#health care policies

[gwydionmisha]

Project 2025 Economic/Health care quick explainer

[monicascot]

Protecting Female Sacred Birth And Concerns Of Loss Of Medical Sovereignty | Woke Up

Mary Lou Singleton, midwife, nurse practitioner, and medical sovereignty activist. She discusses the medical industrial complex's takeover of birth and the invasion of trans ideology into women's spaces. Concerns about surrogacy. She discusses her journey out of the left and the changes in our political landscape. The political battle is no longer Republican v Democrat but autonomy and sovereignty versus authoritarian control.

[iiamu]

“Gaining the attention of a target audience is power. Persuading that audience to behave the way you want is ultimate power.”

-Diana J. Mason, Elizabeth Dickson, Monica R. McLemore, G. Adriana Perez (Policy & Politics in Nursing and Health Care, 8th Edition, Chapter 1)

[unsolicited-opinions]

I used to run a doctor's office. If your doctor's office hasn't explained this to you, let me do it for them.

You probably don't know how much time your doctor and their staff spend fighting with insurance companies for routine, ordinary things. The stories you see online might leave you thinking that these fights are, if not rare, maybe occasional. A sometimes sort of challenge.

Nope.

It's every day. It's all day. Your doctor's office has employees who fight with insurance companies as a full time job.

This isn't an accident or a side effect of other market forces at work - this is the deliberate, calculated plan the insurance companies have chosen to implement. They know very well it is hurting patients and providers, and they're okay with that because their priority is to maximize ROI for investors and other stakeholders. They're in the business of business, and they don't give a single fuck about human beings or health care.

They've lowered reimbursements in primary care so effectively that primary care has only survived in many parts of the US by becoming a loss leader for larger health systems. You know how the local retail store gets you in the building by selling something at slightly below cost because they know you're likely to buy more once you're inside? It's like that, a loss leader.

The health system where you get your primary care often loses money when you see your PCP, but since your PCP refers you to speciality care inside their own organization, the system makes up the money when your doctor sends you to see their own systems' surgeons, endocrinologists, dermatologists, etc.

Smaller primary care practices literally can't survive. That's why there are almost no independent family doctors any longer. That's why it is so hard to see the same provider with consistency, someone with whom you can develop trust over time, who knows you and knows your challenges. United Healthcare and it's private healthcare insurance competitors have nearly finished killing off that kind of primary care.

Larger primary care practices (30-40 providers) might still be able to make ends meet independently through economies of scale and/or what they earn by doing their own lab/testing/imaging services in-house, but that won't work much longer if current trends continue. We're headed in the direction of just a handful of vertically integrated businesses running healthcare, and they are in the business of business, not health care.

The insurance companies deliberately create administrative barriers which make it expensive for your doctor's office to advocate for you because it moves administrative costs away from the insurance company and onto your doctor's office. This results in fewer paid claims when your doctor's office can't afford to hire another full time position whose only job is to argue with insurance companies and jump through their deliberately obstructive hoops. They want your PCP to be struggling to stay open. They want your PCP unable to afford the cost of overcoming the administrative burdens they have deliberately created for the purpose of denying you the health care your doctor thinks you need.

There are other words for this, but the most appropriate one is "evil."

I don't want to glorify murder or lionize Luigi Mangione, but Brian Thompson was a ghoul, his senior team are ghouls, and the for-profit health insurance industry is a disaster for Americans, even those Americans who don't yet see the problem affecting themselves. They will.

We need universal, single-payer health coverage, just like every other wealthy nation.

We're not going to get it any time soon, and things are about to get worse for healthcare in the US.

Set aside the damage RFK Jr is likely to do to an already patchwork public health system by attacking regulations and spreading misinformation. Let's look at other ways Trump and the GOP plan to worsen health care.

1. They're going to go after Medicare and Medicaid benefits. They'll seek to lower them and raise the bar which must be cleared to receive them.

2. They're going to seek to raise the age for social security benefits (above 70!), and reduce benefits paid, so the most financially vulnerable seniors will have greater out-of-pocket costs. Those seniors are going to struggle harder with out-of-pocket costs.

3. They're going to attempt to cripple the Affordable Care Act (AKA 'Obamacare'), despite the fact that the ACA has been a HUGE money maker for the private insurance companies.

4. This administration will be run by hyper capitalist billionaires. It will seek to deregulate wherever possible and promote supply-side economics (tax breaks for the rich and large corporations) at every opportunity. United Healthcare and its competitors, which already weild an obscene, horrific amount of control over US Healthcare, are about to get substantially more power.

It's bad, folks. It's a very bad time to be sick and it's going to get worse.

Alan Grayson was right in 2009. The Republican health care plan has been and remains:

* Don't get sick

* If you do get sick, die quickly.

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

Wow shocking things might be getting out of control, how could anyone have seen this coming?

[draper-claire]

Are you running for office in a city like NYC? Do I have practical fixes for you, that I personally would like to see implemented!

Requisite needle and med drop off at every pharmacy and hospital

Covered benches at every bus stop

Compost drop off at every subway

Free public transit

Painted curb no parking at bus stops

Painted curb no parking fire hydrant

Libraries open 24/7

More public restroom (business incentives for public restrooms)

More public transit stops and shorter time between pick ups

Free healthcare

Free college courses, only pay for use of credit towards degree

Required narcan and cpr training for all able tax payers

Landlord penalization for extended vacancies on residential and business properties

Extended park hours

Better street lighting

Better park lighting

All public resources in multiple languages available digitally and physically

365 KN95 masks and 52 covid tests to each resident of the city delivered annually for free. Additional available upon request.

Free handbook on waste disposal and recycling updated yearly and mailed to all addresses, additional available upon request

Green energy is standard for all electric and gas companies, with no up-charge for converting from traditional energy offering

[1o1percentmilk]

ajin is so good on so many levels but i am particularly interested in the philosophical and ethical implications it raises from the doing away with death

[roseband]

debating going on the grace meng PA canvassing bus on sunday hmmmmmm

[familythings]

Sweden: Parental Leave Can Now Be Transferred to Grandparents for Pay! 👶

Sweden is famous for its laws and practices that focus on happiness, daily ease, and the mental well-being of its citizens. As part of its support for families, Sweden now allows parents to transfer parental leave to grandparents, who will receive pay for this time. This change is set to take effect in 2024 and marks another step towards improving the quality of life for its…

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[ivygorgon]

AN OPEN LETTER to THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Pass H.R. 6270, the State-Based Universal Health Care Act!

371 so far! Help us get to 500 signers!

I strongly urge the Congressmember to support and help pass H.R. 6270, the State-Based Universal Health Care Act, introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna of California. This bill helps states test universal health plans that could be a model for a national plan - a Universal, Simple, and Affordable (USA) plan. A USA plan will drastically reduce administrative overhead, freeing billions of dollars for our health care and general welfare. With your support, states can save money and provide health care for all their residents. How H.R. 6270 moves us toward health care that is universal, simple, and affordable (USA): Mandates that participating states guarantee healthcare coverage for at least 95% of residents in the first 5 years, thus reducing the uninsured and underinsured populations to less than 5% (currently 30% in most states). Requires any state-based plan to have benefits equal to or greater than those received by beneficiaries of federal healthcare programs. Allows states to cooperate on multi-state plans. Section 1332 of the ACA does not. Enables states to integrate Medicare funds into a state plan. Section 1332 does not. This is critically important for equity. Please work to pass this bill, and then get to work passing Medicare For All. Nothing else will fully solve our healthcare crisis.

▶ Created on April 8 by Jess Craven

📱 Text SIGN PEUMEL to 50409

🤯 Liked it? Text FOLLOW JESSCRAVEN101 to 50409

[jilliam]

The ceo of United healthcare was shot and killed in midtown nyc today

Looks like other people are also pissed about their insurance too

[viewwrangler]

Anti-abortion laws kill women and infants both

Unsurprisingly, obstetricians and gynecologists have been fleeing the state of Texas, and other states with severe abortion laws, for places where they won't be arrested for providing basic health care to women. As a result of these laws, maternal mortality in Texas has increased 56% in the last three years.

Texas is among the twenty-one states where abortion is banned or severely restricted. In Idaho, nearly a quarter of the state’s ob-gyns have left since the ban went into effect, and rural hospitals have stopped providing labor and delivery services. In Louisiana, three-quarters of rural hospitals no longer offer maternity care. Half a year after Ogburn left the Valley, another doctor submitted her resignation. The school’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology was folded into a new unit: the Division of Women’s and Children’s Health. By then, the department had shrunk to three doctors, one of whom plans to leave next spring.

It's also worth noting that these laws lead as well to an increase in infant mortality. Part of the issue, to be sure, is that some of these would have been aborted as fetuses due to severe abnormalities that are, as they say, "incompatible with life". But some may also be a result of women presenting with issues that doctors are now afraid to treat, resulting in mortality for both women and children.

[nationallawreview]

Diagnosing Health Care: Health Policy Update: Impact of the 2024 U.S. Elections [Podcast]

New from the Diagnosing Health Care Podcast: The recent 2024 elections resulted in a new Trump administration and a Republican-controlled House and Senate. From policymakers to stakeholders across the industry, everyone is wondering what health policy will look like in 2025 and beyond. On this episode, Epstein Becker Green attorneys Ted Kennedy Jr., Leslie Norwalk, Philo Hall, and Alexis…

[valiantlycleverinfluencer]

I hate Doug ford so much.

[originalleftist]

A sad fact of humanity is that a lot of people won't do something, even if they know it's right, unless they have to.

Take organ donations- an overwhelming majority of those polled, at least here in Canada, support them. But only a distinct minority actually register to be donors.

This is also why the idea bandied about, when they started lifting Covid restrictions, that people would just be responsible for themselves now, was so obviously unworkable. Because most people are not going to prioritize getting vaccinated or wearing a mask or staying home when sick if they don't have to, and most businesses aren't either. Even if they theoretically think its a good idea (I speak from experience- there are precautions I know I probably should do that I've put off and neglected).

Not all of this is shear laziness. Some of it is hypocrisy- I think this is a good idea, but want other people to bear the burden (see NIMBYs). But also... people are often really busy, overworked, overstressed, with limited resources, and, if it's not something they're passionate about or something they have to do to avoid death, imprisonment, or destitution, most people will, often, ignore it. So requiring people to do more isn't necessarily helping if you don't put supports in place to make it possible for them to do something.

BUT, the fact remains that if you really want to get people to do something, even something popular, the best way to do that is probably to mandate it. Or, if you want to take peoples' freedom of choice into account, and minimize backlash from the "Don't Tread On Me" dipshits, make it opt out rather than opt in, like some places are currently doing with organ donations. That way, the people who really don't want to still have a choice, but the people who aren't strongly opposed in theory, but just won't be arsed to do it if they don't have to, will go along.

Basically, making something opt in means only those passionate about it do it.

Making it opt out means that the passionate people and the undecideds/indifferent do it.

I would also argue that it follows from this that if a government ever proposes a solution to a long-term major problem, but makes it rely on voluntary participation, the effort is like performative and not expected or intended to actually succeed.