Blog+Reflections

September 26, 2009

Senate Pannel Rejects Bid to Add Drug Discount

On Thursday Septemeber 24th, the Senate Finance Committee rejected a proposal to require pharmacuatic companies to give bigger discounts to Medicare on drugs given to elederly Americans with low income. I can understand the dismissal of the proposal. The amount of money that was being asked for in rebates was considerably high at $100 billion. Like explained in the baisics of economics, "there is no such thing as a free lunch," someone will be paying for those extra rebates. The people who would end up paying for the rebate or "free lunch" would be the drug companies. By putting the extra rebates onto medicines, the companies would be loosing double the amount of money. This would aslo result in an increase to the unemployment rate being that the drug companies could not keep up with pay roll. It would be acting in my opinion as a dominoe effect. Everybody would have ended up losing. What also sparked my attention was that some senators proposed increasing medicine prices to offset the losses from the extensive rebates. This would result in the middle class having to pay these new prices. Having them pay such heavy prices would stengthen the gap between the rich and poor and give amunition to the elimination of the middle class. Making health care more expensive for some and barely free for others would not resolve any health care issues. Thankfully the bill was not passed but the ideas behind these senators is unsettling. They are turing democratic party into a revesed republican party, they are only looking out for the poor and the middle class is not getting enough of a say in congress.

September 26, 2009

Helping Elderly Leave Nursing Homes For a Home

After surgery many geriatric pateints are being put into a nursing home rather then a rehabilitation center follwed by going back home. This trend however is now taking a backseat to a new alternative. Elderly patients under medicaid are now going form the hospital to six months in a nursing home to back to their homes with the help of an aid a few days out of the week for several hours. The cost of this new program is said to be lower then the cost of placing these patients into nursing homes. This is good news for the health care field. To lower the cost of an expensive faciltiy is a good way to help the government save money and relieve the large amount of debt that the country is in. However no good deed goes unpunished. If less senior citizens were put into nursing homes in the long run there would be a decrease in the number of jobs availble for thse who work in nursing homes. This is something to think about with the baby boomer generation reaching very shortly that stage of their life. If those baby boomers were to be sent home with an aide rather then be placed in a nursing home the promise of an unemployment rate on nursing homes being alleviated would be no longer. However, the quality of health care with this new program woud be improved. People would feel more comfortable at home and live more fulfilling lives. When it comes to health care, in my opinion, the well being of people far outweighs the financial set back on employment. People can always adapt to change. Instead of working in what may be empty nursing homes, people can find jobs in home health care and expand on that particular feild. Health care needs to come down in its costly ways and by saving money for the goverment by taking elders out of the nursing homes is a great step forward in the direction oof lowering all costs of health care.

October 3, 2009

School Nurse Shortage Hampers Swine Flu Response

Because of a shoortage of school nurses, the possible number of students contracting H1N1 is on the rise. School nurses are the employees of schools who can identify the symptoms of swine flu. Without a nurse to identify and stifle the number of students getting swine flu, H1N1 could spread even further around the country and be harder to control. I found it alarming that some schools do not even have nurses. The shortage of nurses is an effect of the dwindling economy. Schools do not have the funds to employ school nurses. School nurses should be made a requirement in all schools. A school nurse is extremly valuable to a well operating school. Swine flu is even more harmful to children. H1N1 has an uncertain future in the United States and if any thing can be done to aide in the prevention of the flu should be done. Schools are filled with germs causing children to get sick quickly and in large populations. If school nurses are not present to take care of these students then more problems can occur in schools. Health care would not be at its best quality if there were not nurses in schools. School nurses are important in the health care feild because they are the people who take care of children and help to prevent them from ending up in the hospital. Health care is present at the begining of a cold and is present at the end of someones life. If swine flu can be caught durung thee early stages by a nurse at school then possibly it will not have to end up in the end stages at the hospital.

October 17, 2009

Cocain Vaccine is Developed, but It Does Not Keep Users From Wanting the Drug

A new vaccine has been devolped to prevent cocaine addicts fom getting high. The vaccine stops the stimulation of the brain from the cocaine but it does not block the cravings for the drug. A trial was done on humanes to show how effective the vaccine actualy was. The results of the trial were that thirty eight percent of the particpants who recieved the vaccine were affected. The thirty eight percent cut their cocaine intake by half. A cocaine vaccine is a direction in the right step. If other vaccines could be created to aide in the addiction of other drugs, such as tobacco, this could be beneficial to the nation. Drugs, like cocaine, have many health effect attached to them. These health effects may cause users to end up in the hospital. Hospitals are cramped enough already. Patients who are in the hospital because of drug abuse could be removed if they were no longer addicted to that said drug. The vaccine could make it feasable for addicts to come off the drug they are on. People are always looking for a quick fix. A drug related vaccine could be that quick fix to get them off their drug of choice. I predict the cocaine vaccine would be popular. Fiscally speaking a cocaine vaccine would increase revenue in the pharmaceutical field. In a failing economy anything that would offer revnue and down the road jobs, is a good thing. Any thing that would benfit the well being of humans aswell is a good thing.

October 31, 2009

Patterns: For Heart Attacks, Shifts in Gender Gap

The percent of men suffering from a heart attack has decreased while the number of women has increased. Another study also showed that the number of men who smoke and are overweight has gone down while the number of women has remained the same. The results of the second study give a good explanation to why the number of women who are getting heart attacks increased. It is shocking to know that more women smoke then men. Smoking in my opinion seems to be more prevelant in men and it was a surprise to me to know that more women smoke. I feel that more should be done for women on a healthy life style. It is more difficult for women to loose weight for men. If diets could be changed and smoking could start to decrease in women then there risk of heart attack would go down. It is more economical to join a gym then suffer from a heart attack and have to pay for large medical expenses. Especialy in a time when many people do not even health insurence. Although the money benefits are reason enough, the health benfits are the most important. People in general must become more aware of their health. They do not know how the futue will turn out and what medical procedures will be availablle. Health is the most important thing and people must change their lifestyle so they can live an inexpensive long life.


 * 2nd QUARTER**

November 14, 2009

Stuck By a Needle, Not By a Decision

A nurse was stuck by a needle from a patient who had hepititis C. The nurse was not following standard percautions. She was trying to transfer blood from one sryinge into the other. Because of this nurse's negligence, her health was comprimised and became at risk for AIDS. The performance of health care workers must be excellent for health care to be successful. If nurses or other health care workers are not following protocal then hospitals start to loose their reputation as safe facilities. Hospitals are places were all safetey precautions need to be followed. If workers are not being safe they are putting themselves in danger when it can easily be avoided. More education should be provided to health care workers on safety because the information they are now recieving is not suffice. Health care workers are not giving the time to follow the safety rules and this in the long run may have an effect on the type of insurence required for some health care professionals to have. Aneshesiologists must have insurence to cover them if any problems occur due to anestia. Possiblily nurses will have to take out insurence for the use of sryinges. This would hurt the salary of a nurse but it would be beneficial for the safety of nurses. Nurses would be more inclined to follow standards so there insurene would stay low. Hopefully, this will not happen but health care profesionals need to be more careful in the workplace and follow all regulations.

November 21, 2009

Seeking a Shorter Path to New Drugs

To develop a new medicine costs on average one point two billion dollars. A large amount of this cost is coming from the faliures that happen along the path to the new drug. To remedy the situation MIT has a project suggesting that rival pharmacautical companies share their information on non effetive drugs with one another. Large pharmacuatical companies are not keen on this new idea. To know that such a large amount of money is coming from the errors being made by sceintists is startling. This trial and error method is clearly not working for these companies and too much money is being wasted in the process. These large companies should get off their high horses and share information with one another. In a dwindling economy companies should by looking for any way to save money. Health care companies should not be concerned with making a profit. They should be more concerned with helping the well being of people. Drugs are there to aide in the health of an individual. Companies should not be raking in inappropriately large benefits from these drugs. If the development of cost of drugs were to decline, possibly there would be more money to help develop more drugs then before. Also, maybe there would be a price drop because of the smaller cost of creating the drug. The cost of drugs is too high. To develop these drugs is an even higher cost. Something must change in order for these costs to go down and the government needs to step in to make this possible.

November 28, 2009

Seeking the Best Medical Care Prices

Americans without health insurence are now "bargain shopping" to find the most affordable health care. A problem they are running into however is doctors are charging those who do not have health insurence more then health insurence companies. One procedure can cost ten differnt prices. Health care should not be an industruy of such high profit. The fact that the person who does not have health insurence pays the most is unsettling. Doctors should be more concerned with helping their patients then seeing how much of a profit they can make off of them. This is a part of the health care system that needs to be dealt with imediatly. Health insurence is obviously needed to be able to afford health care. However, how health care should be available is up for debate. Ntionalizing health care is not exactly the best option but keeping it the way it stands now is also not a good option. There needs to be a happy medium. The fact that people are bargain shopping for health care is a step in the right direction. Going to the most affordable doctor may help to lower the costs of more doctors because of a comptition for the cheapest doctor. For things like routine check ups and the common flu, "generic" doctors most defintly suffice. Diseases thoug such as cancer do call for the best doctors or the "desighner" doctors. I believe that health insurence should not pay for the costs of routine physicals and other minor visits but do pay for the costs of costly surgeries such as open heart surgery. Although this may seem impossible there are insurence plans like this out there. The minor expenses are not covered but the mojor expenses are. I beleive this will both lower the cost of getting health insurence and keep the country healthy. To nationalize health care is feeding into the high costs of doctors. Everyone will be covered but someone will still have to pay those fees. There will be no best doctors because a doctor who charges a "desighner" fee for their surgery will not charge a "generic" fee. If health care is nationalized then there will not be the best of the best doctors just a lot of generic doctors. Private health insurence should still exist but what needs to be covered should change in my opinion.

December 5, 2009 Is Money Tainting the Plasma Supply

Both Mexicans and Americans are exchanging their plasma for money. The plasma is being sold to drug companies to be used in life saving drugs. The contreversy with getting paid for plasma is the exploition of its targets (poverty stricken people) and is now causing people to rethink donating blood but instead getting paid for selling their plasma. I think that there is no harm in what is going on. People who need money are able to get money quickly while still contributing something positive to health care. I do not think that it is exploiting people. With the dwindling econmy, now more then ever people need a fast way to earn money. If the money one would get from donating plasma could be used to pay bills then it would be more then worth it. What is also benificial about the exchange on a health care stand point is how many patients are benefiting from the plasma. What is wrong with getting paid for a good deed? I can understand the argue however that it is somewhat unethical for this exchange. People become vulnarable when money is tight. To offer them money for their plasma can be seen as somewhat degrading. However if you need money you need money. Exchanging plasma for money is better then looking for easy money through illegal means. I can only see the good points to giving plasma. Also if half the world is using this plasma then I feel it is okay for mexicans to give plasma. It is not only a United State used plasma so why not let another country cash in on the benfits. When helping others is concerned all should be done to help everyone.

December 12, 2009

Questioning a $30,000 a Month Cancer Drug

A drug company is looking to put on the market a rare cancer drug to not aide in curing the cancer but to shrink the size of the tumor. This would proong life for only a couple of months. Some are critiziing that the cost of the drug far outweighs the benifit of the medicine. Personaly I feel that the cost of this medication may be high but anything to help in the fight against cancer is worth it. Cancer is a disease that hits so many people. When I think about the lives that will be lost from cancer those couple extra months do seem worth the price. However with that being said, America cannot keep rising the prices of drugs. The world pf prescription drugs has become too corporate. Alot of these drug companies are looking for profit over the affordability to its customers. In this aspect I feel the governement should step in and help to regulate the high costs of prescription drugs. For this perticular cancer drug the company that supplies it is offering to pay for it for those who do not have health insurence and help with the co-payments for those who are on medicare. This also helps to swallow the high cost of the medication. It is reasuring to know that it will be acessable to everyone. The health care system of America is not in good shape esspcialy the prescription drug sector. Many people count on prescription drugs to stay alive. Their high costs however are making it harder and harder for people without health insurence to stay in good health or even alive. We should take a que from countries like England and make prescrition drugs affordable to all.

December 26, 2009

Not All Drugs Are the Same After All

New research claims that generic prescription drugs are not as effective as their brand name counter parts. Most people choose genric drugs because of their affordable price. Some genric drugs are said to cause side effets. This is disheartening news. Brand name prescription drugs can cost as much as $500, many americans depend on these drugs generic form. If the generic drugs are not doing the same thing as the brand names then something must be changed. The cost of drugs is a big concern in the health care debate. If health care were to be nationlized then all medicine could be affordable to Americans. The government can not let this go on. It is one thing to charge high prices for brand name drugs and also offer generic drugs that work just aswell as the brand names, however, when these generic drugs are not working properly then something must be done to mediate the situation. I strongly believe the health care should not be concerned with profit as much as they are concerned. Prescription drugs should be checked more throughly to make sure their are no adverse reactions and brand name prescription drugs should be more acceable to the genral public.


 * Third Quarter**


 * 1

Nearby Hospitals to Fill Gap When St.Vincent's Closes

St.Vincent's Hospital is looking to close the majority of their inpatient facilities. Because of the closing a large chunk of the west village and evrything below 58th street will be without a full-service hospital. Many workers will also be without a job. In such a bad economy this is a hard hit.