This is partly based on a recent AP story

____________________________________________________________________

While we discuss health-care reform, healthy food and environmental conditions, as it turns out, there’s still another issue to be addressed – extremely heavy patients. Although morbidly obese people can probably be found in almost every country and on almost every continent, this could most likely be filed under the ‘Only in America” category.

A panicked Kansas ambulance crew had a critically ill patient, but the man weighed more than 1,000 pounds and could not fit inside the vehicle. And the stretcher wasn’t sturdy enough to hold him.

Finally somebody had an idea. They could use a forklift to load the man – bed and all – onto a flatbed truck. There was no other choice.

As the nation battles the obesity crisis, ambulance crews are trying to improve how they transport extremely heavy patients, who become significantly more difficult to move as they surpass 350 pounds. And caring for such patients is expensive, requiring costly equipment and extra workers, so some ambulance companies have started charging higher fees for especially overweight people.

The move to modify ambulances is just the latest effort to accommodate plus-sized patients. Some hospitals already offer specially designed beds, wheelchairs, walkers and even commodes.

Ambulance companies say it’s time for insurance providers, Medicaid and Medicare, or patients themselves to begin paying the added costs, which are cutting into their razor-thin profit margins.

In the past, ambulance companies often absorbed the extra expense of serving the obese. Now they are adding charges similar to those already imposed on intensive-care patients, people requiring multiple medications and patients on ventilators.

Transporting extremely heavy people costs about 2.5 times as much as normal-weight patients. It takes more time to move them and requires three to four times more crewmembers, who often must use expensive specialty equipment.

Shawnee County Commission last summer raised ambulance fees from $629 to $1,172 for critical-care patients and people who are 500 pounds or heavier.

In Colorado Springs, Colo., and the Nebraska cities of Omaha and Lincoln, the fees are $1,421 for an extremely obese patient, compared with $758 for a typical patient.

Before those ambulances had heavy-duty equipment, crews just had to make do, often calling in burly firefighters to help lift patients.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has long said that nearly a third of Americans are obese. About 5 percent of the population is morbidly obese, meaning they are more than 100 pounds heavier than their ideal weight.

Some critics say the higher fees are a form of discrimination.

Higher payments for heavy patients are commonplace in Oregon and Washington because the insurance industry there acknowledges the additional costs.

Ambulance companies say the insurance industry is their best hope for closing the financial gap.

As with any medical service, ambulance companies bill private insurers or government health care programs. Medicare and Medicaid do not pay extra for transporting the extremely obese, although that’s something the ambulance industry wants to change. The uninsured are charged directly, but many of them cannot pay.

Proponents of the extra fees say obese patients are grateful for equipment that eliminates the need for flatbed trucks and forklifts.

Like many ambulance companies, a unit in Topeka recently spent about $10,000 to retrofit an ambulance with equipment that accommodates patients weighing up to 1,600 pounds. Ambulance services with helicopters also are creating larger patient compartments and adding stronger gurneys.

Sales of specialized lift systems nationwide are expected to reach $193 million by 2012, up from $75 million in 2004, according to EMS Insider, an industry newsletter. The sale of specialized stretchers is expected to nearly double to $50 million in 2012.

Technorati Tags: ambulances, forklifts, heavy, obesity, patients

Among the screaming, panic, Hitler posters and “Obamacare” labels, there are certain areas of the health-care reform issue that both the Democrats and Republicans roughly agree on:

The need to rein in private insurance companies by banning underwriting practices that have prevented millions of Americans from obtaining affordable insurance. Insurers would, for example, have to accept all applicants and could not charge higher premiums because of a person’s medical history or current illness – the so-called pre-existing conditions. All insurers would have to offer a minimum package of benefits, to be defined by the federal government, and nearly all Americans would be required to have insurance.

Lawmakers from both parties also agree on the need to provide federal subsidies to help make insurance affordable for people with modest incomes. Medicaid eligibility would be expanded in order to cover poor people. It appears that members of both parties and in both chambers of Congress want to create health insurance exchanges, where people could shop for insurance and be able to compare policies.

There is also broad, bipartisan agreement on proposals to squeeze hundreds of billions of dollars out of Medicare by reducing the growth of payments to hospitals and many other health care providers. There seems to be willingness to reward high-quality care, by paying for the value, quality and effectiveness, rather than the volume, of services.

So far, so good. Even if these changes alone were enacted, the U.S. health-care situation would improve dramatically. It would be a very good start.

So what’s standing in the way of reform, you might ask?

The most heated points of disagreement seem to relate to employer mandates and the idea of a publicly run health plan. Details of the major House and Senate bills differ somewhat, but most employers would have to provide insurance or contribute to the cost of coverage for their employees, with exceptions granted to certain small businesses. Democrats also agree that Congress should create some type of government insurance plan or nonprofit cooperative, which would compete with private insurers. President Obama says the public plan would keep insurers honest, but Republicans say it could eventually drive private insurers from the market, leaving consumers with fewer choices.

Drive them off the market? Come on! How can anyone honestly think that the insurance companies would ever even consider leaving the huge, excuse me, humongous cash cow, which is health insurance for several hundred million Americans?

Whatever the disagreements – a perfectly normal phenomenon in a civil debate – wouldn’t it be better to modify our health-care system step by step, rather than show up at town meetings and demonstrations with posters of Hitler, Stalin, or whoever and with prominently displayed guns?

Is spreading myths about “socialized medicine” and “death panels” helping anyone? It certainly is doing absolutely nothing to implement even the mutually-agreed parts of the health-care reform, nothing to improve our overall well-being and nothing to improve our health-care.

What it is accomplishing in turn is polarizing the country to an almost unprecedented degree and making us the laughing stock of the rest of the world.
____________________________________________________________________________________

And for dessert go ahead and watch this funny video with Will Ferrell and other actors on the issue of health-care reform.

Technorati Tags: agreement, Con, democrats, disagreement, extremists, Health care, Pro, reform, republicans

Glenn Beck

That paragon of righteousness, FOX News’ Glenn Beck has been trying to get rid of Van Jones, the White House “special adviser for “green jobs, enterprise and innovation” for a while and a few days ago it happened.

Beck called Obama a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred for white people” and later, trying to back up his claim, Beck cited Jones as a “black nationalist who is also an avowed communist.”

At issue is a comment – recorded last February before Jones joined the White House Council on Environmental Quality – in response to an audience member who lamented that Democrats were less effective than Republicans in using their majority to pass energy legislation.

Jones’ reply: “Well the answer to that is, they’re assholes.”

Van Jones

He added, “Now, I will say this: I can be an asshole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama, are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity.”

Beck made Jones a frequent target on his FOX show, labeling him a “radical who wants to fundamentally change America.”

Not to give Glenn Beck too much credit – since he doesn’t deserve it – it appears that Van Jones was largely pushed out by anti-climate change advocates from the oil industry and Beck, who made Jones’ “peccadilloes” public was simply the vehicle for his resignation.

Although it is really sad, actually quite tragic, that so many Americans receive their marching orders from Glenn and Rush, this video clip by Stephen Colbert might lighten your heart a bit. Thank you to SpicyBugzWorld for having it up first

Glen Beck has also been instrumental in organizing a march on Washington by conservatives, who were eager to protest the president’s health-care plan and what they say is out-of-control spending. Thousands of misinformed citizens under the banner of “Taxpayer March on Washington” marched through the city wielding banners and chanting “USA!”. “It’s not about health care, it’s about Obama seizing our freedom,” said one protest sign. Opposition to climate-change bills now in Congress was also on display. “Don’t send our coal to Asia,” said another placard. One protester held a sign saying: “Joe Wilson Speaks for Me.” Others held signs showing President Obama as Adolf Hitler.

We wonder how those people have reached their conclusions, and how valid these conclusions are, particularly in view of the fact that most appeared to have achieved whatever “wisdom” they had by watching television, listening to right wing radio shows and opinions emanating from the pulpits of their churches.

As Bill Maher so aptly put it, and we quote: “Who knew that electing a black man with a foreign-sounding name would make rural white people insane?”

Rush Limbaugh

At the same time, that other paragon of virtue, civility and wisdom, the darling of the right, Rush Limbaugh wasted no time at all at the start of his Thursday show, describing the president’s speech on health-care reform as “inappropriate,” “childish,” and “disgusting.” Rush also made a bold accusation: that the president “lied through his teeth” during the speech.

Limbaugh’s entire program that day was based around the notion that Obama was “lying … from the moment he opens his mouth until he ends the speech.” And yet, it appears that it was Rush who hopped from lie to lie during three solid hours.

For example: Limbaugh capped off his week-long insistence that “death panels” are implicitly – not explicitly – in the House bill by responding to Obama’s charge that the idea of death panels “is a lie, plain and simple” by saying: “It’s not a lie, plain and simple. [...] It’s in the bill. You want them run out of the White House. They are going to determine who gets treated and who doesn’t. [...] So we’re not lying. We’re not spreading bogus claims. You call us out, we’re gonna hit back twice as hard.”

Well, Rush, we wonder if you offered to buy a beer (maybe along with some strong prescription painkillers) for the South Carolina cracker who all of a sudden made himself notoriously famous by screaming about the same words that you like to use publicly so much?

After the death of William Buckley, the conservatives do not seem to have a single, viable, intelligent leader – one who even remotely could be termed an intellectual.

There’s nothing wrong with proper, intelligent conservatism. We used to consider ourselves moderate conservatives at one time, years ago. The Bush 43 outrage and the present crop of conservatives have completely and probably permanently cured us of that affliction.

Not that we are happy with what the Democrats are doing (or not doing, for that matter), the Republican’s situation seems to be much more serious. Not only have they lost the White House and both houses of Congress, but also they seem to be dominated by crazies, primitives and yes – assholes.

All of a sudden the reality downs on those, who managed to keep their eyes, ears and minds open: The Grand Old Party is not so grand anymore and neither is our politics in general.

Technorati Tags: assholes, conservatives, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Van Jones

As soon as the White House announced President Barack Obama’s plans to broadcast a speech on September 8, 2009 to the nation’s students, the conservatives started screaming in terror.

According to the White House, the president simply wants to emphasize “the need to work hard and stay in school.”

The conservatives see it though as a secret White House plot to “indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas,” and several school districts vow to avoid the speech. The same goes for some gullible conservative parents.

This is so incredible, so hard to believe and so ludicrous that it almost seems like a screenplay for a really bad comedy, but unfortunately it is real.

In any normal country (including ours at one time) a speech by the sitting president to our school children would be viewed as a very nice gesture and a very positive development all around. Not any more, it seems.

The indoctrination carried out by conservative groups, including the religious right has seemed to work very well indeed.

A blogger accused Obama of “using students as junior lobbyists” and “disgraceful abuses of power.” Wow! “Zealous teacher’s unions have enlisted captive schoolchildren as letter-writers in their campaigns for higher education spending,” she said. “Out-of-control activists have enlisted their secondary-school charges in pro-illegal immigration protests, gay marriage ceremonies, environmental propaganda stunts, and anti-war events.” She also pushed for parents to get involved, writing, “Parents have every right to worry about their children being used as Political Guinea Pigs for Change.”

Where does she get this drivel, we wonder…

Another one writes: “The Obama administration is trying to push its president-worship onto 50 million captive schoolchildren.” Christian conservative leader Gary Bauer released a statement claiming that: “The Obama Administration is using its power in unprecedented ways, this time injecting itself into the nation’s classrooms. Tuesday may be a good day to sit in on your child’s classes.” Prominent Florida Republican Jim Greer accused Obama of “using our children as tools to spread liberal propaganda.”

Will wonders never cease? How do these people figure all of that out, without even seeing the text of the president’s speech? The White House promised the text of the speech by Monday, so everybody can make an educated judgment.

“Educated” seems to be a key word in this whole debate. We see it basically as an education-related speech, delivered by an educated man, who wants our children to be well educated as well. Are the uneducated really afraid that their children will surpass their limited intellectual abilities? We fervently hope so!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Updated Monday, September 7, 2009:

Here is the text of President Obama’s speech as prepared for delivery, from the White House website. Are we missing something, since we do not see any signs of  “indoctrination of children with socialist ideas”?  Do you?

Technorati Tags: Among, Backward, Children, conservatives, Education, Fear, obama, Schools, Sparks, speech