Blog 20

In 1980's corporations start to use the hospital system and other healthcare related businesses start to rise. Overall there is a movement towards privatized businesses. Under President Reagan Medicare shifts to payment by diagnosis instead of payment by treatment and private plans follow. Companies start complaining about exploitation of the fee for service method. Capitation payments start becoming more common.

1990's Healthcare costs rise at double the rate of inflation, but the expansion of managed care helps to offset the rising costs. At the end of the decade 14% of Americans do not have health insurance. In the 2000's Health care costs are on the rise. Some people view Medicare as unsustainable and think it needs reform. Changing demographics in the work place lead some people to believe that the employer based insurance won't last. Direct to consumer advertising is more common for medical devices. The movement to privatized health care is an anti federalist issue but with the pendulum swinging towards anti federalism recent attempts by Obama to socialize health care have been met with adversity.

1.What is your view on privatized health care?

2.What do you think the advantages and disadvantages would be if the government had more control over health care?

3.Are you satisfied with the current system?

4.Would you say politics prevents us from improving this system?

5.Where do you think political pressures and fears are coming from, what are they?

6.How much of these are related to the economy?

7.From what you know, how does health care reform affect our economy?

8.What are your thoughts with giving more of the responsibility of health care to the government or to the states?

Interviewee

1. I think the quality of privatized health care is great but the cost is greater. My brother pays about $1500/mo for himself, his wife and their baby. Their health needs are met just fine but the cost is astronomical.

2. I think that putting more of the responsibility for health care in the hands of the government creates a more even-handed system and allows more people affordable access to health care. I would like to think that the cost of prescription drugs would go down and that people would be able to find health insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions and receive treatment at the time they need it. However, I think many people that currently have no problems with the system are reluctant to change what seems to be working for them.

3. I don't think the current system meets the health care needs of the greater part of the country in any affordable way.

4. I do think politics has prevented us from improving the system.

5. I think political pressure comes from the unending desire to win the next election. Each side has been fighting the other side and maneuvering has prevented much real progress on the issue.

6. I think it's very related to the economy.

7. I honestly can't say I could describe how health care reform affects our economy. I think many people are weary about where there money is going, especially in the current economic climate. People are probably more reluctant to pay into a government run health care system as a result.

http://www.pbs.org/healthcarecrisis/history.htm

Blog 19

1. What are you most proud of in your Life: The Book writing? Try to describe this in detail!

I am most proud of being able to learn how to write in a different style than I have normally written essays and other pieces from before. It enables me to organize my thoughts and gives insight and more creative options.

2. What are some changes or new ideas that you have developed in your writing through the course of this semester?

I've tried to apply the make meaning early and keep concerts and pancakes in mind, in the past I would try to fit in as many words as possible to make my pieces longer. Now I have been trying to say more with less and making my ending and start strong. Just recently with this project I've learned to let the ideas drive the writing instead of using the words to pile up and hopefully formulate an idea.

3. If you had a little more time to work on your writing for LifE: The Book, what would you do differently? What would you change about your writing?

I would have researched more about plantibodies and their effect on 3rd world countries, and as with anything I would have gotten more critiques to further refine my writing.

4. How has the additional element of publication in a book affected the way you approach writing?

It really hasn't in terms of effort, it just meant that I need to have this piece critiqued thoroughly.

Blog 18

What are your character's main goals for the Senate Health Care Hearings?

• Healthcare to be available to more people or less government control of pricing
• Stricter patent rules
• Money for research
• (minor) Tax breaks for shipping

What do you want to accomplish?

My main goal that needs to be accomplished is the stricter patent rules, preferably increasing it to 50 years and at the least 25-30 years. And possibly sneaking in a request for extra funding.

How do you plan to accomplish it?

In my opening statement I will explain why people should care about this, providing relevant facts that backup my statements.

Who are you working with to get this done?

Sierra (Olympia Snowe)

and Lobbyist Maira

Blog 17

I mentioned in my previous blog posts that Bio tech is not cheap, and as Hoven puts it: "So while you might not die, the U.S. health care system does give you the age-old offer of "your money or your life..."" And a lot of the general public cannot afford most of the new technologies that could save their life. Joel Harrison found out that "The United States accounts for 51% of all global spending on medical research, according to a 2006 Global Forum for Health Research report. The report estimated that 60% of this is public funding, 8% comes from nonprofit institutions, and only 32% comes from the private sector." Funding for research to progress Cancer vaccines is lacking, since a working vaccine for tumors announced in 2000 and 10 years later it still hasn't made major news worthy progress. George F. Will made the analogy "In the auto industry, if the steering-wheel maker charges an exorbitant price, the car company finds a more competitive supplier. In health care, if the medical equipment supplier charges an exorbitant price, none of the other medical participants care." The biotech industry can price its products whatever it wants, sometimes the price really does encompass all the costs put into its research and development. And other times its priced to make a large profit margin, either way there is no price regulation for these vaccines.

"The president’s grandiose government-takeover-and-control strategies are going to make things worse and worse — that is, unless members of that tiny band known as the Republican party can stand on their hind legs and just say no." I totally disagree with Larry Kudlow’s statement here. I believe our health care system requires change, In Joel Harrison’s article the US pays the most for healthcare, yet other countries’ systems are far more efficient. According to Harrison “more than 60% of the $2 trillion annual U.S. health care bill is paid through taxes, according to a 2002 analysis published in Health Affairs by Harvard Medical School.” And if we already have been paying for a universal healthcare system, why not expand it to benefit ourselves too? When we pay for health insurance most of that money doesn’t even get used on us, plus our providers can deny coverage for what we need even if it is not the best choice for us. So I think our new healthcare system should be a pool of what we’ve been paying but it actually gets spent on us. But it should be justified when it gives out the money, for example, if somebody gets a cold, they can pay out of their pocket for some over the counter cold medicine, but if somebody breaks a leg or gets cancer, they should get a stronger coverage. So money is not spent unless it is completely necessary and the chances for putting our country in debt are slimmer, unless everybody breaks their legs at the same time of course.

Blog 16

Even though there are a lot of vaccines readily available for cancer patients, most people either cannot afford it, or their insurance does not cover it. "Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated and bureaucratic in the world. Its function is not to provide quality health care for all, but to make huge profits for those who own the companies.” A lot of these products are priced to make a large profit for the company. Then again these technologies take a lot of money to fund the research and development. But as Iain Murray puts it: "Because rights entail claims on other people, they are necessarily negative in their construction and limited in their definition." This could hinder the development and research of new technology if they have to give out their products for free, they won't be able to keep themselves in business.

For every problem there is a solution. And I think that having some form of universal healthcare will overall increase the quality of life in the US. I also believe that healthcare is a right in the sense that without it, we would consistently have citizens dying. We all have a right to life, and I'm pretty sure that means helping somebody who is on the verge of death. Jacob Sullum states "They represent a legally enforceable claim on other people’s resources. Taxpayers must cover the cost of subsidies; insurers and medical professionals must provide their services on terms dictated by the government." While that might be true, what we will be paying will be just as much as we pay normally for healthcare. And if the system works the healthcare we receive will be sufficient and we will have no need to pay any more premiums or out of pocket expenses. Or it could be that the more dire the disease/injury is the more coverage we get, and minor afflictions that can be paid out of the pocket should be that way.

Blog #15

Describe the types of health care problems Americans face, and the government's role in seeking solutions.

Not everybody has it, in 2004 1/6th of Americans did not have healthcare, they ran up a a bill around the same cost of the war in Iraq and the war on terror operations. We don't pay doctors according to the quality of their work.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform/healthcare-overview#healthcare-menu

The government is implementing small portions of the reform, but whats already taking place is that they are removing the life time limit on insurance so people with serious or chronic diseases will have healthcare when they need it the most. In order to stop unnecessary out of pocket costs insurance companies must: cover recommended preventive services without charging out of pocket costs, provide an opportunity to appeal coverage decisions, and guarantee enrollees their choice of primary care provider. Other measures will also be implemented to reduce the cost of healthcare in the future.

What specific steps do authors take to write non-jargon-based scientific writing?

• They don’t use profession-exclusive words
• Break down everything to language anyone can understand.
• Describe different things clearly.
• If there are abbreviations they first state what they mean or are explained somewhere on the paper
• Instead of putting out the name of a very complex concept, they summarize it.
• They use comparisons and examples.
• They make the context clear.
• The sentence doesn’t sacrifice information for simplicity.

Blog #14

1. Adulthood, and I am interested in DNA vaccinations. The direct injection of naked plasmid DNA is much more effective than inserting a weakened or killed bacteria or virus. And with DNA vaccines you can produce an immune response to viruses and even cancer cells.

2. The NIH funds a lot of research projects and they provide funding to the University of Texas. http://report.nih.gov/recovery/ARRAGrants.cfm

http://www.latimes.com/health/ky3-story-brain-cancer-vaccine-10042010,0,4699074.story

3. DNA vaccination has shown the promise to treat almost any disease, and it also creates a very attractive market with an explosive growth rate http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/cancer-vaccine-stocks-and-the-race-for-a-cure/2759 "Shares of Celldex Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ :CLDX) are up 48% over the last four weeks after the company announced patients who received their CDX-110 lived twice as long as those who only received chemotherapy and radiation." And a definite cure for cancer is estimated to be 50 trillion for the US alone. This is huge news for our economy, with the biotech industry growing this will affect us.

The Avian Flu caused a world wide scare, but thanks to bio tech and advances in DNA vaccination survival rates can be increased. http://www.virologyj.com/content/7/1/197 A study using lab mice have shown that being exposed to H1N1 and the H5N1 vaccine have an increased survival rate when injected with a lethal dose of H5N1.

Another thing I can focus on would be plant-based vaccinations, this could fit into adolescence or childhood.

I would think the NIH would also be involved with funding research related to this but I can't find any definite sources.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/218/diseases-ignored-global-killers In 2008 there were 2 million deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis kill 1.3 million a year with 9.3 million new cases a year. With plant-based vaccines we would be able to more effectively prevent and immunize many diseases. And without the need for a medical professional and syringe it is extremely cost effective. http://news.healingwell.com/index.php?p=news1&id=523946 Arntzen produced a potato that immunizes against Hepatitis B, showing it is possible to immunize people through genetically altered plants.