10 facts about dairy milk

We are hit with so much propaganda about the "need" to drink cow milk that many Americans uncritically believe it. To follow up on an article I once wrote about all the dairy hype ("The Land of Milk and Money"), I offer this more recent article listing "10 Fascinating Facts About Cow Milk." And yes, most of the world's adults are lactose intolerant. It is not even possible for them to drank milk. We milk-drinkers are the unusual ones. Actually, I'm mostly there. I put soy milk on my cereal, but I still do enjoy ice cream. But I don't consume milk products for the calcium. I know that there are other ways to get calcium.

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Delving into Obamacare

At Occasional Planet, Madonna Gauding takes a careful look at what Obamacare means for ordinary people and big corporations.

A generous (and seriously wrongheaded) view of Obamacare is that it was a progressive bill designed to be a steppingstone to single payer. But, in reality, it was designed to strengthen, expand, and more deeply entrench corporate control of healthcare delivery. What will happen when the ACA comes online in 2014? I think millions will decide (out of necessity) to take the IRS fine rather than go into further debt buying inadequate, high deductible insurance. The insurance companies, limited to a smaller profit margin, and not getting the numbers they want, will decide they can’t make enough money to keep their yachts afloat, and fold. Hospitals, tired of treating people in emergency rooms for free, will push for Medicare expansion, as will the general population. Slowly, in fits and starts, we will move to Medicare for all. That will be a huge improvement. But, in order for us to have humane healthcare for all, the profit taking throughout the system has to stop—the $200 a pill prescription, the $15 box of hospital tissues, the many unnecessary, but lucrative procedures that line the pockets of surgeons. The “free market” for-profit health care industry with its bloated costs is the underlying cancer of healthcare delivery in the United States.

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Corruption and Obamacare

I still don't see any evidence that Obamacare will reduce health care premiums for ordinary Americans. These cost controls were promised as the prime reason for Obamacare back when Barack Obama first ran for president. At Huffpo, Wendell Potter explains some of the reasons that healthcare premiums continue to skyrocket. It's a story permeated with corruption, involving the malfeasance of both Democrats and Republicans. Here's the introduction to Potter's article, "Why Americans Pay So Much for Health Care: Friends in High Places (Just Not Your Friends)":

If you wonder why we spend more money on health care than any other country but have some of the worst health outcomes, you need look no further than the halls of Congress to it figure out. And you need look no further back than the recent "fiscal cliff" drama for compelling proof of how decisions are often made, not based on protecting the public's interest and bringing costs down but on protecting the profits of pharmaceutical companies, insurance firms and other special interests that grease the palms of our elected officials.

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World’s best healthcare?

In his article at Common Dreams, Oregon doctor Samuel Metz destroys the notion that the United States has the world's best health care system.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says, "We do start with the notion, however, that we have the best health care in the world." If McConnell had diabetes, he might pause. American diabetics suffer twice as many foot amputations as diabetics in Europe because they cannot afford care to prevent foot infections from turning deadly. House Speaker John Boehner says we have "the best health care delivery system in the world." But there are 35 other countries in which a pregnant woman and her baby have a better chance of surviving the pregnancy. The United States leads the industrialized world in deaths preventable with timely care. There are 15 other nations providing every citizen with lifesaving treatments denied to many unfortunate Americans.

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Quote that captures my love of sleep

Ever since Arianna Huffington convinced me to undertake the "sleep challenge," I have been trying to get more sleep, and I've been enjoying it more, as well as enjoying my better-rested awake time more. Yesterday, I stumbled across this quote: "Sleeping is my drug, my bed is my dealer and my alarm clock is the police."

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