[jeffkrol]

sort of......
Anyways interesting study of my old hometown on the unpleasent study of infant mortality.....
For Milwaukee's children, an early grave - JSOnline

The report emphasized that the sheer number of people living in the city's lowest tier and the depth of the health issues affecting them compromised the well-being of all Wisconsinites.

"Milwaukee's large population, poor health outcomes and large health disparities," the report says, "have a significant impact on the overall health of the state as well as on the economic vibrancy of the city and state."

Income and education fail to account for the racial disparity in Milwaukee's infant mortality rates.

Blacks across the socioeconomic spectrum have higher infant mortality rates than whites.

The infant mortality rate for a child born to a black woman in the highest tier is about the same as the rate for a child born to a white woman in the lowest tier.

The infant mortality rate for babies born to a black woman in the middle tier is three times the rate for babies born to white women in the same tier.

It is not clear why.

"I've been working on this for 20 years," Mason said, "and just when you think you've figured it out - whoosh! - it's gone."

A growing field of research suggests that the chronic stress of living in poverty or with barriers associated with low educational attainment increases the risk of the leading cause of infant mortality: preterm birth and low birth weight.

Research also shows that the experience of racial or ethnic discrimination deepens stress and further increases the risk of preterm or low birth weight.
A novel study published in 2006 vividly illustrates this theory.

Diane S. Lauderdale, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Chicago, wanted to know whether poor birth outcomes increased for women of Arab-origin after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Lauderdale looked at all California birth certificates for 2001, 2002 and 2003. She identified more than 15,000 mothers with Arabic last names.

Prior to 9-11, she discovered, women with Arabic last names had the same low birth weight rate as non-Hispanic white women.

But in the six months after 9-11, the chances of having a low birth weight child increased 34%.

The risk of bearing low birth weight babies, she found, did not increase for any other ethnic group.

bit of background:

In 1900, the infant mortality rate in the United States was about 100 deaths for every 1,000 live births, or 1 in 10.

By 1960, it had been knocked down to 26 deaths per 1,000 births.

By 2008, it was 6.6.

Sounds good. But compare the U.S. infant mortality rate with the rest of the world.

With the caveat that some countries count and report infant deaths in different ways, the U.S., for all its wealth and medical sophistication, does poorly.

In recent years, the U.S. infant mortality rate has been twice that of nations as diverse as Japan, Sweden, Portugal and the Czech Republic.

One federal ranking, based on 2010 estimates, puts the U.S. rank at 46th among 222 nations. That puts it behind Cuba, Hungary and South Korea.

Wisconsin's 2008 rate - 6.9 deaths per 1,000 births - falls in the middle of the other states.

Still, the number of infant deaths was staggering: 501 babies died in Wisconsin in 2008 - more than three times the number of homicides, more than twice the number of drunken-driving deaths.

might as well add the mental health thing as well........

At a time when the need is growing for mental health services, many states are cutting back on spending. According to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, last year spending on mental health services decreased nearly 5 percent compared to 2009. Early indications are that mental health budgets may decrease by 8 percent or more this year.
In 2009, more than 4,000 appointments for mental health and AODA outpatient services were made and kept at the HCC.
“Our providers also had over 1,000 admissions to our inpatient acute unit as well,” said Becky Holzman, deputy program director/mental health coordinator for the county Department of Community Programs.
Providers for both public and private-pay clients are also seeing dwindling reimbursements for mental health services from both state and federal agencies as well as insurance companies.
“I’ve had health-care providers tell me that mental health services is not a good product line as they don’t make enough money through reimbursements,” said state Rep. Sandy Pasch, D-Whitefish Bay. “A lot of providers have closed up shop, inpatient units have shut down and many people are changing their minds about entering the mental health field.”

http://www.thenorthwestern.com/article/20110123/OSH0101/301230026/Rising-nee...ses-in-funding

[GeneV]

The University hospital where I recently spent some weeks (and was very pleased) has as its next goal for a center of excellence mental health. Actually, it is a good fit for being the top neuroscience center. I wish them luck making it work financially.

[mikemike]

A growing field of research suggests that the chronic stress of living in poverty or with barriers associated with low educational attainment increases the risk of the leading cause of infant mortality: preterm birth and low birth weight.

Research also shows that the experience of racial or ethnic discrimination deepens stress and further increases the risk of preterm or low birth weight.

I think this is key to understanding the healthcare crisis in our society. The problem isn't necessarily with the hospitals, the insurance companies, or the government healthcare programs. The problems are with our lifestyles, a demographic crunch, and inability to face our own mortality.

Regarding lifestyle which the story in the OP is dealing with, a poverty diet in the USA is a high calorie low nutritional value fast food diet and an american baby with a poor mother is more likely to get formula instead of breast feed. If I compare that with my wife's experience growing up poor and discriminated against in a third world country, she was breastfeed and her poverty diet meant a rice with a fried egg mixed in and vegetables with some kind of meat only about three times per month I can see right away why american poor people have diabetes and other poor people around the world are healthier (in some respects) than our poor people.

Regarding the demographic crunch it seems like the only thing we can do is hold onto our hats and get through it. We also need to look at what percentage of our healthcare dollars are being spent on lost causes and trying to pull ourselves out from the brink of death, 1/3 of healthcare dollars are spent in the last year of life.

Looking at the healthcare bill that passed and subsequent implementation thus far we see:
-Equipment like breast pumps, which help mothers deliver the best food for babies in a high stress society, lose there tax preferred treatment
-Exemptions made for McDonalds to continue providing the worst kind of psuedohealth insurance available because providing real insurance would destroy their business model
-Nothing done to address our poor diets
-New taxes on stuff related to actually using the healthcare system

[jeffkrol]

I think this is key to understanding the healthcare crisis in our society. The problem isn't necessarily with the hospitals, the insurance companies, or the government healthcare programs. The problems are with our lifestyles, a demographic crunch, and inability to face our own mortality.

Regarding lifestyle which the story in the OP is dealing with, a poverty diet in the USA is a high calorie low nutritional value fast food diet and an american baby with a poor mother is more likely to get formula instead of breast feed. If I compare that with my wife's experience growing up poor and discriminated against in a third world country, she was breastfeed and her poverty diet meant a rice with a fried egg mixed in and vegetables with some kind of meat only about three times per month I can see right away why american poor people have diabetes and other poor people around the world are healthier (in some respects) than our poor people.

Regarding the demographic crunch it seems like the only thing we can do is hold onto our hats and get through it. We also need to look at what percentage of our healthcare dollars are being spent on lost causes and trying to pull ourselves out from the brink of death, 1/3 of healthcare dollars are spent in the last year of life.

Looking at the healthcare bill that passed and subsequent implementation thus far we see:
-Equipment like breast pumps, which help mothers deliver the best food for babies in a high stress society, lose there tax preferred treatment
-Exemptions made for McDonalds to continue providing the worst kind of psuedohealth insurance available because providing real insurance would destroy their business model
-Nothing done to address our poor diets
-New taxes on stuff related to actually using the healthcare system

Baby steps mike baby steps.. have to crawl before you can walk.......
FREE physicals and health awareness consults might help.. oh ya that's socialism.....
Oh wait, let me get out the Repub plan, I know that's there somewhere, lets see.. it's on page..... err... it's in committee...errr..
I KNOW it's there somewhere.. oh here .. no that's tort reform.... hmm maybe something here.. oh medical savings plans for people with NO money.. nope that's not it... errr.. I got nothing.

[mikemike]

Baby steps mike baby steps.. have to crawl before you can walk.......
FREE physicals and health awareness consults might help.. oh ya that's socialism.....
Oh wait, let me get out the Repub plan, I know that's there somewhere, lets see.. it's on page..... err... it's in committee...errr..
I KNOW it's there somewhere.. oh here .. no that's tort reform.... hmm maybe something here.. oh medical savings plans for people with NO money.. nope that's not it... errr.. I got nothing.

That would not help as much as actually sticking to the law and making McDonalds actually buy real health insurance for their 30,000 employees even if that meant raising the price of a big mac to $10. Win-win for the health of america's poor but it didn't happen. Instead they are stuck with just enough insurance to treat them for a small problem that would keep them from working their shift at McDonalds and possibly identify a pre-existing condition that would make them ineligible for real insurance.

Banning the purchase of junk food with SNAP money would have been a good move too, but that didn't even get considered.

A calorie tax would be good as well and although I think that a "soda tax" was proposed it never got anywhere.

So much effort is being put into treating the symptoms and nothing is being done to cure the disease with obamacare.

[GeneV]

I think this is key to understanding the healthcare crisis in our society. The problem isn't necessarily with the hospitals, the insurance companies, or the government healthcare programs. The problems are with our lifestyles, a demographic crunch, and inability to face our own mortality.

Regarding lifestyle which the story in the OP is dealing with, a poverty diet in the USA is a high calorie low nutritional value fast food diet and an american baby with a poor mother is more likely to get formula instead of breast feed. If I compare that with my wife's experience growing up poor and discriminated against in a third world country, she was breastfeed and her poverty diet meant a rice with a fried egg mixed in and vegetables with some kind of meat only about three times per month I can see right away why american poor people have diabetes and other poor people around the world are healthier (in some respects) than our poor people.

Regarding the demographic crunch it seems like the only thing we can do is hold onto our hats and get through it. We also need to look at what percentage of our healthcare dollars are being spent on lost causes and trying to pull ourselves out from the brink of death, 1/3 of healthcare dollars are spent in the last year of life.

Looking at the healthcare bill that passed and subsequent implementation thus far we see:
-Equipment like breast pumps, which help mothers deliver the best food for babies in a high stress society, lose there tax preferred treatment
-Exemptions made for McDonalds to continue providing the worst kind of psuedohealth insurance available because providing real insurance would destroy their business model
-Nothing done to address our poor diets
-New taxes on stuff related to actually using the healthcare system

I agree about the lifestyle, and I don't fault hospitals for too much, but the insurers are still a big part of the problem, even on the preventative side. There just isn't much content of that nature in our care. Perhaps some low-deductible time with non-physician professionals would be helpful as a condition of maintaining coverage. As you indicated, we also need to look at what food is pushed by some the lions of our commerce. Some of the salads and other healthy-sounding meals at sit-down chains make McDonald's seem like health food. We, as a culture have developed a cynical tolerance for fraud, but that is another thread.

That being said, I am fairly obsessive about living healthy and have been told by doctors that I am a 55 year old with the body of a 35 year old (unfortunately, not the hairline). My recent experience with the system came as a result of doing something healthy, and I still had a close call primarily because of the fragmented insurance system. And this was modern medicine doing what it actually does best--trying to pull us from the brink of death.

[Nesster]

This was amusing:
Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798 - Rick Ungar - The Policy Page - Forbes

Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798

In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed - “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.

Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the intentions of the drafters of the Constitutions in creating this Act as many of its members were the drafters of the Constitution.

And when the Bill came to the desk of President John Adams for signature, I think it’s safe to assume that the man in that chair had a pretty good grasp on what the framers had in mind.

some more here:
The Plum Line - Newsflash: Founders favored "government run health care"

[mikemike]

This was amusing:
Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798 - Rick Ungar - The Policy Page - Forbes



some more here:
The Plum Line - Newsflash: Founders favored "government run health care"

One important element of that is that it deals with admiralty law which is a very specialized domain over which the federal government and courts have exclusive original jurisdiction.

**I'm not a lawyer but I used to work for a firm which had a bit of specialty in admiralty law.


------------------------------------------------------------

RE: Mini-meds I saw a story today pointing out that the SEIU has a waiver from Obamacare on the same scale as McDonalds. I wonder if their members could have afforded real insurance with all of the money they spent on union dues to pay for pro-obamacare PACs. How many SEIU members will die from being under insured. Union priorities #1 carve outs for union members with gold plated Cadillac plans and #2 carve outs for corrupt unions that under insure and impoverish their members.

Andy Stern must be laughing all the way to the wall street bank where he now works.

[jeffkrol]

Sailors’ Health and National Wealth

The Rise of the Marine Hospitals

The United States’ approach to health care for maritime laborers built upon British and colonial antecedents. Since Elizabethan times, Great Britain supported hospitals—the "Chatham Chest" and Greenwich Hospital—by taxing naval and merchant mariners’ monthly wages. In 1710, Virginia imposed a small tax on tobacco exports to England to fund a hospital for mariners at Hampton, Virginia. Nineteen years later Parliament ordered Pennsylvania to tax seamen’s wages for a marine hospital in Philadelphia. In 1749 Charleston, South Carolina, ordered churchwardens to create a hospital for sick and disabled sailors. Finally, voluntary "marine associations" in Boston (1742) and New York (1769) also cared for ailing sailors.

Why did Anglo-American society lavish such attention on health care for the merchant marine? First, mercantilist economic theory emphasized the importance of a healthy maritime labor force. In mercantilism, economic dominion was the extension of war by commercial means. Countries vied with one another for control of the most markets, over the broadest expanse of land. Mariners were the foot soldiers in this race for global power. But governments also regulated maritime health for moral reasons. In Anglo-American society, mariners were partially free and partially unfree laborers. It was believed that the mariner had volition enough to choose his course and negotiate for wages. But it was also believed that the mariner lacked sufficient sense to care for his own wellbeing. From this sentiment arose the infamous stereotype of "Jack Tar" as a coarse, hard-drinking character who purposefully exposed his own body to great harm. If Jack Tar failed to care for himself and if commerce and society so depended on Jack Tar, was it not society’s responsibility—and was it not in society’s best interest—to preserve and protect the mariner for his own good and for the public good? As Maine Senator F. O. J. Smith put it in 1838, "both the Government and the merchant" had "almost the same abiding interest with the sailor himself, in a matter upon which so much depends for a requisite supply of healthy and able-bodied seamen."

This concern for the health of merchant mariners loomed large in postcolonial America. During the American Revolution, some dreamed of a self-sufficient economy that would not rely upon distant and often politically problematic European markets. But during the 1790s such utopianism gave way to a hard, and ultimately lucrative, reality: the United States economy remained tethered to European markets and long-distance maritime trade. Great profits awaited American merchants who did business in England, France, and the colonial ports of the West Indies. Now again society realized the great significance of the merchant marine. Commentators of every political stripe—editors such as John Fenno, political economists such as Pelatiah Webster, and physicians such as Benjamin Rush and Samuel Latham Mitchill—found common ground in their advocacy of a system of marine hospitals. Importantly, the United States Constitution mandated a uniform, national system. Dr. Mitchill, soon to be elected to Congress, made this clear in a 1799 petition to Congress. Since "the regulation of commerce belong[s] exclusively to the National Legislature," only Congress and the federal government could handle the problem of maritime labor that had once fallen to the individual colonies.

In 1798, Congress thus enacted a law "for the relief of sick and disabled seamen." The bill taxed mariners’ wages—at the rate of twenty cents per month—to finance health care for ailing sailors in ports throughout the country. The gentlemen attorneys and merchants who wrote this legislation did not trust mariners to personally pay hospital taxes. Rather ship captains garnished the wages and paid them directly to federal customs officials. In this sense the marine hospital tax was a progenitor of the payroll tax. But this method of taxation also conveniently fit the maritime master-servant relationship in the early republic. As maritime historian Marcus Rediker illustrates, the merchant vessel was a highly disciplined space in which sea captains exerted immense authority over the mariner’s body and labor. Captains and merchants also enjoyed advantages in the bargaining of labor contracts, which were typically informal and unwritten. These power relations even influenced the disbursement of wages. To prevent desertion, full payment came only at the conclusion of a voyage. The marine hospital tax now functioned on the same principle and power structure. The merchants and sea captains, who controlled the mariners’ labor and wages, now ensured that mariners would pay the taxes necessary to maintain a healthy and productive labor force.

The federal customhouses efficiently collected the marine hospital tax. Rough estimates suggest that from 1800 to 1812, mariners’ wages fluctuated from fifteen to twenty dollars per month. Marine hospital taxes constituted a withholding of between 1 and 1.33 percent per month. In these years, tax collection peaked in 1809 at $74,192, the majority of which came from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston—a trend that would continue throughout most of the century. On the strength of the marine hospital tax, the federal government established a network of hospitals and other health care facilities for the merchant marine.

[jeffkrol]

"Republicans are standing with the American people who are demanding we repeal this government takeover of health care,” DeMint said in a statement. “Repealing ObamaCare is vital to the future of our nation and the health of our people.

DeMint debuts healthcare repeal bill with 34 GOP cosponsors - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Only 25 percent of people polled now support repealing the health care law, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll out Monday.........

Poll: Support for Health Care Repeal Drops | The Rundown News Blog | PBS NewsHour | PBS
or another one.........

Poll: More Want to Keep Health Care Law Than Want to Repeal It - Political Hotsheet - CBS News
apparently only Republicans count as Americans to Republicans........
Even repeal people are not 100% repeal.......

Among those who do favor repeal, 50 percent say they want the law repealed in full. Forty-four percent want only certain parts of it repealed.

[mikemike]

So what your saying is that more people support repealing the health care bill before the repeal vote is taken than supported the healthcare bill before the vote was taken.

Before the bill passed the House, the CBS poll found that 48% disapproved of Obama's reforms, while just 37% said they supported it. After Sunday's vote, some of the same respondents offered a very different take, with 46% saying they disapproved of the legislation and 42% saying they supported it.

Poll: With Passage, Health Care Reform Bill Gets 5-Point Bump Up Overnight | TPMDC

Apparently only democrats count as americans to democrats....

[jeffkrol]

So what your saying is that more people support repealing the health care bill before the repeal vote is taken than supported the healthcare bill before the vote was taken.


Poll: With Passage, Health Care Reform Bill Gets 5-Point Bump Up Overnight | TPMDC

Apparently only democrats count as americans to democrats....

Let's concentrate on the present ehh...............
I believe if you look at most of the statistics most "repeal" opinions were never for FULL repeal.. it was and is smoke and mirrors on the republican side....... My own poll at work show few (actually possibly 1) favors FULL repeal.. most are annoyed at 2 things 1)1099's and 2) just someone "making" them do anything..
If you GAVE them health insurance I know of FEW that would argue.... sure would save them a good chunk of change every year....

[newarts]

So what your saying is that more people support repealing the health care bill before the repeal vote is taken than supported the healthcare bill before the vote was taken.


Poll: With Passage, Health Care Reform Bill Gets 5-Point Bump Up Overnight | TPMDC

Apparently only democrats count as americans to democrats....

Mike, I don't understand what your statement "Apparently only democrats count as americans to democrats..." has to do with any of the info or links given... Please explain.. Or was it just a random shot?

It seems to me that one possible conclusion from the data is that people don't like change, but I don't see reference to democrats anywhere. The link says they re-polled the same people (without reference to party or leaning) doesn't it? I can't see how any division of political leaning within a group has much meaning when re-polling the same group.

Dave

[mikemike]

Mike, I don't understand what your statement "Apparently only democrats count as americans to democrats..." has to do with any of the info or links given... Please explain.. Or was it just a random shot?

apparently only Republicans count as Americans to Republicans........

It was a response to jeff posting a poll showing less than 50% support for passage of a certain law and concluding that the people voting for passage aren't representing all of their constituents to demonstrate that the democrats behaved the same exact way with even less support for their bill when the health insurance reform act was passed against popular public opinion in the first place.

If you GAVE them health insurance I know of FEW that would argue.... sure would save them a good chunk of change every year....

It would save them even more now that their premiums have skyrocketed to comply with obamacare.

[jeffkrol]

It would save them even more now that their premiums have skyrocketed to comply with obamacare.

That was inevitable either way, contrary to the propaganda....