Medicare lottery

From The New York Times:

The Bush administration announced Thursday that it would conduct a lottery to select 50,000 people who will receive Medicare coverage of prescription drugs in the next 18 months, before drug coverage becomes available to all Medicare beneficiaries in 2006.

Looks to be a great project.

The government, Mr. Thompson said, will select participants at random from the pool of applicants, alternating between cancer patients and those with other serious diseases.

Who will be the lucky one?!

Beneficiaries will generally have to pay the same share of drug costs in the demonstration project as in the standard Medicare drug coverage that begins in 2006. They will also face a large gap in coverage, like the “doughnut hole” in the standard Medicare drug benefit. But under both programs, co-payments will be reduced or eliminated for low-income people.

Finally co-pay may be no-pay!

- Shephali

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A struggle with healing

I have a really tough time understanding the health system in USA. Till now I had heard the patients side mostly. It used to be my relatives or friends or a program on the TV relating a miserable state of a patient trying to cope up, somehow, with this health system. My stay here has not been for a very long duration, so needless to say I haven’t come across a problem like Jacob Reider had to face. Well he has put a nice posting of his experience with the insurance companies and has very nicely portrayed that the health system in really shaken out here. It is mind boggling to imagine how the billing staff handles these kinds of incidents. No wonder, the billing staffs make mistakes like printing a different address of the insurance company or printing the social security number instead of the phone number (Actually my brother-in-law had a similar experience!). I totally agree with Graham about his opinion on impoving health care coverage and billing process. Yes, it may sound crazy but then, if possible, it would be a big leap towards an efficient health system.

- Shephali

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Medical Cartoons

Found some hilarious medical cartoons while surfing. For more funny ones take a peek at this site - http://www.almeidacartoons.com/Med_toons1.html AND enjoy!

- Shephali

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Aspirin - beyond heart

Recently I went through an interesting article on Aspirin by Family Medicine Notes. It recounts the history behind the revelation of Aspirin, a prototype of NSAIDS (Non Steroidal anti-Inflammatory Drugs). I was really unaware of the late findings of its uses. Well it seems that this drug can do more wonders than expected. Every time a study is done for its utility limits, it crosses the boundary. What more do we want from this drug? It is known for its actions as a pain reliever, an anti-inflammatory, and an antipyretic. Its antiplatelet effect preventing heart attacks and strokes is the most important one. And now the study shows it can be used for preventing breast cancer and colorectal cancer also!

Aspirin can have serious side effects, including stomach ulcers, gastrointestinal bleeding and brain hemorrhage. (NYTimes)

Despite it’s serious side effects, contribution of aspirin is quite consequential to be ignored. Needless to say we have to weigh the benefits and uses against the risks. A simple drug like Aspirin, also called Acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), has so much yet to give but it still needs more study and clinical trials before entering as a drug with multitude attributes.

- Shephali

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Iron linked to Memory!

Iron deficiency anemia is caused mostly by increased blood loss from the body. Blood loss can be of two types. It may be gastrointestinal or menstrual. Other causes are urinary blood loss, mal-absorption, hemolysis and poor oral intake. Women are more prone to develop iron deficiency anemia because of blood loss through menstruation or reduced oral intake.

Women in the Penn State study who were iron-deficient performed significantly worse on memory and attention tests than healthy women, and an iron supplement was all it took to correct the problem.

This can be very crucial in young women as theirs is an age when so many things are happening inside and outside them. So young women should be alarmed and try eating iron rich food. Check out Iron Rich Food for Iron Deficiency Anemia for choosing your diet. A tip for ensuring a better assimilation of iron in the body is to take in vitamin C rich food along with iron. Vitamin C (Ascorbic) acid helps in better absorption of iron from our intestine.

- Shephali

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Copay or Nopay

May 19th, 2004, Viewed: 227 times

There is a need to make a reasonable co-payment plan in healthcare costs. Numerous studies have found that the rise of co-payment may have unforeseen implications on patient’s healthcare that require further understanding. Patients will cut back on prescription drugs and this may aggravate their disease leading to complications.

…simply raising drug co-pays across the board is a fairly blunt instrument in the effort to control rising health-care costs. In the long term, some worry that tactic could actually increase health-care costs for certain patients, if cutting back on medicine leads to expensive complications.

Well, I really think that increasing the copay may actually have a negative impact on chronic diseases. Anyway, the question that arises in my mind is that why do we need to pay a copay. Already there is so much copay for a doctors visit and insurance charges. There should be some other altenative to fix this problem in health care industry.

- Shephali

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