Twenty Percent Of Americans Had Mental Illness In Last Year
A shocking statistic, made worse when you learn that 60% of the mentally ill did not receive any treatment. From MedPage Today:
About 20% of American adults reported having had a mental illness during the preceding year, a government survey found.
The figure rose to almost 30% of those in the 18 to 25 age group, compared with 14.3% of patients 50 and older, according to researchers from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
And of the nearly 46 million U.S. adults who reported having had a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder when surveyed in 2010, some 60% didn’t receive any treatment for the condition.
The most common reason for not getting mental healthcare was not being able to afford it.
The researchers noted that although the 20% figure is “relatively high,” just 5% reported having serious issues that interfered with their normal activities.
Although more of those with serious mental illness reported…
Ron Paul’s Campaign Mastermind Died Of Pneumonia, Penniless And Uninsured
In an arresting moment at Monday’s Republican presidential debate, Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul about the hypothetical case of an uninsured young man who needs medical care, and whether “society should just let him die.” The debate audience cheered in approval, and Paul more or less agreed.
Gawker writes that the question wasn’t so hypothetical. Kent Snyder is credited with convincing Paul to run for president, and served brilliantly as his campaign manager, raising an astonishing $19.5 million. In 2008, just two weeks after the campaign ended, Snyder died at age 49 from pneumonia. He did not receive insurance through Paul, and was unable to afford it on his own due to a preexisting medical condition. His death left his mother with $400,000 in medical bills. (She is now in debt.) Say what you will, but he exemplified the free-market libertarian principles that he worked for while healthy:
After Snyder’s death, Paul posted a…
Stop Atos From Censoring the Web!
Call for solidarity from the UK! Poverty pimps and well known corporate slime Atos Origin have taken their harassment of disabled people one step further by using flaky legal threats to censor and close down websites in the UK which have been critical of them. At least three websites have now been hit by legal threats attempting to censor online criticism of the company.
The Carer Watch forum, which is an online meeting place for hundreds of disabled people and carers has been taken offline by the hosting company after legal threats made by Atos Origin regarding unspecified comments made on the forum. Atos Origin’s involvement in the condemn Government’s notorious health and disability testing has made them a target of fury amongst many disabled people, which has led to a fierce campaigning against them both on and offline. Atos are fighting back with the CarerWatch forum being only the latest website hit…
An Epitaph for the American Dream
Photo: Reckon (CC)
Via Modern Mythology:
(Update: Since writing this entry, I recently discovered a Mother Jones article informing me that the Republican/Tea Party Governor of Florida, Rick Scott, founded a company called SOLANTIC that specializes in drug testing, among other “public services” … Could it be that this legislation stands to benefit the people who are passing it financially? Hrmm … Jigsaw falling into place.)
Recently, as many of you may have heard, Florida senators successfully passed a bill requiring welfare recipients to receive mandatory drug screenings. It is doubtful the legislation will stop there. In what seems to me to be an instance of VERY OBVIOUSLY blatant racial discrimination and discrimination of the haves towards the have-nots, they are now finding another way to invade all of our lives and rob us of more of our privacy. One gradual erosion of civil liberties at a time. The cruel and hilarious irony of the situation…
Appeals Court Deems Obama Healthcare Mandate Unconstitutional
Note to Obama: Don’t take ideas from plutarchist Massachusetts governors (I do not expect him to take my advice…) Reuters reports:
An appeals court ruled Friday that President Barack Obama’s healthcare law requiring Americans to buy healthcare insurance or face a penalty was unconstitutional, a blow to the White House.
The Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, found that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to buy coverage, but also ruled that the rest of the wide-ranging law could remain in effect.
The legality of the so-called individual mandate, a cornerstone of the 2010 healthcare law, is widely expected to be decided by the Supreme Court. The Obama administration has defended the provision as constitutional.
The case stems from a challenge by 26 U.S. states which had argued the individual mandate, set to go into effect in 2014, was unconstitutional because Congress could not force Americans to buy health insurance or…
U.S. Approves Free Birth Control For Women
Photo: Ceridwen (CC)
It’s a good time to be a woman. Via Reuters:
U.S. health insurance companies must offer women free birth control and other preventive health care services under Obama administration rules released on Monday, a historic decision supported by family planning groups and opposed by conservative groups.
The rules from the Health and Human Services Department are part of the nation’s healthcare overhaul and largely follow recommendations from an advisory group released last month.
The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, commissioned by the Obama administration, recommended that all U.S.-approved birth control methods — including the “morning-after pill,” taken shortly after intercourse to stop a pregnancy — be added to the list of preventive health services.
[Continues at Reuters]
Federal Government Rules Marijuana Has No Medical Purpose
Our government will continue to structure policy on the basis that marijuana is the same as heroin — because it’s science. Via the Los Angeles Times:
In a decision announced Friday the federal government ruled that [marijuana] has no accepted medical use and should remain classified as a dangerous drug like heroin.
The decision comes almost nine years after medical marijuana supporters asked the government to reclassify cannabis to take into account a growing body of worldwide research that shows its effectiveness in treating certain diseases, such as glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.
DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart sent a letter dated June 21 to the organizations that filed a petition for the change. Leonhart said she rejected the request because marijuana “has a high potential for abuse,” “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” and “lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision.”
This is the third time that…
Man Robs Bank Of $1 To Get Health Care In Jail
This is so sad. Amazingly, many people’s reaction to the story is outrage…that our prisoners receive medical treatment. ABC News reports:
A 59-year-old man has been jailed in Gastonia, N.C., on charges of larceny after allegedly robbing an RBC Bank for $1 so he could get health care in prison. Richard James Verone handed a female teller a note demanding the money and claiming that he had a gun, according to the police report.
He then sat down and waited for police to arrive. “… I say, ‘I’ll be sitting right over here, on the chair, waiting for the police,’” Verone told reporters, recalling the June 9 robbery in an interview from Gaston County Jail.
Verone said he asked for $1 to show that his motives were medical, not monetary, according to news reports. With a growth in his chest, two ruptured disks and no job, Verone hoped a three-year stint in prison would afford…
Blackwater Sued For Allegedly Failing To Pay Benefits
Reports Agence France-Presse via the Raw Story:
WASHINGTON — Four former employees of Blackwater, the scandal-plagued security firm now called Xe, have filed a $60 million class action lawsuit claiming the firm failed to pay health and pension benefits to its employees.
Their lawyer, Scott Bloch, said Wednesday that Xe improperly classified thousands of its employees as independent contractors, allowing the company to avoid “millions of dollars in taxes, withholding and payments of benefits.”
“Blackwater made hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers and hired thousands of former veterans of military service and police officers,” said Bloch in a statement.
“It is a grave injustice to them who were mistreated and left without any health insurance or other benefits for their families, and left to fend for themselves in paying into Social Security and Medicare,” he said.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in Washington, and hopes to recover Social Security, unemployment insurance, health…
Big Pharma Has No Idea What the Hell Their Drug Will Do to You
Kyle Wagner writes on Gizmodo:
Everyone’s cracked wise about cheerful voices in commercials telling us that an erectile dysfunction drug might make you blind, but have you ever read the full list of side effects? Prescription medication labels average an insane 70 possible side effects, according to a new study.
The study examined 5,600 medications, and found the worst offenders to be antidepressants, antiviral medications, and restless leg syndrome medications treatments. One especially ridiculous drug listed 525. The exhaustive lists fly in the face of FDA guidelines asking drug companies to keep the lists manageable. Obviously, 525 is a preposterous number of side effects to list on a label, but isn’t it just as concerning that we’re prescribing drugs that could go wrong in 500 different ways?
Casualties of War: The Most Depressive Toy Soldiers Ever
Created by Dorothy via Sad And Useless:
Says Dorothy:
The hell of war comes home. In July 2009 Colorado Springs Gazettea published a two-part series entitled “Casualties of War”. The articles focused on a single battalion based at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, who since returning from duty in Iraq had been involved in brawls, beatings, rapes, drunk driving, drug deals, domestic violence, shootings, stabbings, kidnapping and suicides. Returning soldiers were committing murder at a rate 20 times greater than other young American males. A separate investigation into the high suicide rate among veterans published in the New York Times in October 2010 revealed that three times as many California veterans and active service members were dying soon after returning home than those being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. We hear little about the personal hell soldiers live through after returning home.
What’s Your Hobby? Knitted Breasts Created By 91-Year-Old
Via Newslite:
You might expect your granny to knit you a woolly jumper, but one pensioner has been defying expectations by using her needles to craft amazing knitted breasts.
Coral Charles-Dunne, 91, from Birmingham, has knitted dozens of the unusual educational tools as part of a project to inform expectant and new mums about breastfeeding.
She says spends about two hours creating each of the woolly boobs and makes them in a range of sizes, knitting for up to six hours per day.
The knitted breasts are then used by expectant moms to learn techniques for breast feeding … their partners probably use them to create an unusual game of football.
Justin Bieber Speaks On American Health Care
I believe this requires discussion not because the young celebrity is publicly discussing politics, but the implications it would have on the impressionable youth of the nation and the movement towards national health care. Excerpt taken from Rolling Stone:
The Canadian-born Bieber never plans on becoming an American citizen. “You guys are evil,” he jokes. “Canada’s the best country in the world.” He adds, “We go to the doctor and we don’t need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you’re broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard’s baby was premature, and now he has to pay for it. In Canada, if your baby’s premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home.
For the rare disinfo reader who is a Bieber fan, here’s some video from the RS shoot:
Article continues at Rolling Stone.
How Congress Created Socialized Medicine — In 1798
Is Obamacare a communism-flavored slap-in-the-face to our Founding Fathers? No, it isn’t — Forbes points out that the wigged ones were closet socialists. In 1798, Congress created the first taxpayer-funded, government-run hospital, and mandated health insurance for all sailors — moves that seemed to predict health care in Europe and Canada today:
In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed – “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.
Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the intentions of the drafters of the Constitutions in creating this Act as many of its members were the drafters of the Constitution.
And when the Bill came to the desk of President John Adams for signature, I think it’s…
Brazil To Provide Free Diabetes and High Blood Pressure Medications
President Rousseff Photo: Roberto Stuckert Filho/Presidência da República
BBC News reports:
Brazil is to provide free medicines for everyone suffering from high blood pressure or diabetes.
The drugs will be distributed through a nationwide network of budget pharmacies, where many medicines are already heavily subsidised.
President Dilma Rousseff said the measure was part of her campaign to end extreme poverty in Brazil.
About 33 million Brazilians have high blood pressure, and more than seven million have diabetes.
The free medicines will be available to all Brazilians who have a doctor’s prescription, but the authorities say they expect the offer to be taken up mainly by poorer people who use the public health system.
They will be distributed through 15,000 chemist shops that belong to the “Popular Pharmacies” network, where many drugs are already sold at a 90% discount.
[Continues at BBC News]
Smoking The Cause Of Low U.S. Life Expectancy
Why does the U.S. spend more on health care than any other nation while its population has a life expectancy lower than in many other developed countries? According to a new government report: smoking. From WebMD:
Life expectancies in the U.S. are now lower than for many other industrialized countries, and the nation’s past love affair with tobacco is largely to blame, government officials say.
In a report released Tuesday, a panel commissioned by the National Research Council sought to explain why the U.S. spends more on health care than any other nation, yet Americans are dying younger than some of their counterparts in other high-income countries.
Over the past two and a half decades, life expectancies continued to rise in the U.S., but at a slower pace than those seen in Australia, Canada, Japan, Great Britain, and other high-income European countries.
The average live expectancy for men in the U.S. was 75.6 years…
The Market May Want You To Die
Aaron Cynic writes at Diatribe Media:
The Republicans who now control the U.S. House of Representatives made demolishing the Obama healthcare bill their top priority during their campaign and will fight their hardest to make that demolition a reality now that they hold office. We all know the reasons: tea partiers want the government out of their Medicaid; seasoned republicans know they just need to trumpet their hatred of “big government” to stay seated; and most in both camps believe that the “market” is gospel and should dictate who should get health coverage.
The Department of Health and Human Services released a study showing that between 50 and 129 million Americans have some kind of pre-existing health condition. As plenty of Americans know, a preexisting condition can allow insurance companies to deny some or even all coverage. Should an insurance company decide to change their criteria defining “pre-existing condition,” it’s possible for a…
More Than A Quarter Of U.S. Children Are On Prescription Drugs
High blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, trouble sleeping, depression, hyperactivity: it’s hard being a kid. Over a quarter of our country’s children are now on long-term prescription drug regimens, and the percentage will only continue to increase. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Gage Martindale, who is 8 years old, has been taking a blood-pressure drug since he was a toddler. “I want to be healthy, and I don’t want things in my heart to go wrong,” he says.
And, of course, his mom is always there to check Gage’s blood pressure regularly with a home monitor, and to make sure the second-grader doesn’t skip a dose of his once-a-day enalapril.
These days, the medicine cabinet is truly a family affair. More than a quarter of U.S. kids and teens are taking a medication on a chronic basis, according to Medco Health Solutions Inc., the biggest U.S. pharmacy-benefit manager with around 65 million members. Nearly…
America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane
Democrats Ramshield writes in Alternet:
As an American expat living in the European Union, I’ve started to see America from a different perspective.
The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America does. Though it spends less — right around 9 percent of GNP on medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 percent of GNP on medical — the EU pretty much insures 100 percent of its population.
The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.
Der Spiegel has run an interesting feature called “A…
