what we don't know is A LOT

Why do we need to care about Palin's palms???

2010-02-09T10:13:00.002-05:00

I am sad and angry about the state of discourse in this country. Sarah Palin, a woman clearly unqualified for any political office, continues to appear on the national stage leading to discussions like these:

I adore Stephanie Miller and listen to her show every day. I also love Ron Reagan and am sad that with the bankruptcy of Air America he is no longer on the air. But what makes me so angry is that while there are real concerns with some policies of the Obama administration and legislature in Congress, we spend our time discussing whether or not Sarah Palin wrote notes on her hand before an interview or that Obama "doesn't go to the bathroom without a teleprompter." How is this of any importance? What difference does it make? It's not news, it's entertainment. And I am entertained but not informed by this. Grumble...

Top 6 Superbowl Ads of 2010

2010-02-08T11:45:00.003-05:00

I do not watch the Superbowl, not even for the ads. But I did look through this year's best and worst, and here are my picks for best commercials:

#6 - Cars.com

#5 - Motorola ft. Meagan Fox

#4 - Bridgestone ft. Killer Whale

#3 - Dove

#2 - Audi ft. Green Police

And the top spot goes to the coolest, sweetest and most well timed/executed commercial - Google. Enjoy!

New Cat

2010-01-27T12:21:00.005-05:00

On November 9th we lost our cat, Sophie. We are not sure what got her, but it appears to have been an animal (or large bird) of some sort. Then I had my detour into the Land of Frayed Nerves so a new cat seemed out of the question. But the house felt empty somehow and so we have acquired a new ~~terror~~ cat. As yet nameless, this ~~homicidal~~ ~~jungle~~ ~~cat~~ ball of fur spent her entire life (8 months) in the shelter. We were told she was mean to people, didn't like to be held, but was alright around other cats. Nothing could be further from the truth. No-name cat, or Good Grief as Husband likes to call her, is just a bundle of love. If you don't pick her up every so often, she will try to climb up your leg to be held. She is fascinated by water and will join you in the shower (or on the toilet, or when you wash dishes, or when you brush your teeth, or water your plants...), is scared of noises (such as the heater, the dishwasher, the washing machine, the dryer, the vacuum, the creaking chair, you breathing...) and does not appreciate other cats at all. She has the weirdest coloration (dilute long haired calico). Here are some pictures to get you acquainted. Some names being considered at the moment: Dharma and Dasha.

Feed the Fish Widget

2010-01-27T12:13:00.002-05:00

I have added a little "feed the fish" widget to my blog but since I don't publish to blogger but an ftp (whatever that means) layouts and widgets and everything fun is extremely limited and complicated. Thus I don't know how to add the instructions that you should just click anywhere within the widget and you leave blue particles of food, which the fish will gobble up. It's cute (I think) and a total waste of time. Enjoy!!!

On a similar note - I may be moving this blog to blogger so I can have a run at the cooler templates and layouts and if I am really ambitious, I will create my own and even my own website. But I've been saying that for some time and nothing happens... I'll keep you posted.

Egg Holders

2010-01-27T11:57:00.003-05:00

When we lived in Russia, we used to have egg holders that included a saucer in their design, excellent for discarding egg shells and resting the spoon. When we moved to the States my mom decided not bring them, figuring that such an obvious thing would be easily purchased here. Ha! More than 10 years later she still hadn't found such a design, and so for Xmas I decided to get her some. After much searching I found several sites, most of them in the UK (and some antique shops) that sold these egg holders, but they were going for about $20 a piece. Then I found an outlet that sold plain white ones for just $2 each. Suspicious, I ordered 6 of them. What arrived was bisque, which is clay fired once (so it is solid and will not crumble) but not glazed (so it is porous and can't be used for anything much. I am very familiar with bisque because I used to work at a 'paint your own pottery' studio all through high school and college, but sadly, the nearest such place was quiet far. Still, I could disappoint my mom! So over Xmas vacation, Husband and I headed to this studio and painted mom's egg holders. Here they are before and after baking:

I should mention that it took a ridiculously long time for the studio to get it's act together and ship these guys, so mom just got them yesterday. She seems to like them.

PS: there is one mistake in color coordination here, an you located it?
PPS: the colors on the underside of each dish match the color in the egg whole. It's all very symmetric.

Lab Humor

2010-01-27T11:31:00.002-05:00

I got a hold of a camera today so it will be a day of many posts to make up for my recent hiatus. As some of you may remember I work in a lab as a technician. Basically I do data collection and minds more educated than me do the analysis. We are in essence a molecular evolution (systematics, phylogenetics and population genetics of bacteria) lab. It is great fun and I love it. This semester I got off my lazy tuchas and am taking a course that will hopefully expand my understanding of data analysis performed in my lab, which in turn may lead to me being more involved in some of it. In the meantime, there other things to keep me entertained:

I constructed this little guy on a whim and left him in our lab just before Xmas. The next day he was gone but reappeared in another part of the building. For weeks he continued to mysteriously travel around the complex we are in, until I finally returned him to our lab.

I can't take credit for this one, but it cracks me up every time I walk by:

76% of readers will agree with this comic

2010-01-23T13:19:00.003-05:00

Donating to Haiti Relief Efforts

2010-01-13T21:11:00.002-05:00

CNN has a really nice donation page in response to the earthquake in Haiti. You can find it here. From experience, I know that Doctors without Borders takes location specific donations (at least in theory). This page breaks charities down by the type of help they offer.

Natural Parenting

2010-01-08T10:46:00.003-05:00

My most favorite xkcd strip ever:

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T11:46:00.003-05:00

2009 is ending on a very low note. May 2010 let me rise again. To all of you - a Happy New Year!. This will be the year of the Tiger. I am told the Tiger will protect us against fires, thieves and ghosts. Cheers to that.

Epic Fail

2009-12-17T17:14:00.002-05:00

Things haven't been going very well for me the last few months. As you may recall I tapered off anti-depressants which I was taking for a panic anxiety disorder (with specific phobia). As of September 1st I was drug free and thought I was handling it pretty well. Unfortunately from October on I began experiencing some new (and some old) symptoms, and by Thanksgiving break was pretty much reduced to a sad little whimpering mess. It was pretty tough going for a while there as I had a really hard time eating and even sleeping. I lost a bunch of weight, was having panic attacks approximately 15 hours out of every day. Not good! So to my great chagrin and after much soul searching I went back on the meds.

It has been three weeks now since I started taking them again. It is supposed to take about a month for them to kick in properly. I have noticed a slight reduction in the number of panic attacks (only about 3-4 per day). The rest of the time I just have anxiety, which is basically panic lite. Among my new problems are intrusive repetitive thoughts. It may help to think of them as a sort of OCD. These have been very unfortunate as I have not had much experience with OCD before and was not prepared for it. Unfortunately the thoughts have not decreased in intensity or quantity (they are with me almost all the time), which I find very disheartening. Panic attacks, though unpleasant, have been my companions for a decade now, and though I may not like them, I know how to deal with them. This business of not having your head to yourself is far more distressing, in my opinion.

I have not given up hope yet. This week I have had two fairly good days (though not in a row), which makes me hope for more better days to come. I am going to continue with the meds and I am seeing a therapist twice a week, which helps a little bit. I have not felt up to much blogging lately, but I thought I would post this update.

Among many things I have not had a chance to blog about since this setback began, was the passing of our sweet kitty Sophie. She did not come home one day and after much searching we finally located her collar (torn and missing pieces) and many clumps of her fur. We believe that something attacked her, though we are not sure what could have done it. It has been over a month since she's disappeared and we still miss her. Rest in peace sweet kitty.

Jon Stewart worries about Glenn Beck's organs

2009-11-09T12:37:00.002-05:00

I know it's been nothing but videos lately, but this is so funny I cried. You have to have watched Glenn Beck recently (last year) to really appreciate it.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

The 11/3 Project

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

I LOVE flashmobs!!!!!

2009-11-09T10:15:00.005-05:00

They have got to be some of the funniest, most awesome cultural phenomena of our time. I especially like the dancing ones (as opposed to the freezing ones).

Here are some of my favorites:

The "T-mobile dance" flash mob in Liverpool Street Station January 15th, 2009.

CocaCola Flash mob

Hammer Time!!

And "Do Re Mi" in Antwerp. Cute kids!

Jim Ward's "Skit"

2009-11-02T16:04:00.003-05:00

Jim Ward, the Voice Deity from the Stephanie Miller show, a hilarious political comedy show I listen to every single day, made a little "skit" featuring some of his regular characters. Here it is.

You can visit Stephanie Miller's site here and Jim Ward's fan page here.

Keep Fucking that Chicken

2009-10-31T12:51:00.002-04:00

This is a little old now but warms my heart.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Intro - Ernie Anastos' Catch Phrase

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Simon's Cat "Let me In"

2009-10-29T16:13:00.002-04:00

My favorite part of all time at 1:20. So true!!!

Neurofeedback

2009-10-21T14:04:00.003-04:00

I've been off antidepressants for two months now, and off my initial dose for 7 months. I have also been under some stress lately with stupid health issues (an endless cold, weird back pain, etc etc) and a visit from my (very lovely) grandpa. So maybe it is no wonder that I am starting to question if some of the original symptoms are coming back. I've had a great many more panic attacks recently than I can remember having in the previous year, and my response to the smallest stresses (grandpa's visit, sister's wedding, hanging artwork for a show) is to freak out. Even things as simple as having to make dinner or feeling really tired make me anxious. Husband says I don't seem any different, so hopefully this is a case of me making an elephant out of a mouse. Nevertheless, I have decided to try out the neurofeedback suggested to me by an acupuncturist.

I tried to understand this proceedure best I could. I watched the (extremely cheesy) video that the acupuncturist gave me. I also read the book "Symphony in the Brain" by Jim Robbins, a journal who writes on popular science issues, and who is a great fan of the treatment. The book was sensationalist and only mildly informative. It conveyed a sense of a budding scientific discovery gone to waste by the drama and discord among the practitioners.

Here is what I have gathered about this procedure. Our brain's activity produces electrical activity of different frequencies. These can be measured with an EEG and are grouped into types (delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma), each associated with a several normal (and abnormal) functions. For example, delta frequencies are measured during certain parts of our sleep, alpha when we are relaxed, beta when we anxious. These are generalities of course. So two things are the basis of neurofeedback:

1) Pathologies (depression, ADD, epilepsy, coma, etc) show a deviation of EEG activity from the norm.
2) Brains can be trained to alter their EEG activity.

Both of these statements are technically true. The leap that has not been tested too well in a scientific setting is that training your brain (such as with neurofeedback) can cure the pathology. There are certainly many clinical studies that show this to be the case (from neurofeedback professionals), but even these professionals don't seem to agree on the best protocols. Each practitioner seems to follow their own methodology, deciding which EEG activity to stimulate or suppress, and they don't all agree.

The woman I'll be seeing is following the methods of Siegfried and Susan Othmer (of EEG Info, previous owners of EEG Spectrum, now a completely separate neurofeedback group). I believe they work by messing around with alpha waves, but maybe that is too simplistic. I hope to get a better understand of what she'll be doing during my first appointment with her (on Monday) and by reading a textbook I have ordered that teaches neurofeedback to practitioners. Hopefully they won't mess up my brain too much!

SNL skit

2009-10-07T21:31:00.001-04:00

Tee hee hee!

John Perry and the "Obama Problem"

2009-10-02T12:32:00.002-04:00

Some douchebag former senior editor of Newsmax named John Perry wrote this darling column the other day (which has now been taken down due to it being INSANE). You can still view it here. In it he suggests that the military will surely want to stage a "bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation." "Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders," he goes on to say, "would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making." omg, wtf....

There has been a rash of this kind of talk lately. There was the facebook poll on whether the president ought to be assassinated. There is Glenn Beck in his schizophrenic entirety. There is the census worker who got killed for being a "Fed". The gun-carrying protesters outside townhalls. There is violence and so much hatred, it is frankly scary. I'll be the first to admit that I couldn't stand George Bush. I wanted him impeached, out of office. I wanted him held legally accountable for his behavior, which included illegal wiretapping of American citizens, lying and using known forged information to start a war in Iraq, and the torturing of detainees. These things, I suggest to you, are in fact unconstitutional. Giving everyone in this country health care is not.

In fact, the constitution, which I have read today in it's entirety, does mention several times the duty of the Congress and of the President to "promote the general welfare", "welfare" being defined as "health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being". That sounds like it includes healthcare to me!

It's not like there aren't legitimate issues to discuss when it comes to health care reform. How will we pay for it, is one good topic. How do we make sure that hospitals and doctors get compensated well (more then they do now from medicare, for example)? Why on earth aren't we figuring out a universal single payer system, is a favorite of mine. But "Obama is a Kenyan socialist, marxist, fascist who wants to kill grandma and is a Muslim" IS NEITHER LEGITIMATE NOR SANE!!!!! While I am on the subject can we just agree that "communist" and "Nazi" CANNOT be used interchangeably? Retards...

Quitting SSRIs safely and patiently

2009-09-29T23:19:00.003-04:00

After taking citalopram (Celexa) for just over six years I have finally succeeded in quitting. I'd tried before, even managing to get down from 40mg to 20mg before I accidentally missed a single dose and spent a week going out of my mind. After bumping it up to 30mg I seemed to regain my sanity but a visit with the doctor left me saddened - she told me I would probably never be able to get off the meds.

This past winter I read the book, "Biology of Belief" by Bruce Lipton. It was interesting and inspiring, even if the science is dubious at best. It talked of mind over matter, our ability to heal ourselves, and it made me think of trying to quit the drugs again. Remembering my past experiences I did some research, and found out that one resource among others seemed to help a lot of people - a book by Joseph Glenmullen, "The Antidepressant Solution".

The message of the book boiled down to one thing: the doctors don't know the safe way of going off SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). I had been following my doctors advice of taking a full dose one day, then a half dose the next, then a full dose again. After a week I was supposed to switch to doing just the half dose. Repeat. What I did this time (for reason well illustrated in the book), was to lower my dose by the smallest fraction possible, which in my case was 5mg, and try to stay on that dose for at least a month. This gives your brain time to adjust and kick in it's own serotonin production. After a month I would lower the dose again by 5mg and so forth. I was also supplementing with an excellent B vitamin complex, which provides choline and lecithin, needed for acetocholine production (that is advice not from the book but this site.)

It took me 5 months, six if you count the number of withdrawal periods. It wasn't pleasant, but it was far less painful than my previous attempts. Among physical symptoms I had dizziness, which would usually come on three days after I lowered the dose, and last a few days. Psychologically, I had some pretty bizarre obsessive thoughts. I didn't recognize them as symptoms until I saw a pattern emerge. I still had the occasional panic or anxiety attack, but no more so then when I was on the drugs.

So now I have been drug free for two months. I am still on the look out for signs that I am slipping back into the anxiety state I was in pre-meds, but so far so good. I should mention that I do not regret the decision to start the medicine in the first place. It was at a time in my life when they were the help I needed to become a person again (perhaps more on that another day?) Still, it feels great to know that I am not a dependent, that if I accidentally miss taking that one little pill I will not have to spend the next few days suffering crazy withdrawal symptoms.

I shall now allow myself a "Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiippeeeeeeeeeeeee!" :)

First Time Acupuncture

2009-09-04T09:56:00.003-04:00

Husband has seasonal allergies and doesn't like taking meds, so I thought he should try acupuncture. I got him an appointment and then he decided not to go. So I figured, what the heck, I'll go in his place.

This was my first time getting acupuncture. I wasn't sure what my "major complaint" was, but since I have been freaking out emotionally lately I decided to go with the panic and anxiety and my phobia. First the woman did a variation of the emotional freedom technique (their site), which I have already done in the past. It involves tapping on various points while thinking about what's bothering you. She added to that a kinesiology step to check which points were effective. I felt that the whole thing was rushed, I didn't have time to really focus on what was bothering me, so I am not sure how effective it could be. An interesting thing that came out of it though, was that she felt that I responded well to a 'kidney' point just below the clavicle. Apparently in Chinese medicine, fear is associated with the kidneys. So I told her that I'd had unusual kidney quirks since I was a kid, and that besides, I have three kidneys instead of two. Could there be a connection?

Next she had me lie down and she pushed on various parts of my large intestine, small intestine, bladder and each kidney. Some places hurt, other didn't. The ones that hurt, she would push again while simultaneously pressing on some points on my feet and elbows, and the weird thing is, the pain would go away immediately. That was probably the coolest.

Finally it was time for actual needles. She put some in my feet for the kidneys, one in my forehead for the spirit, and two in my right ear. She also put one in my hand but it hurt, and though I didn't mind the pain, she didn't want me to keep it in. The one in my forehead burned quite a bit, but that was about it. There was no pain when they went in, not even mosquito bite type of pain. I was then left to lie on the table for about 15 minutes, and that was it. Afterward I was seriously spaced out for about an hour. I wondered around downtown because I didn't feel it was safe to drive, and talked to my mother on the phone in strenuously strung together sentences.

In the evening I had a bad headache, and this morning I did not start my day with a panic attack, the first in a week. So that is good.

In the end, my acupuncturist said that for my problems I should really try neurofeedback (explanation here). It is expensive though, probably about $1500 total. I got a book about it, called "The Symphony in the Brain", which I'll check out. I'll keep you posted.

Laser Bread

2009-09-03T13:15:00.002-04:00

This guy makes something new every day. Not all are nice, but here are some creative ones I liked.

Internal Dialog

2009-09-02T11:28:00.002-04:00

Returning to actual blog posts now (apologies for all the articles lately). I am thinking, once again, of going back to school and getting a PhD. My family insists that it is important to have a PhD, and if I am going to do it, now would be the time since I have no children and my brain is still young enough to retain some new information. Problem is, I have no idea what to study. Here is my line of thinking (or circle more like it, cause it never actually goes anywhere):

Should I go back to grad school? It's now or never really. Should I study art or science? Art is nice but I am not that talented, am emotionally unstable, and would miss science too much. Ok science it is. Should I study what I like to do and am good at, such as molecular biology or perhaps evolutionary bio? It will involve bench work, which I like, and I already have a degree and 5 years working experience to help me along. But it's not what I care about right now! What do you care about? I care about issues of sustainable agriculture, food quality (not quantity, mind you!) and maintaining health in the age of overcrowding, pollution and climate change! But you know nothing about any of this... It doesn't sound like it involves any bench work, and you will probably have to do a lot of 'communicating' and 'leadership' and you know how you tend to freak out about extroverted things! And besides, who is to say that you'll keep caring about this. There was a time when you cared about genetics. But bench work will get old soon too. Can I even handle grad school? It sounds stressful and I am prone to panic attacks. But you can't let fear stop you from doing what you want to do! But I don't know what I want to do! Do you want to go to grad school? It's probably now or never...

The problem is, if I don't do something it will all soon turn from "what could be" to "what could have been" and I'll be sitting in my little home whispering "my precioussss...."

Another decent article about health care reform myths

2009-09-01T16:37:00.002-04:00

The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate

By Sharon Begley | NEWSWEEK

Published Aug 29, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Sep 7, 2009

To the credit of opponents of health-care reform, the lies and exaggerations they're spreading are not made up out of whole cloth—which makes the misinformation that much more credible. Instead, because opponents demand that everyone within earshot (or e-mail range) look, say, "at page 425 of the House bill!," the lies take on a patina of credibility. Take the claim in one chain e-mail that the government will have electronic access to everyone's bank account, implying that the Feds will rob you blind. The 1,017-page bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee does call for electronic fund transfers—but from insurers to doctors and other providers. There is zero provision to include patients in any such system. Five other myths that won't die:

You'll have no choice in what health benefits you receive.
The myth that a "health choices commissioner" will decide what benefits you get seems to have originated in a July 19 post at blog.flecksoflife.com, whose homepage features an image of Obama looking like Heath Ledger's Joker. In fact, the House bill sets up a health-care exchange—essentially a list of private insurers and one government plan—where people who do not have health insurance through their employer or some other source (including small businesses) can shop for a plan, much as seniors shop for a drug plan under Medicare part D. The government will indeed require that participating plans not refuse people with preexisting conditions and offer at least minimum coverage, just as it does now with employer-provided insurance plans and part D. The requirements will be floors, not ceilings, however, in that the feds will have no say in how generous private insurance can be.

No chemo for older Medicare patients.
The threat that Medicare will give cancer patients over 70 only end-of-life counseling and not chemotherapy—as a nurse at a hospital told a roomful of chemo patients, including the uncle of a NEWSWEEK reporter—has zero basis in fact. It's just a vicious form of the rationing scare. The House bill does not use the word "ration." Nor does it call for cost-effectiveness research, much less implementation—the idea that "it isn't cost-effective to give a 90-year-old a hip replacement."

The general claim that care will be rationed under health-care reform is less a lie and more of a non-disprovable projection (as is Howard Dean's assertion that health-care reform will not lead to rationing, ever). What we can say is that there is de facto rationing under the current system, by both Medicare and private insurance. No plan covers everything, but coverage decisions "are now made in opaque ways by insurance companies," says Dr. Donald Berwick of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

A related myth is that health-care reform will be financed through $500 billion in Medicare cuts. This refers to proposed decreases in Medicare increases. That is, spending is on track to reach $803 billion in 2019 from today's $422 billion, and that would be dialed back. Even the $560 billion in reductions (which would be spread over 10 years and come from reducing payments to private Medicare advantage plans, reducing annual increases in payments to hospitals and other providers, and improving care so seniors are not readmitted to a hospital) is misleading: the House bill also gives Medicare $340 billion more over a decade. The money would pay docs more for office visits, eliminate copays and deductibles for preventive care, and help close the "doughnut hole" in the Medicare drug benefit, explains Medicare expert Tricia Neuman of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Illegal immigrants will get free health insurance.
The House bill doesn't give anyone free health care (though under a 1986 law illegals who can't pay do get free emergency care now, courtesy of all us premium paying customers or of hospitals that have to eat the cost). Will they be eligible for subsidies to buy health insurance? The House bill says that "individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States" will not be allowed to receive subsidies.

The claim that taxpayers will wind up subsidizing health insurance for illegal immigrants has its origins in the defeat of an amendment, offered in July by Republican Rep. Dean Heller of Nevada, to require those enrolling in a public plan or seeking subsidies to purchase private insurance to have their citizenship verified. Flecksoflife.com claimed on July 19 that "HC [health care] will be provided 2 all non US citizens, illegal or otherwise." Rep. Steve King of Iowa spread the claim in a USA Today op-ed on Aug. 20, calling the explicit prohibition on such coverage "functionally meaningless" absent mandatory citizenship checks, and it's now gone viral. Can we say that none of the estimated 11.9 million illegal immigrants will ever wangle insurance subsidies through identity fraud, pretending to be a citizen? You can't prove a negative, but experts say that Medicare—the closest thing to the proposals in the House bill—has no such problem.

Death panels will decide who lives.
On July 16 Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York and darling of the right, said on Fred Thompson's radio show that "on page 425," "Congress would make it mandatory…that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition." Sarah Palin coined "death panels" in an Aug. 7 Facebook post.

This lie springs from a provision in the House bill to have Medicare cover optional counseling on end-of-life care for any senior who requests it. This means that any patient, terminally ill or not, can request a special consultation with his or her physician about ventilators, feeding tubes, and other measures. Thus the House bill expands Medicare coverage, but without forcing anyone into end-of-life counseling.

The death-panels claim nevertheless got a new lease on life when Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives under George W. Bush, claimed in an Aug. 18 Wall Street Journal op-ed that a 1997 workbook from the Department of Veterans Affairs pushes vets to "hurry up and die." In fact, the thrust of the 51-page book, which the VA pulled from circulation in 2007, is letting "loved ones" and "health care providers" "know your wishes." Readers are asked to decide what they believe, including that "life is sacred and has meaning, no matter what its quality," and that "my life should be prolonged as long as it can...using any means possible." But the workbook also asks if readers "believe there are some situations in which I would not want treatments to keep me alive." Opponents of health-care reform have selectively cited this passage as evidence the government wants to kill the old and the sick.

The government will set doctors' wages.
This, too, seems to have originated on the Flecksoflife blog on July 19. But while page 127 of the House bill says that physicians who choose to accept patients in the public insurance plan would receive 5 percent more than Medicare pays for a given service, doctors can refuse to accept such patients, and, even if they participate in a public plan, they are not salaried employees of it any more than your doctor today is an employee of, say, Aetna. "Nobody is saying we want the doctors working for the government; that's completely false," says Amitabh Chandra, professor of public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

To be sure, there are also honest and principled objections to health-care reform. Some oppose a requirement that everyone have health insurance as an erosion of individual liberty. That's a debatable position, but an honest one. And many are simply scared out of their wits about what health-care reform will mean for them. But when fear and loathing hijack the brain, anything becomes believable—even that health-care reform is unconstitutional. To disprove that, check the commerce clause: Article I, Section 8.

With Katie Connolly, Claudia Kalb, and Ian Yarett

Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/214254

Myths about Healthcare

2009-08-28T15:26:00.002-04:00

Oh my. I have been working on this annoyingly long post about healthcare reform myths and then I came across this article which is so good and says everything I wanted to say. So there is really no point in my post anymore. So here is the article in its entirety. You can also find it here.

5 Myths About Health Care Around the World

By T.R. Reid
Sunday, August 23, 2009

As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.

I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.

In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.

2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.

Generally, no. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans -- a broader choice than any American has. If a German doesn't like her insurance company, she can switch to another, with no increase in premium. The Swiss, too, can choose any insurance plan in the country.

In France and Japan, you don't get a choice of insurance provider; you have to use the one designated for your company or your industry. But patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, any traditional healer. There are no U.S.-style limits such as "in-network" lists of doctors or "pre-authorization" for surgery. You pick any doctor, you get treatment -- and insurance has to pay.

Canadians have their choice of providers. In Austria and Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.

As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.

In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. One Thursday morning in Tokyo, I called the prestigious orthopedic clinic at Keio University Hospital to schedule a consultation about my aching shoulder. "Why don't you just drop by?" the receptionist said. That same afternoon, I was in the surgeon's office. Dr. Nakamichi recommended an operation. "When could we do it?" I asked. The doctor checked his computer and said, "Tomorrow would be pretty difficult. Perhaps some day next week?"

3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.

Much less so than here. It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise -- private-sector, for-profit health insurance -- is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours.

U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.

The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.

4. Cost controls stifle innovation.

False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.

Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)

5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

Not really. American health insurance companies routinely reject applicants with a "preexisting condition" -- precisely the people most likely to need the insurers' service. They employ armies of adjusters to deny claims. If a customer is hit by a truck and faces big medical bills, the insurer's "rescission department" digs through the records looking for grounds to cancel the policy, often while the victim is still in the hospital. The companies say they have to do this stuff to survive in a tough business.

Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.

The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.

This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.

Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.

Given our remarkable medical assets -- the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research -- the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health-care administration from the other industrialized democracies.

T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post reporter, is the author of "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care," to be published Monday.