DEMOCRATS HAVE GIVEN UP ON PRIVATE HEALTH CARE MARKETS — AND FOR GOOD REASON

https://goo.gl/8jzunr

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY has fully mobilized multiple times this year in defense of the Affordable Care Act. But when it comes to the future of health care, the party has quietly given up on the idea of trying to make the ACA principle of regulated private insurance markets work. Instead, they see expanding public health insurance as the future.

Republicans have only themselves to blame.

The most visible sign of this shift from private to public was the release of Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for all” bill. His measure garnered 16 co-sponsors, including every senator seen as a 2020 Democratic presidential contender, but it was by no means the only bill of its kind.

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., introduced a bill with a public option. In August, a group of senators introduced a bill for Medicare buy-in for those age 55 and above. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, has started working on a detailedMedicaid buy-in plan while Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut is working on a universal Medicare buy-in for individuals and large companies to create a path to single-payer. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is pushing a bill that would create a “Medicare Part E,” with E standing for everybody, Kaine said. At the state level, Democrats are also trying to come up with ways to let people buy into Medicaid or other public programs.

A big reason for this shift, which Democrats are unlikely to ever fully acknowledge, is how much the ACA has failed to live up to expectations. The relentless claims by Republicans that the ACA will pull the plug on grandma, or that it will explode, have allowed Democrats to redefine barely functioning as success. It has made it easy to forget, though, how great President Barack Obama’s team thought the law would turn out.


NDY Submission to United Nations Criticizes Proposal To Support Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Another way modern society tries to convert people with disabilities into disposable products.....
https://goo.gl/dhdZuP

Not Dead Yet USA is a national, grassroots disability rights group that opposes legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia as deadly forms of discrimination against old, ill and disabled people. Not Dead Yet USA helps organize and articulate opposition to these practices in the United States based on secular social justice arguments. Not Dead Yet also demands the equal protection of the law for the targets of so called “mercy killing” whose lives are seen as worth-less.

This submission concerns paragraph 10 of the Draft Comment, which reads as follows:

[While acknowledging the central importance to human dignity of personal autonomy, the Committee considers that States parties should recognize that individuals planning or attempting to commit suicide may be doing so because they are undergoing a momentary crisis which may affect their ability to make irreversible decisions, such as to terminate their life. Therefore,] States should take adequate measures, without violating their other Covenant obligations, to prevent suicides, especially among individuals in particularly vulnerable situations. At the same time, States parties [may allow] [should not prevent] medical professionals to provide medical treatment or the medical means in order to facilitate the termination of life of [catastrophically] afflicted adults, such as the mortally wounded or terminally ill, who experience severe physical or mental pain and suffering and wish to die with dignity. In such cases, States parties must ensure the existence of robust legal and institutional safeguards to verify that medical professionals are complying with the free, informed, explicit and, unambiguous decision of their patients, with a view to protecting patients from pressure and abuse.

We strongly oppose this draft language, which supports assisted suicide and euthanasia, thus proposing to carve older, ill and disabled people out of equal protection of the law. This submission will focus on the risks to individuals and society associated with assisted suicide and euthanasia. We will discuss the evidence from Oregon, the earliest of the five states and the District of Columbia to legalize assisted suicide, and outline the concerns of the disability community.


How the Elderly Lose Their Rights

More and more family members are using guardianship to extort assets from their parents and other relatives and more and more public guardianships, especially in Michigan, are structured to cannibalize ward assets and no one is doing anything to stop it....
https://goo.gl/xJfUv6

Without realizing it, the Norths had become temporary wards of the court. Parks had filed an emergency ex-parte petition, which provides an exception to the rule that both parties must be notified of any argument before a judge. She had alleged that the Norths posed a “substantial risk for mismanagement of medications, financial loss and physical harm.” She submitted a brief letter from a physician’s assistant, whom Rennie had seen once, stating that “the patient’s husband can no longer effectively take care of the patient at home as his dementia is progressing.” She also submitted a letter from one of Rudy’s doctors, who described him as “confused and agitated.”

Rudy and Rennie had not undergone any cognitive assessments. They had never received a diagnosis of dementia. In addition to Freud, Rudy was working his way through Nietzsche and Plato. Rennie read romance novels.

Parks told the Norths that if they didn’t come willingly an ambulance would take them to the facility, a place she described as a “respite.” Still crying, Rennie put cosmetics and some clothes into a suitcase. She packed so quickly that she forgot her cell phone and Rudy’s hearing aid. After thirty-five minutes, Parks’s assistant led the Norths to her car. When a neighbor asked what was happening, Rudy told him, “We’ll just be gone for a little bit.” He was too proud to draw attention to their predicament. “Just think of it as a mini-vacation,” he told Rennie.


Nearly One-Third Of New Drugs Are No Better Than Older Drugs, And Some Are Worse

https://goo.gl/vi7sno

A Focus On Expediting Drug Development

Congress has instructed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expedite the development and review of promising new drugs through the creation of four programs: accelerated approval, fast-track, breakthrough, and priority review. In a recent Health Affairs article, James D. Chambers and colleagues reported that drugs approved under one or more expedited programs were, on average, associated with larger health gains than those approved under conventional development and review programs. They concluded that the FDA has prioritized the review of drugs that offer the largest clinical advancements.

Chambers and his colleagues should be applauded for using as their metric net health benefit, which is the raison d’être of any pharmaceutical intervention. Although they focused on the FDA’s expedited programs, their research also revealed important information about the benefits of new drugs that is highly patient-relevant, namely, that 20 percent of expedited drugs and 41 percent of non-expedited drugs offered zero or negative incremental health gains over older comparators.


Domestic violence and brain injuries are linked, says researcher

https://goo.gl/ZoLLNY

More domestic violence survivors may be suffering from traumatic brain injuries than we know, says Halina Haag, a researcher from Wilfrid Laurier University's faculty of social work.

Haag is a doctoral student at the university who received the 2017-2018 Ontario Women's Health Scholars Award for her work with women survivors of domestic violence and their resulting traumatic brain injuries.

"We know that this is a very real risk, we also know that women likely undergo at least 30 episodes of violence before they contact the police," she said, "So this is often an ongoing, long-term situation, and they're being exposed to repeated violence."

There has been increasing awareness of sports-related concussions. However, Haag pointed out that people aren't making the connection that victims of domestic violence also may be suffering lasting physical damage in their brains.

Damage to the brain can result in a loss of executive functions, which includes ability to process information, memory, ability to multi-task, planning and the ability to read emotion on another person's face.

"The bruises and cuts heal, and what happens is people assume that once that [visible] damage is healed, there's no lasting impact," she said.