any such bill before the Congress at the time. Congress wasn't even in session but, we Catholics heard it from the pulpits and pews and bishops all across the nation about the evils of Obama. Thousands, maybe millions, of anti-FOCA postcards were sent to Washington. I sent one but, modified the text because I thought the bill would unconstitutionally usurp some states’ rights to regulate abortion under Roe v. Wade. Then, I found out there was no bill. Imagine my surprise as an Obama supporter. Now, the Catholic bishops and their piling-on sycophants decry a "mandate" where no such thing exists at all. There is a proposed rule, which isn't even in effect, that says that if an employer offers health insurance as a benefit to its employees, the insurance must cover contraceptive services. Strictly religious institutions are exempt from the proposed rule. No mandate, law, rule or regulation exists now or will exist that absolutely requires any Catholic employer to do anything against its conscience. [More . . . ]

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Baked kale as substitute for potato chips

Over the past year, baked kale has become a favorite snack for my family. It recently occurred to me that we now eat baked kale much like many families eat bags of potato chips. If you bake kale, it becomes light and a bit crispy. Our children enjoy it as much as the adults. Here's the recipe we use. Wash your kale, then pull off the leaves into bite sized pieces. Spin the kale in a salad spinner to get rid of all the moisture (or else the kale will get soggy when you bake it). Drizzle a bit of oil on the kale (we use canola) and toss the kale to evenly coat it with a very thin coat. Spread the pieces of kale on a baking pan, and lightly salt it. Bake at about 350 degrees for about 8 minutes. The kale is ready when the tips start to brown. Enjoy.

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Depression as an adaptation?

For anyone who has been depressed, it is difficult to conceive of depression as something ever useful. Depression immobilizes people, and the core symptom is anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure. From the perspective of depressed people, these add up to a living hell. The World Health Organization estimates that depression is the fourth leading cause of disability in the world, and that it is projected to become the second leading cause of disability. I recently finished watching a "Great Courses" video lecture series called "Stress and Your Body," featuring Robert Sapolsky, who described the strong correlation between stress and depression. He indicated that lack of outlets, lack of social support and the perception that things are worsening are precursors to depression. In an article titled "Is Depression an Adaptation?" psychiatrist Randolf Nesse terms depression "one of humanity’s most serious medial problems." Nesse also argues, however, that many instances of depression are actually adaptive. How could this possibly be? Nesse explains: [More . . . ]

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Stepping Up Finally

I’ve been hesitant to write anything about the Susan G. Komen fiasco. Not for fear of invoking controversy, but because things started unraveling so fast it was difficult to know when it would play out. Here is a handy overview of the series of events. The position taken by the Komen charity group shifted, mutated, and reeled in the sudden upwelling of negative response, that on any given day whatever I might have said would be irrelevant the next morning. One aspect, however, strikes me as significant. That response. It came swiftly and it came from all quarters and it came with cash. I cannot recall a similar response happening so swiftly and so decisively in this ongoing struggle over abortion rights. One of the most annoying things about being progressive and/or liberal is the tepidity with which we meet challenges. It would appear that all of us who espouse a progressive view, when it gets down to the nitty gritty of political position-taking and infighting, have feet not even of clay but of silly putty. It is actually heartening to see an abrupt and united response that is categorically decisive for once. [More . . . ]

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