Currently, the federal government denies taxpayer monies to be used to pay for abortions, except in cases when pregnancies result from rape or incest or when the pregnancy endangers the woman's life.
However, if the 173 mainly Republican co-sponsors of the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" have their way, that would all change. Instead of keeping the 30-year-old definition of rape in federal law, the bill would modify it to "forcible rape," thereby severely limiting the health care choices of millions of American women and their families.
In other words, rape would not be rape unless violence were involved; however, the term "forcible rape" was left undefined, leading some to speculate its meaning since it is also not defined in the federal criminal code or in some state laws.
"This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible," Nick Baumann of Mother Jones wrote recently.
He continued, "For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion."
If the bill becomes law, parents of minors would also be banned from paying for pregnancy termination for their daughters with tax-exempt health savings accounts. Also, the cost of the private health insurance that covered the treatment would not be able to be deducted as a medical expense for tax purposes.
The bill introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) was the second major piece of legislation filed by the Republicans after its attempt to repeal "The Affordable Care Act." Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) hailed Smith's bill as "one of our highest legislative priorities."
Be sure to click link above to read it all and check out the charts.
Where does the United States stand compared to other countries? It loses the most potential years of life amongst developed countries. In the United States, 6397 years of life are lost per 100,000 males — compared to just 4574 in the United Kingdom, or 4018 in Italy.
The United States (the bright red line) has seen the smallest reductions in PYLL, by a wide margin. In fact, Korea — the bright blue line — now loses fewer potential years of life than the United States, and has done so since approximately 1999.
The United States gets the smallest bang for the buck in terms of life itself amongst developed countries: it realizes the lowest level of "life returns." The U.S. healthcare system returns the fewest life years for each dollar spent. The United States, for example, has invested an additional 8.3% of GDP in health since 1971. That investment yielded a PYLL reduction of 5157 years. America realized a return of 621 potential years of life gained for each additional percentage point of GDP invested in health.
The United Kingdom invested an additional 3.3% of GDP in health since 1971. That investment yielded gains of 4421 fewer potential years of life lost. The United Kingdom realized a return of 1340 potential years of life gained for each additional percentage point of GDP invested in health. The United Kingdom healthcare system delivers life returns more than twice those of the American healthcare system.
Canada, in contrast, has invested a marginal 2.6% of GDP in health since 1971. That investment yielded a PYLL reduction of 5393 years. Canada realized a return of 2074 years for each additional percentage point of GDP invested in health. The Canadian healthcare system delivers life returns more than three times greater than those of the American healthcare system.
Now, please take all this with a grain of salt. PYLL is an imperfect measure, and it doesn't capture all the richness of healthcare inequities and imperfections. Equating life years lost to life years gained might have methodological issues. Comparing PYLL over time might need statistical adjustment. This is a blog post, not a journal article, and I crunched these numbers on a Sunday afternoon over a quick coffee.
The point isn't that this is the best, only, or final measure of healthcare effectiveness. The point is this:
A more productive debate begins with assessments of effectiveness, so costs can be compared to benefits. Debate is the lifeblood of a democracy — but the current debate lacks those. And that, perhaps, is why it's so frustrating for both sides. I hope this post offers a measure of effectiveness that everyone can use to have a more productive debate.
I am turning thirty in a few days, but I have had cancer for ten years. I went for my regular test at Sloan-Kettering a month ago, and I thought to myself over and over before submitting to the general anesthesia, "All I want for my thirtieth birthday is a clean scan. Good news, good news, good new--" and that's where I stop remembering. When I came to, four hours later, some part of my brain was still repeating "Good news good news good news." But I was wrong.
I don't exactly know why I can live and thrive with cancer, but am reduced to such unadulterated fear when it comes to maintaining my insurance coverage. Having cancer? I've been brave and strong and fierce. Losing the only way to maintain my fleeting health? I can't face it. I'm reading this blog, reading about people who have died because they do not have insurance, who have died trying. Will I be one of them?
"Even as rising unemployment strips people of health insurance, sending many to emergency departments for care, doctors on the front lines say the lingering recession is also prompting an unexpected outcome.
More patients, they say, are refusing potentially costly procedures ranging from tests to confirm heart attacks to overnight stays to monitor dangerous infections."
"The world is on the cusp of an explosion of drug-resistant tuberculosis cases that could deluge hospitals and leave physicians fighting a nearly untreatable malady with little help from modern drugs, global experts said Wednesday.
'The situation is already alarming, and poised to grow much worse very quickly,' said Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization."
"The difference is that wealthy people are more likely to have the ability to get the care and help they need to get better. They are more likely to have effective insurance and more likely to be able to pay for what ever the insurance doesn't pay. Wealthy people with rheumatoid arthritis can afford to pay that $2,200 per injection for that incredibly expensive drug. People with advanced RA that have reduced mobility can also pay for house cleaning and lawn work and can have their food brought to them.
There's also some evidence that being wealthy and avoiding economic hardship seems to be correlative with avoiding health issues."
Young adults today aren't any healthier than 10 to 15 years ago, and in some cases — obesity, for one — they are significantly less so, says a federal report on the nation's health released Wednesday
Although the study did not explore the reasons for high unemployment, Dr. de Boer speculated that disability played a leading role. Many survivors, she said, may simply be unable to return to work.
"As the stimulus package wended its way through Congress this week, a familiar face popped up to get up to some familiar shenanigans. Betsy McCaughey, a Republican former Lieutenant Governor of New York, was suddenly on the Bloomberg website and on TV, issuing dire warnings about the changes that the stimulus package was going to wreak on health care. How? McCaughey claimed that the plan contained health technology language that let the federal government could "monitor" patient care in order to "guide your doctor's decisions." In short, a top-down bureaucracy that would enforce its own set of medical treatment protocols.
Naturally, that would be bad, and naturally, not a word of it was true. That didn't stop the contention from flowing from the Rush/Drudge edges onto cable news, most notably Lou Dobbs' CNN show. Happily, however, the media seems to be gathering to put McCaughey's nonsense back on the dungheap.
Last night, Keith Olbermann featured a debunking of McCaughey on Countdown:"
Tonight, Local 2 investigates why some insurance companies are refusing to pay for potentially life-saving medical treatments. Have you looked closely at your health insurance plan?
Chances are, you wouldn't notice the wording we've discovered that's leaving patients and not the insurance companies stuck paying for treatment that might save their lives.
Local 2 investigative reporter Amy Davis found it happening all over Texas.
Imagine being told by your doctor that drugs offered in a clinical trial are now your best chance to beat deadly cancer. But your insurance company says it won't pay for any of it. That's the battle facing a veteran Houston firefighter, and we've found the same thing could happen to you. "You either fight them or you give up," said Steve Jahnke, Houston Fire Department district chief.
A leaked Government-commissioned report has raised fresh fears of a link between power lines and cancer.
The draft paper urges ministers to consider banning the building of homes and schools close to overhead high voltage power cables to reduce significantly exposure to electromagnetic fields from the electricity grid.
The Stakeholder Advisory Group on Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic Radiation (Sage) says a ban is the "best available option", pointing out that some countries have "corridors" for high voltage power lines where development is not allowed.
Some stakeholders took the view - adopted by the Government's health advisers and the World Health Organisation - that childhood leukaemia is the only adverse health effect where evidence is strong enough for precautionary measures. According to this view, if there is a link, the building ban would cut just one case of childhood leukaemia every year or two and the costs would outweigh the benefits by a factor of at least 20.
But others have backed a California Department of Health Services paper in 2002 which suggested electromagnetic fields are "possibly carcinogenic" in terms of childhood leukaemia. It also cited four other health effects - adult leukaemia, adult brain tumours, miscarriages and motor neurone disease.
"The advice to government from following this 'California' view would therefore be to tend to favour implementing the 'corridors for new build' option," Sage added, stressing that this is why it has not been able to form a consensus.
The panel also recommends that the Health Protection Agency should issue more information about how to reduce the impact of exposure to electromagnetic fields.
For some years, there has been concern about cancer risks among people living near power lines. A pooled analysis of several studies suggests that the possibility exists of a doubling of the risk of leukaemia in children in homes at high levels of exposure to extremely low frequency (50-60 Hz) magnetic fields.
For the overwhelming majority of children living in homes with magnetic field levels below a given level - estimated to be 99.6 per cent of children in the UK Childhood Cancer Study - the data was consistent with no increased risk.
For higher magnetic fields levels, the leukaemia risk was estimated to be double.
