NewsTrust - Health - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

Should We Laugh? Cry? Both?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Nov. 23 (News Analysis) - The ritual is becoming familiar. Health care reform passes a major political hurdle. And progressives don?t know whether to laugh or cry. Last time, the occasion was a vote in the House of Representatives. Health care reform passed by the slimmest of margins, but not before conservative Democrats had extracted a major concession on abortion rights. This time, it was a vote in the Senate--not on whether to pass a bill, but whether to begin debating one. This measure, too, passed by the slimmest of margins, but not before conservative Democrats and one notorious independent made clear they were prepared to shut things down later if legislation includes a public insurance option. It?s no fun to watch this unfold. And yet this is the exactly the sort of drama you should expect for the next few weeks, as the Senate deliberations play out. The bill Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced last week is not everything it could be--not by a long shot. And progressives will try their ...

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Is It Time for Malpractice Reform?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

American Prospect - By Joanne Kenen - Nov. 20 (News Analysis) - Year after year, Republicans try to pass legislation that would limit medical malpractice awards. Fix the tort system, they argue, and we fix rising health-care costs. And year after year, Democrats resist placing arbitrary caps on awards to people who may have suffered from an egregious medical error. The fight plays out like a predictable old Western -- good guys versus bad guys. Depending on your politics, the villain is either the greedy doctor or the greedy trial lawyer.

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Docudrama

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Nov. 18 (Special Report) - Sometime in August, McKinsey & Company created a PowerPoint document called “Health Care Reform and Implications for Key Stakeholders: What this Could Mean for Client X.” Over the course of 44 slides full of charts and graphs, the firm examines the potential impact of reform on insurers, doctors, hospitals, and the drug industry. McKinsey tells Client X that the presentation’s purpose is to “help inform your understanding of the broader healthcare system impact and what this might mean for your key customers and Client X going forward.” After a source supplied me with the document--which is marked “confidential”--I contacted McKinsey. A spokesperson told me that “Client X” is not a particular company. Instead, he explained, the document is a broad overview of how McKinsey expects health care reform to play out. (It also appears to be a presentation that McKinsey consultants could adapt based on a client’s particular situation.)

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Tell Congress to Go To Hell With their Current Health Reform

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Phoenix - By Rob Kall - Nov. 17 (News Analysis) - For OpEdNews: Rob Kall - Writer "I know some of my words are not nice-- crude, vulgar-- but if you're not thinking something like them, you don't get it. And if you have been thinking them, but don't want to say them, send your legislator my article."

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Cultural Borders and Mental Barriers: The Relationship Between Living Abroad and Creativity

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

apa.org - By William W. Maddux - Nov. 16 (Investigative Report) - Despite abundant anecdotal evidence that creativity is associated with living in foreign countries, there is currently little empirical evidence for this relationship. Five studies employing a multimethod approach systematically explored the link between living abroad and creativity. Using both individual and dyadic creativity tasks, Studies 1 and 2 provided initial demonstrations that time spent living abroad (but not time spent traveling abroad) showed a positive relationship with creativity. Study 3 demonstrated that priming foreign living experiences temporarily enhanced creative tendencies for participants who had previously lived abroad. In Study 4, the degree to which individuals had adapted to different cultures while living abroad mediated the link between foreign living experience and creativity. Study 5 found that priming the experience of adapting to a foreign culture temporarily enhanced creativity for participants who had previously lived abroad. The relationship between living abroad and creativity was consistent across a number of creativity measures (including those measuring insight, association, and generation), as well as with masters of business administration and undergraduate samples, both in the United States and Europe, demonstrating the robustness of this phenomenon.

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Missing the Gain But Joining the Pain

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Miller-McCune - By Sam Kornell - Nov. 15 (News Analysis) - Since the industrial revolution, profits from the exploitation of fossil energy — coal, oil and natural gas — have not been equally distributed. America, Europe and Japan got rich off of oil and coal; now China, India and much of the rest of the developing world are attempting to do the same thing. If they succeed, climate scientists say, it will mean environmental catastrophe. This progression has created a situation in which any solution to climate change is, to a greater or lesser extent, going to be unfair — a fact many negotiators openly acknowledge. The Danish environmental minister hosting the Copenhagen conference, Connie Hedegaard, has reportedly been "extraordinarily blunt" in insisting that China, India and the rest of the developing world shoulder a large share of the climate load.

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Phthalate exposure linked to less-masculine play by boys

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Science Daily - Nov. 15 (News Report) - A study of 145 preschool children reports, for the first time, that when the concentrations of two common phthalates in mothers' prenatal urine are elevated their sons are less likely to play with male-typical toys and games, such as trucks and play fighting.

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I’d Like the Same Plan Better If It Was Bill Clinton’s

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Miller-McCune - By Tom Jacobs - Nov. 13 (Special Report) - Even among the most extreme opponents of President Obama's push for health care reform — those who equate his proposals to Nazi death camps or Soviet gulags — there's little overtly expressed racism. Aside from the occasional slip by Republican officials in South Carolina,...But implicit racism — prejudice unacknowledged in public and, in many cases, hidden from conscious awareness — is a factor in opposition to Obama's health policies

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Virginia Tech Study Contains Lessons for Fort Hood