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Will Health Care Slip on Oil?
Judith D. Schwartz, Miller-McCune
As the government, the media and citizen activists grapple with fixing our health care system, one three-letter word has been conspicuously absent from the president on down: oil. But it should be in there. Given medicine’s dependence on fossil fuels and the prospect of higher oil prices — now double that of last December — dwindling oil supplies will likely give our health system a shock.
Think massive heart attack.
One might not imagine oil and medicine would mix, but U.S. health care relies on cheap crude in multiple ways: from petroleum-derived pharmaceuticals (including such commonly prescribed drugs as aspirin, vitamin capsules, cortisone and many antibiotics, antihistamines, medicated skin creams and psychiatric medications), catheters and syringes to running and transporting high-tech machines and time-is-of-the-essence ambulance runs. This makes for great aseptic single-use equipment and complex, even heroic, surgeries, but it also leaves our medical system highly vulnerable to any disruptions to the oil supply — which experts say will undoubtedly happen, though no one knows exactly when.
“World crude oil production has not grown materially since 2005,” said Gail Tverberg, a co-editor of The Oil Drum known to readers as “Gail the Actuary.” “With the recession, world crude production has now dropped back below the 2004 level.” Most agree that we are approaching or have approached the point where global oil extraction has peaked, meaning that petroleum will become more difficult and expensive to access.
…Leveling or declining oil production will affect all aspects of our lives, but health care is one that will get hit first, said Howard Frumkin, director of the National Center for Environmental Health, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He sees the risk as significant enough that in a recent Public Health Reports he and colleagues suggest professionals engage in the kind of preparedness, forecasting and scenario-building that’s applied to bioterrorism threats or potential infectious disease outbreaks.
Now that’s a notion to raise alarm bells. But is the health care policy establishment listening? As Frumkin puts it, “My impression is that it’s not on most people’s radar screen right now. Right now they’re dealing with cost-containment, quality and access.”
Ironically, the current crisis in health care deflects attention from the need to make medicine sustainable. “Very often the urgent is the enemy of the important. The urgent issues eclipse the long-term important challenge,” Frumkin said…
(6 August 2009)
Obama: Health Care Critics Creating ‘Boogeymen’ That ‘Aren’t Real’
Huma Khan and John Berman
President Obama lashed out at critics of his proposed health care overhaul and tried to curb fears that the government is planning to take over Americans’ health care plans.
Addressing the idea of the so-called “death panels that will basically pull the plug on Grandma because we’ve decided that … it’s too expensive to let her live anymore,” Obama pointed out that it was actually a Republican — Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga. — who introduced that provision in the House bill dealing with end of life care.
“The irony is that, actually, one of the chief sponsors of this bill originally was a Republican … who very sensibly thought this is something that would expand people’s options,” the president said.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin used the term in a Facebook posting, saying that it is “downright evil” for her parents and her baby to potentially have to “stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.”
…At a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H. — the first of three this week — Obama took aim at his critics and those who create “wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that’s actually been proposed.”
“They’ll create boogeymen out there that just aren’t real,” he said to a cheering audience. “So this is an important and complicated issue that deserves serious debate. … Every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they’ve got. … This is what they always do.”
The president also tried to alleviate Americans’ concerns about what his plan entails.
“Under the reform we’re proposing, if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. If you like you health care plan, you can keep your health care plan,” the president said. “I don’t think government bureaucrats should be meddling, but I also don’t think insurance company bureaucrats should be meddling.”
…While the president’s gathering, packed mostly with supporters, was cordial, the scene outside the high school where he spoke was quite different. Hundreds of protestors gathered outside with posters comparing Obama to Hitler, across the street from supporters of the president’s plan.
Town hall after town hall, lawmakers are faced with rowdy protesters and angry crowds, ready to fight against the proposals set forward by Democrats and the White House.
While the president’s gathering, packed mostly with supporters, was cordial, the scene outside the high school where he spoke was quite different. Hundreds of protestors gathered outside with posters comparing Obama to Hitler, across the street from supporters of the president’s plan.
Town hall after town hall, lawmakers are faced with rowdy protesters and angry crowds, ready to fight against the proposals set forward by Democrats and the White House.
…Some Democrats say these town hall protests are not about health care but, rather, a reflection of Republican frustration at losing power in Washington and the success of the new administration’s stimulus and other plans.
“It’s just a psychological phenomenon that they’re frustrated and their leaders are frustrated,” Democratic Strategist James Carville said on “Good Morning America” today. “The protests are not about health care. … They don’t even know what they’re talking about.”
But conservatives say concerns about health care overhaul are very real and that Americans have a right to voice their opposition…
(11 August 2009)
Facts, fallacies on what is buried on legislation’s pages
Noam N. Levey, Los Angeles Times
With lawmakers home for August recess, a fierce battle has broken out over what precisely is in the mammoth healthcare bills being pushed by congressional Democrats. There has been no shortage of misinformation. Here is a look at a few of the most contentious parts of the legislation.
…Does the legislation include provisions to encourage senior citizens to commit suicide?
…Will the government start paying for abortions?
…Will illegal immigrants receive free healthcare benefits?
…Will the government ration care?
…Most controversially, the bills would fund more research into the comparative effectiveness of various drugs and medical procedures.
The legislation does not dictate that the research be used to limit coverage of any procedures. And many doctors and other healthcare specialists see this kind of research as critical to improving the quality of care…
(12 August 2009)
