Obama’s HealthCare Plan- Is It Good For USA? June 16, 2009
Posted by healthandsurvival in health.Tags: healthcare, insurance, medicare, obama, Wellness
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By Nicole Gaouette and Laura Litvan
June 17 (Bloomberg) — The largest expansion of U.S. health care since the creation of Medicare in 1965 may emerge from legislation designed to reshape the medical industry and change how Americans receive and pay for care.
Congress today begins crafting legislation that Democratic leaders plan to push through both chambers by their August recess. The measure may require all Americans to get medical insurance, force insurers to accept all patients and end the tax break for employer-paid health benefits. These changes may be hammered out with unprecedented speed at the urging of President Barack Obama, who four days ago said “this is the moment.”
Obama has made a health-care overhaul his top domestic priority, using his February budget proposal to call it a “moral” imperative to extend coverage to the country’s 46 million uninsured. Obama also tied the long-term fiscal soundness of the U.S. to controlling medical costs. Health care consumes 18 percent of the U.S. economy and may rise to 34 percent by 2040, the White House Council of Economic Advisers reported June 2.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had anything this large in American history aimed to go this quickly that touches everybody’s lives,” said Robert J. Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a telephone interview. “They’re moving at a pace we’ve never seen before.”
‘Moment is Right’
The U.S. will spend more than $2 trillion this year on health care, the Health and Human Services department reported in February. Today, the Senate Health committee will begin debating a bill that includes “gateways” where consumers may compare coverage plans. The Senate Finance Committee later this week will unveil a bill that among its provisions will call for taxes on health benefits, and House committees will release a draft of their own comprehensive measure that would create a government-backed plan to compete with private insurance.
“We know the moment is right for health care reform,” Obama told the American Medical Association in Chicago in a speech June 15. “We know this is a historic opportunity we’ve never seen before and may not see again.”
The coming weeks will be pivotal if the House and Senate are to meet their goal to send Obama a single bill in October, said Drew Altman, president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, one of the nation’s largest private foundations devoted to health…read more here…
ADHD Drugs Increase Risk Of Sudden Death? June 15, 2009
Posted by healthandsurvival in health.Tags: adhd, children, health, medicine, news
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By Shannon Pettypiece
June 15 (Bloomberg) — Drugs to treat attention deficit disorder were linked to an increase in sudden death among children, according to a government-sponsored study.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which funded the research with the National Institutes of Health, said the study had “limitations” and shouldn’t stop patients from taking the treatments. The findings, published today in theAmerican Journal of Psychiatry, showed that more children who died suddenly from heart complications or unknown causes were taking an attention-deficit drug than those who died in car accidents.
Attention-deficit medicines already carry the FDA’s strongest warning in their prescribing information about sudden death and cardiac risks. Doctors should assess patients for heart risks when prescribing stimulant-based drugs, such as Shire Plc’s Adderall and Novartis AG’s Ritalin, the agency said.
“The FDA believes that this study should not serve as a basis for parents to stop a child’s stimulant medication,” the agency said today in a Web site posting. “Parents should discuss concerns about the use of these medicines with the prescribing health-care professional.”
The agency said it will release a more definitive study on the potential risk later this year.
The research found that of 564 healthy children who died suddenly, 10 were taking stimulant medications at the time of death, the FDA said. That compares to two stimulant users among 564 children who died in traffic accidents.
The low use of stimulants in both groups may have affected the results, as well as inaccuracies in recording drug use by the children, the FDA said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Shannon Pettypiece in New York atspettypiece@bloomberg.net.
Wein ViraMask by Inventor Stan Weinberg June 15, 2009
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Here is a great video by Inventor of the Wein ViraMask, Stan Weinberg. This is the only self adhesive mask (N99 protection) on the market. Great to add to your home survival kit. Be prepared for the swine flu return which is expected by many scientists to return this fall. To purchase, visit www.eHealthSupplies.com or visit the manufacturer at www.WeinProducts.com
Do Not Take Aspirin to Prevent Heart Attack? June 11, 2009
Posted by healthandsurvival in health.Tags: aspirin, heart, heart attacks, medicine, news
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June 3, 2009 (Oxford, UK) — The authors of a new meta-analysis of aspirin use in primary prevention say their results “do not seem to justify general guidelines advocating the routine use of aspirin in all healthy individuals above a moderate level of risk for coronary heart disease. [1]“
The meta-analysis, published in the May 30, 2009 issue of theLancet, was conducted by the Antithrombotic Trialists’ (ATT) Collaboration, led by Dr Colin Baigent (Clinical Trial Service Unit, Oxford University, UK).
Baigent commented to heartwire : “The present data that we have reported here have not been previously available. The current guidelines are based on previous meta-analyses, which have limitations. We have shown for the first time that the very same people at higher risk of heart disease are also at higher bleeding risk with aspirin, which is a very important piece of information and should influence the way in which aspirin is used.”
He added: “Medicine has moved on in recent years, and we now know that we can safely reduce risk of heart disease by lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, and the drugs used to lower these risk factors are probably safer than aspirin. A person wanting to lower their risk might well consider taking a statin or an antihypertensive first and only after that add in a less safe drug like aspirin.”…read more here…
Swine Flu Pandemic Declared.. June 11, 2009
Posted by healthandsurvival in Infectious Disease.Tags: flu, health, infection, news, pandemic, swine, Wellness
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The 1918 Flu killed between 20-100 million people worldwide. Interestingly, it was a swine flu. The first people were affected in the spring. The virus was latent during the summer and returned with a vengeance in the fall. Are you and your family prepared for a fall flu epidemic? I am almost certain that it WILL return. I would recommend that all families who are interested in protecting themselves invest a small amount of money ($30) in purchasing the Wein ViraMask- The only N99 protection self adhesive mask available.
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WHO: Swine flu pandemic has begun, 1st in 41 years By MARIA CHENG and FRANK JORDANS – 6 hours ago GENEVA (AP) — Swine flu is now formally a pandemic, a declaration by U.N. health officials that will speed vaccine production and spur government spending to combat the first global flu epidemic in 41 years. Thursday’s announcement by the World Health Organization doesn’t mean the virus is any more lethal — only that its spread is considered unstoppable. Since it was first detected in late April in Mexico and the United States, swine flu has reached 74 countries, infecting nearly 29,000 people. Most who catch the bug have only mild symptoms and don’t need medical treatment. WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan made the long-awaited declaration after the U.N. agency held an emergency meeting with flu experts and said she was moving to phase 6 — the agency’s highest alert level — which means a pandemic is under way. “The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century,” Chan said in Geneva. Dr. Thomas Frieden, the new head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Atlanta that he does not expect widespread public anxiety in the United States as a result of the declaration, noting it came nearly two months after the virus was identified. For many weeks, U.S. health officials have been treating it as a pandemic, increasing the availability of anti-viral flu medicines and pouring money into a possible vaccination program. And scientists have grown to understand that the virus is generally not much more severe than the seasonal flu….read more here…
