Man accidentally saves wife's life by shooting her. Only in America.

Courtesy of the New York Daily News:  

The son of a 75-year-old woman who was struck with birdshot by her husband while sitting in a recliner says the accident might have been a blessing because doctors treating her found a previously undiagnosed heart problem. 

Charlene Ross' 77-year-old husband told authorities the shotgun went off Sunday at their home in York Township, in northeast Ohio, when he was checking to see if it was loaded. He told deputies he was getting the gun from a closet because he wanted to use it to scare off geese from a pond on their property. 

Ross was taken to an Akron hospital, where she was listed in serious condition Friday. 

Steve Ross told The Medina County Gazette his family considers the outcome "a blessing on two fronts" - that his mother was nicked in the neck by only one tiny pellet and that doctors then discovered she had an abnormal heartbeat, or arrhythmia, that can be dangerous and now can be addressed with a pacemaker. 

"Had this accident not happened, my mom could have been gone at any time," he said. "You hate to use cliches, but this is a Christmas miracle."

Okay seriously I know we are a nation of gun owners, but when we start using them as diagnostic tools I think it may be time to consider moving out of the country.

"Look your honor I was not shooting my wife in an attempt to kill her, I was shooting her to find out if she was suffering from anything terminal. Good news, she's fine. I mean besides the bullet holes."

President Obama goes to the doctor, ends up becoming an unwitting participant in a future Prilosec commercial.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

President Barack Obama, who had medical tests on Saturday after complaining of a sore throat, is suffering from acid reflux, the president's physician said. 

"The president's symptoms are consistent with soft tissue inflammation related to acid reflux and will be treated accordingly," Obama's doctor, Captain Ronny Jackson, said in a statement.

Now of course that is the official explanation, however  some conservatives are convinced that Obama's sore throat is simply proof that he is gay.

Which of course is a ridiculous contention, because my ex-wife had sore throats all of the time and I can assure you it was not due to any activity that she might have had in common with gay men.

However I would also like to voice my skepticism about this diagnosis based solely on the fact that I think acid reflux is one of those fake TV diseases, like restless leg syndrome, and erectile dysfunction that advertisers use to sell us medications that we do not really need. (I mean seriously who CAN'T get an erection?)

Not only that but the medications to "cure" these diseases always seem to have side effects significantly worse than the problem they are curing. Such as fracturing bones, increased risk of liver failure, and rectal bleeding.

That's right RECTAL BLEEDING!

Guess what, if my choices are legs that move around at night or bleeding out of my ass I will simply tie my damn legs together with rope or something.

Anyhow whatever the President really has, and I would assume it is probably a sore throat from swallowing all of the conservative BS these last couple of years, I hope he gets better,

Because we still need him.

Perhaps now more than ever.

Pat Robertson tells a woman that she needs to tithe more in order to solve her husband's medical issues, NOT spend that money getting medical treatment.

I know the man is a fossil and that some attribute these more scandalous responses to dementia, but I disagree. What Robertson is espousing is essentially faith healing, which states in an authoritarian fashion that the advancements made in medical research by man are inspired by Satan and the only way to true healing and salvation is by reaching out to God.

And for a televangelist like Pat Robertson that reaching out takes the form of demanding that they give him their money.

In my opinion this kind of scam should be against the law, and it would be, if it were not cloaked in the camouflage of Christianity.

Catholic organizations absorbing secular hospitals in order to impose religious restrictions on medical treatment. As if I needed another reason to dislike organized religions.

Courtesy of Alternet:

 Across the U.S., religious healthcare corporations are absorbing once secular and independent hospitals and in the process imposing religious restrictions that pit standard medical practice against theology. 

Recently, a woman was traveling across the Midwest when she developed abdominal pain. She and her husband went to the nearest hospital, where she was diagnosed with a potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy. The doctors recommended immediate surgery to remove the fallopian tube containing the misplaced embryo, a procedure that would reduce by half her future chances of conceiving a child. They failed to mention that a simple injection of Methotrexate would solve the problem, leaving her fertility intact. Why the omission? The Catholic hospital where she got diagnosed was subject to the “ Ethical and Religious Directives” of the Catholic bishops, which state, “In case of extrauterine pregnancy, no intervention is morally licit which constitutes a direct abortion.” 

According to Catholic moralists, an injection that destroys an ectopic embryo is a direct abortion, while removing the part of a woman’s reproductive system containing the embryo is not. While this may sound strange (or abhorrent) to outsiders, it has its own internal logic. Catholic ethics ultimately are determined by theologically based perceptions of what actions God approves and doesn’t approve. While compassion does matter, the end goal is to improve the spiritual standing or righteousness of the person performing the action. These theological dictates may or may not align with the questions that govern secular medical ethics and practice: how to minimize harm and suffering or maximize wellbeing while respecting patient autonomy. 

The recent case of a young Salvadoran mother named Beatriz offered a graphic example of how religious interference in medical care can force doctors to commit malpractice. Beatriz, who suffers from lupus, was pregnant with a nonviable anencephalic fetus yet was refused an abortion clear through the second trimester, as her condition became increasingly risky. Salvadoran minister of health, Maria Isabel Rodriguez, called her situation a “grave maternal illness with a high probability of deterioration or maternal death.” 

“I just want to live,” Beatriz told the press—echoing the sentiments of Savita Halappanavar who died last year after being denied an abortion in Catholic Ireland. Salvadoran doctors were willing to perform the needed abortion, but their hands were tied by laws based in Catholic theology. Finally, at 26 weeks gestation and under international pressure, a Salvadoran court ruled that Beatriz could end the pregnancy— via caesarean section. As in the case of the ectopic pregnancy, Beatriz was offered an invasive surgical procedure rather than the standard treatment which would minimize recovery time and leave her body intact. As best can be determined from news reports, the only reason the doctors had to cut her open was to satisfy the Catholic pretense that this was an attempt to deliver a viable baby. 

 In the wake of Halappanavar’s death and Beatriz’s dangerously substandard care, Marge Berer, founder of the international journal, Reproductive Health Matters, questioned the ability of Catholic-controlled facilities to provide emergency obstetric services and asked whether they should be formally stripped of their right to provide maternity care more broadly. Unfortunately, with Catholic corporations gobbling up independent care facilities, a woman may have few other options. If all currently proposed mergers are completed in Washington State, for example, nine counties will have all hospital beds controlled by religious institutions by the end of 2013.

So if the Church cannot get people to follow their directions by preaching it to them in the pulpit, they will just force their beliefs on them by controlling their access to medical treatment, which will now favor the almighty fetus above all others. 

And ladies the Catholic church would especially like to thank you for your generosity with tithing as they can now use that money to more effectively control your bodies and turn you into breeding stock.

Is it any wonder that women are leaving the church in droves?

The greatest health care in the world? Only if by "greatest" we mean "most expensive."

Courtesy of New York Times:  

Americans pay, on average, about four times as much for a hip replacement as patients in Switzerland or France and more than three times as much for a Caesarean section as those in New Zealand or Britain. The average price for Nasonex, a common nasal spray for allergies, is $108 in the United States compared with $21 in Spain. The costs of hospital stays here are about triple those in other developed countries, even though they last no longer, according to a recent report by the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation that studies health policy. 

While the United States medical system is famous for drugs costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and heroic care at the end of life, it turns out that a more significant factor in the nation’s $2.7 trillion annual health care bill may not be the use of extraordinary services, but the high price tag of ordinary ones. “The U.S. just pays providers of health care much more for everything,” said Tom Sackville, chief executive of the health plans federation and a former British health minister. 

Colonoscopies offer a compelling case study. They are the most expensive screening test that healthy Americans routinely undergo — and often cost more than childbirth or an appendectomy in most other developed countries. Their numbers have increased manyfold over the last 15 years, with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggesting that more than 10 million people get them each year, adding up to more than $10 billion in annual costs. 

Largely an office procedure when widespread screening was first recommended, colonoscopies have moved into surgery centers — which were created as a step down from costly hospital care but are now often a lucrative step up from doctors’ examining rooms — where they are billed like a quasi operation. They are often prescribed and performed more frequently than medical guidelines recommend. 

The high price paid for colonoscopies mostly results not from top-notch patient care, according to interviews with health care experts and economists, but from business plans seeking to maximize revenue; haggling between hospitals and insurers that have no relation to the actual costs of performing the procedure; and lobbying, marketing and turf battles among specialists that increase patient fees.

One of the primary ways that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare if you rather, was going to bring down the cost of health care, was by introducing competition into the system that would force hospitals and doctors to reduce the costs of many of the medical procedures.

I have always believed that THAT was what was driving a lot of the blowback from both doctors and health insurance companies. The sweetheart deals that they and the pharmaceutical companies have forged have made them all filthy rich, while bankrupting hard working Americans by the thousands.

If people REALLY understood how Obamacare was going to affect our access to reasonably priced insurance and health care moving forward there would be NO average citizen in the country that would not be all for it.

And those who remained against it would only be the Republicans who realized that their political careers were over once people understood what the bill would do for them, and that THEY had done everything in their power to stop it from being implemented, and the greedy medical professionals who are unwilling to give up those huge checks.

Personally I am looking forward to the day when we can do away with insurance companies altogether and have universal health care for all.  You know it's coming, I just hope it arrives in my lifetime.

The return of the Public Option...well sort of.

Courtesy of TPM:

House Democrats on Tuesday introduced the “Public Option Deficit Reduction Act,” which would provide consumers the choice to opt into a government-run health insurance plan in the Obamacare exchanges. 

The bill, which almost certainly cannot pass in the Republican-controlled House, is a mostly symbolic effort meant to keep the public option alive as a policy prescription. It is sponsored by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who is on the Energy & Commerce health subcommittee, along with Energy & Commerce Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA) and 43 other lawmakers. 

“The Public Option Deficit Reduction Act will give health care consumers more choice and lower their premiums,” said Schakowsky. “And, by providing a lower-cost alternative to private insurance, it would put pressure on all insurers to lower their premiums in order to compete.” 

Citing an earlier estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Schakowsky expects it to reduce the deficit by some $100 billion over 10 years by boosting competition among insurers and paying providers at Medicare rates. The 2010 version of the public option was expected to reduce the debt by $68 billion over 10 years.

I have long believed that President Obama's long term plan for the Affordable Care Act is to introduce the public option, and that belief was only reinforced with news that soon their would be at least two nationwide health insurance plans to be operated under contract with the federal government and offered to consumers in every state.

I think that this bill, and others like it, are simply a way to keep the idea in the minds of the American people so that when there is a public option made available they will be more than ready to sign on.

I know I will.

Good news! Secretary of State Clinton was just released from the hospital. Update!

Courtesy of Contact Music:  

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has left hospital in New York after spending the New Year recovering from a blood clot between her skull and brain. 

The former First Lady was admitted to New York Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday (30Jan12) after doctors found the clot during a medical test. She is expected to make a full recovery and plans to return to work next week (beg07Jan13). 

Spokesman Philippe Reines says, "The Secretary continues to recuperate at home. She had long planned to take this holiday week off, so she had no work schedule. She looks forward to getting back to the office next week and resuming her schedule."

I have been watching MSNBC slap the Right Wing around for the last few days for originally accusing Hillary of have "Benghazi fever,"  I wonder how long they will give her to recover before they start demanding that she testify before Congress?

I heard somebody, and I don't remember who, saying that the Republican party is essentially terrified of Clinton and are concerned that if they can't somehow stop her from getting elected SHE will do even more damage to their party than Obama has.

I find that statement pretty easy to believe.

Update: Chelsea Clinton sent out this tweet of thanks to the doctors who took care of her mom.

Thank you to the doctors, nurses & staff at NewYork Presbyterian Hospital Columbia University Medical Center for taking great care of my Mom
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) January 2, 2013

Today is a BIG day for women and their access to healthcare!

Courtesy of RTT News:  

Eight new health care benefits under the Affordable Care Act, including no cost birth control and better preventative care coverage, go into effect for America's women on Wednesday. 

The new benefits include low or no cost contraceptives, breast-feeding supplies, screenings for sexually transmitted infections, counseling for domestic violence, breast and pelvic exam check-ups, pap smear tests and prenatal care. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius hailed the coming into force of the new provisions, saying they will benefit 47 million American women. 

"Too often, we put our own health last, and that's especially true when it come to preventive care. The regular checkups and screenings that are so important to staying healthy but can be too easy to put off," Sebelius said at a press conference with Democratic senators. 

Many of the new female health care provisions under ACA are not controversial. However, one new rule requiring employers to provide no cost contraception to their employees is already drawing legal challenges. (Legal challenges that will ultimately fail.)


And remember ladies, THESE are the benefits that the Republicans are determined to repeal. Including that gaffe machine extraordinaire Mitt Romney.

For women at least this election should be a no-brainer. Also for blacks, Hispanics, middle income Americans, younger Americans, military members, small business people, and anybody with a working cerebral cortex.

So I guess the only ones who should be against Obama in this next election are stupid rich people and Palin-bots.

For our third post this War on Contraception Friday we get serious: For a growing population in this country once the baby is conceived, the rights of the mother are no longer valid. Update!

Courtesy of Salon:

I was taking an afternoon nap when the hemorrhaging started while my toddler napped in his room when I woke up to find blood gushing upward from my body. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was experiencing a placental abruption, a complication my doctor had told me was a possibility. My husband was at work, so I had to do my best to take care of me and my toddler on my own. I managed to get to the phone and make arrangements for both of my children before going to a Chicago hospital. 

Everyone knew the pregnancy wasn’t viable, that it couldn’t be viable given the amount of blood I was losing, but it still took hours for anyone at the hospital to do anything. The doctor on call didn’t do abortions. At all. Ever. In fact, no one on call that night did. Meanwhile, an ignorant batch of medical students had gathered to study me — one actually showed me the ultrasound of our dying child while asking me if it was a planned pregnancy. Several wanted to examine me while I lay there bleeding and in pain. No one gave me anything for the pain or even respected my request to close the door even though I was on the labor and delivery floor listening to other women have healthy babies as the baby I had been trying to save died in my womb. 

Finally another doctor was located, the abortion was performed, and the mother's life was saved.

Later I found out that the doctor had taken my husband aside as they brought me into surgery. She promised him she would do her best to save me, but she warned him there was a distinct possibility that she would fail. The doctor who didn’t do abortions was supposed to have contacted her (or someone else who would perform the procedure) immediately. He didn’t. Neither did his students. Supposedly there was a communication breakdown and they thought she had been notified, but I doubt it. I don’t know if his objections were religious or not; all I know is that when a bleeding woman was brought to him for treatment he refused to do the only thing that could stop the bleeding. Because he didn’t do abortions. Ever. 

My two kids at home almost lost their mother because someone decided that my life was worth less than that of a fetus that was going to die anyway. My husband had told them exactly what my regular doctor said, and the ER doctor had already warned us what would have to happen. Yet none of this mattered when confronted by the idea that no one needs an abortion. You shouldn’t need to know the details of why a woman aborts to trust her to make the best decision for herself. I don’t regret my abortion, but I would also never use my situation to suggest that the only time another woman should have the procedure is when her life is at stake. After my family found out I’d had an abortion, I got a phone call from a cousin who felt the need to tell me I was wrong to have interfered with God’s plan. And in that moment I understood exactly what kind of people judge a woman’s reproductive choices.

What a completely terrifying story! I cannot imagine how angry I would have been if I had been this woman's husband!

This is why inserting religion into our politics, our health care, and our public school systems can be so incredibly dangerous.  When people place the desire to honor their faith before the requirement to help their fellow man, bad things can happen. Even fatal things can happen.

This woman was surrounded by medical professionals and yet NONE would help her, deeming the life of an unborn, nonviable, life more worthy of protection than the life of a wife and mother of two.

You would think that in the year 2012 that would be a no-brainer. That people would be more than sophisticated enough to make a decision like this.  But sadly, rather than becoming MORE rational, we are becoming less rational as it pertains to reproduction.

And that is made crystal clear by the fact that Oklahoma might very soon become the first state to pass the so-called "Personhood" bill:   

The Republican-controlled state Senate voted 34-8 to pass the "Personhood Act" which defines the word person under state law to include unborn children from the moment of conception. 

The measure now goes to the state House where pro-life Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than a 2-1 margin.

So today in some sections of America, sections which are increasing in size mind you, women's reproductive rights are under attack yet again. Not only is the fetus suddenly placed in a dominate position once conceived, but in fact access to methods in which to prevent that pregnancy are also fending off attacks.

And these attacks are not inspired by alternative scientific theory or medical advice.  These attacks are purely the result of faith in a religious point of view.  Women all over the country may soon find themselves relegated to nothing more than breeding stock, because male dominated religious organizations have deemed that to be God's will.

Welcome to the reproductive dark ages in America folks.

Update: Just to better illustrate this attack on reproductive rights, let me add that Virginia just passed a law where women seeking termination of their pregnancy are first medically traumatized in an obvious attempt to change their decision:

Abortion; informed consent. Requires that, as a component of informed consent to an abortion, to determine gestation age, every pregnant female shall undergo ultrasound imaging and be given an opportunity to view the ultrasound image of her fetus prior to the abortion. The medical professional performing the ultrasound must obtain written certification from the woman that the opportunity was offered and whether the woman availed herself of the opportunity to see the ultrasound image or hear the fetal heartbeat. A copy of the ultrasound and the written certification shall be maintained in the woman's medical records at the facility where the abortion is to be performed.

I guess the slogan "Virginia is for lovers" no longer applies. Unless of course those lovers are same sex lovers or otherwise unable to conceive.