Weekend Links We Like to Link to: Health Care Edition

Don't know how everything is gonna pan out. At this point, nobody really does, right?

Does the US really have the best health care in the world?

How dare the Mrs. POTUS indoctrinate our kids to eat healthy food at a fair! We oughta knock that asparagus outta her hands and replace it with the cotton candy and merry-go-rounds that everybody everywhere associates with fairs - like the ones at job fairs and college fairs! And exercise?! SHAME!!

Pricing. "The block representing the prices paid by American health-insurance plans looming over the others [England, Germany, Canada, Spain, etc.] like a New York skyscraper that got lost in downtown Des Moines." That's it! And why didn't they say so sooner?

The clustersuck that is our system in treating, say, diabetics. Partially because insurance companies - who do not retain their base for any extensive period of time (vs. a comprehensive national plan like Single Payer, et. al.) - are more concerned about holding onto their monies until they need to.

[In] the byzantine world of American health care... the real profit is made not by controlling chronic diseases like diabetes but by treating their many complications.

Insurers, for example, will often refuse to pay $150 for a diabetic to see a podiatrist, who can help prevent foot ailments associated with the disease. Nearly all of them, though, cover amputations, which typically cost more than $30,000.

Patients have trouble securing a reimbursement for a $75 visit to the nutritionist who counsels them on controlling their diabetes. Insurers do not balk, however, at paying $315 for a single session of dialysis, which treats one of the disease's serious complications...

"If a hospital charges, and can get reimbursed by insurance, $50,000 for a bariatric surgery that takes just 40 minutes," she said, "or it can get reimbursed $20 for the same amount of time spent with a nutritionist, where do you think priorities will be?"

In case you missed the story of the fat baby denied health care coverage because he was over the 95 percentile. A little close to home for me, as our daughter has always been in the 99.99999 percentile.

Just. So. Weird. "These are critical days if you don't want health care." At least Sean Hannity Freudiantly spoke the truth. Which I'm sure confused the mess out of him...

Oh. And, just in case you thought some of the vicious reaction against "Obamacare" was due to the whole Black "Kenyan" outsider problem, the conservative freak shows once again reveal that they're also equally misogynist.