RocketBoom's co-founder Andrew Baron found out last week that his father had
Multiple Myeloma, and likely less than 48 hours to live. Then a miracle occured. A drug that could save his father's life existed. However the drug was not approved by the FDA to be used this way. They sought and quickly got approval from the FDA. But now, the drug's manufacturer Biogen won't approve usage despite pleas to Biogen's president from Lance Burton, President Clinton, and others. Read this
open letter and request for help from Andrew to learn what you can do to save his father's life.
posted by IndigoSkye
on Oct 14, 2008 -
66 comments
The Stakes, 2008. Eight of the
Washington Monthly's contributing editors "consider the looming challenges that America is likely to face—in the economy, education, the courts, and other areas—during an Obama or McCain presidency, and how, based on what we know about the two men, they are likely to handle them."
[more inside]
posted by homunculus
on Oct 14, 2008 -
25 comments
Two years since Massachusetts instituted major statewide
healthcare reform, the
statistics are coming in.
340,000 residents, roughly half the state's previously uninsured, are now insured. The state says that
95% of its population is now covered, based on Department of Revenue estimates. However, a large portion of them are enrolled through state-subsidized insurance programs, and those program's rate of enrollment have far
outpaced estimates. This has led lawmakers to forsee a budget
shortfall. Premiums and co-pays are going
up, cigarette taxes have
increased, and a
cost control proposal is making its way through the legislature. Assessments
have been all over the map.
posted by Weebot
on Jul 2, 2008 -
79 comments
The NHS at 60. The National Health Service is 60 on July 5th. Take a look at documents, audio and video related to the birth and growth of this "radical plan."
posted by fire&wings
on Jun 28, 2008 -
5 comments
The antidote to LOLbushsuxx0rs. Over the course of the past week, Slate ran a ten (10!)-piece series, "Fixin' It", in which various writers postulated how the course of various aspects of the United States' military, culture, and policies could be redirected for the better. Although the articles are not entirely devoid of Bush criticism, there's mostly a fairly rare focus on the positive actions to be taken from here onward by the next President (whether it be McCain or Obama or Clinton).
posted by WCityMike
on Apr 10, 2008 -
33 comments
The state of Oregon is holding a
health insurance lottery where 91,000 hopeful enrollees will be competing for a couple thousand spots under the Oregon Health Plan, the state's Medicaid program. OHP was created to cover those who made too much to enroll in traditional Medicaid but too little to afford market healthcare, and this development comes as a result of budget cuts and a subsequent enrollment closure in July of 2004. It's a far cry from the universal health care coverage that the plan was suppose to lead to, and marks a
dramatic turn for the state's once-ambitious health care reforms.
(Previously in dystopic health care developments)
posted by Weebot
on Mar 30, 2008 -
64 comments
"
AngryJournalist.com, an increasingly popular site that consists of nothing but rants from pissed-off reporters, is now the most accurate summation extant of journalism as an industry," (
via Gawker). It's spawned a marvelously less popular HappyJournalist.com, and what appears to be an unrelated copycat called
AngryResident.com, for "for every doctor-in-training tired of suffering in silence."
posted by nospecialfx
on Mar 9, 2008 -
34 comments
25 y.o. whistle-blower. Last Fall, a 24 y.o. by the name of Justen Deal,
blew the whistle on what he perceived to be profligate waste by his employers. As an IT guy at Kaiser-Permanente, he'd seen a $442 million database project scrapped by the new CEO and replaced by a sweetheart deal for one of the CEO's former contractors. Internal estimates placed Kaiser's losses on this new contract at $1.2 billion dollars
per quarter [more inside]
posted by vhsiv
on Apr 25, 2007 -
74 comments
Sickday. (for my NYC mefites) As I sit here in Chicago with a fresh case of bronchitis and unable to leave the office, I'm wishing I was back in NYC. Apparently they have plans to expand soon...
posted by allkindsoftime
on Mar 5, 2007 -
42 comments
Cancer Cure Patented A group of researchers claim that they are patenting a possible cure for cancer involving nothing more than sugar and short-chain fatty acid combination.
posted by TravisJeffery
on Jan 4, 2007 -
26 comments
Few things are more
sacred to Canadians than the nation's medicare system. After years of health spending cutbacks by conservative politicians,
debate rages over whether private providers should now be
allowed to compete with the public system. In British Columbia, where the government is shovelling tax dollars into the 2010 Olympics, patients are being
left to die in emergency rooms and long-term care facilities due to
overcrowding and
understaffing. Is it too late to save public health care? Should it be saved?
posted by 327.ca
on Apr 27, 2006 -
89 comments
Today, about 17,000 American medical students and almost as many foreign trained doctors learn what types of doctors they will be. Yes, it’s
Match Day. Ok, while most people probably could care less about this post, it presents an intriguing look into the
forces (i.e. how the ratio between specialists and generalists arises and to note: more specialists equals more procedures and costlier health care) that shape American health care today.
And, it represents the strange culmination of years of study (at least 8+ years after high school) that many students take just to leave it up to a
strange algorithm that is under a
anti-trust lawsuit as they wake up one day in March and learn where they will be spending the next (at least) three years of their life. Also, if you see a recent graduate of an
"ADORE+P" residency -- Anesthesiology, Dermatology, Orthopedics/Optho, Radiology, ENT/Emergency Room medicine (plus, of course, Plastic surgery) -- (the professions that work great hours and make the most money) -- congratulate her or him on being the best (statistically) of the crop.
posted by narebuc
on Mar 15, 2006 -
33 comments
Paul Krugman: The best places to get sick A dozen years ago, everyone was talking about an American health care crisis. But then the issue faded from view: A few years of good data led many people to conclude that HMOs and other innovations had ended the historic trend of rising medical costs.
But the pause in the growth of health care costs in the 1990s proved temporary. Medical costs are once again rising rapidly and the U.S. health care system is once again in crisis. So now is a good time to ask why other advanced countries manage to spend so much less than we Americans do, while getting better results.
posted by Postroad
on Apr 17, 2005 -
67 comments
