In Light of the GOP’s new Health Care Proposal, it’s Time to Rename the GOP as the “Social Darwinist Party.”

In light of the GOP's "solution" to the "problem" of Obamacare, it's time to simply and clearly declare that the GOP has become (and should be renamed) the "Social Darwinist Party." Addressing the cries of the Super Rich ("I want even more money") is no solution at all to the medical crises many of us face. I realize and recognize the frustration of the GOP that people who are lazy and/or who repeatedly make bad decisions resulting in being poor should not be able to mooch off the rest of us. But what about those who have worked hard and have been laid off by downsizing, and now earn $10/hour? What about people who are doing their best after being raised by dysfunctional families and/or "taught" at dysfunctional schools? Should they really be told that health care is totally out of their reach? I'm lucky that I am a 60 year old man who can afford to pay the market rate of $900/month for a $6,000 deductible ("Bronze") health care policy with Anthem for me and my teenage daughter. It was the best deal I could find this year. But there are good hearted hard-working people who are paid minimum wage, meaning that they gross about $1,500 a month for full time work. After Social Security taxes, if they were to pay $900/month for health insurance (and then all the co-pays and deductible) they would have NOTHING left on which to live. NOTHING. The GOP solution, I assume, is to have these people (many of whom voted for Trump) begging for health care at hospital doors, with many of them eventually dying in the streets. Is the GOP then going offer block grants to cities to help clean up the bodies of sick and dying people on the sides of streets? Obamacare was an flawed attempt to balance the many competing interests at play. But it was an attempt. It was far better than the GOP proposal, which is essentially, "If you can't come up with a LOT more money than minimum wage will pay you, then into society's scrap heap you go!" We can do better than Obamacare. We can do a LOT better than the current GOP proposal. It's time for single payor, a solution used by almost every other industrialized country.

Continue ReadingIn Light of the GOP’s new Health Care Proposal, it’s Time to Rename the GOP as the “Social Darwinist Party.”

About your surgeon. Propublica offers a database to compare excellence

This article, "Making the Cut," could affect your life or the life of someone you know. The article offers its database so you can compare the complication rates of surgeons regarding common elective surgeries. "About 63,000 Medicare patients suffered serious harm, and 3,405 died after going in for procedures widely seen as straightforward and low risk. Taxpayers paid hospitals $645 million for the readmissions alone." "A small share of doctors, 11 percent, accounted for about 25 percent of the complications. Hundreds of surgeons across the country had rates double and triple the national average. Every day, surgeons with the highest complication rates in our analysis are performing operations in hospitals nationwide. Subpar performers work even at academic medical centers considered among the nation’s best. A surgeon with one of the nation’s highest complication rates for prostate removals in our analysis operates at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital, a national powerhouse known for its research on patient safety. He alone had more complications than all 10 of his colleagues combined — though they performed nine times as many of the same procedures."

Continue ReadingAbout your surgeon. Propublica offers a database to compare excellence