We Don’t Have the Best Healthcare System in the World But We Could
The Incidental Economist makes an interesting argument until he closes with this:
“We don’t have the best health care system in the world. But we could. I long for the day when we can start talking about getting that instead of whether we should give Medicaid to people making less than the poverty line.”
I’m not sure if he saying hell with the poor and their health or let’s stop bitching about it do it, and move on to the issue at hand making what we have work better for all. Perhaps I should ask?
Roni Caryn Rabin writing in NY Times Well blog offers some insights to depression and why we have a ton o antidepressants. (At this time NYTimes.com is down)
Over the past two decades, the use of antidepressants has skyrocketed. One in 10 Americans now takes an antidepressant medication; among women in their 40s and 50s, the figure is one in four.
So if you think the reason is overdiagnosed well you are right according to a study in the journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.
“…nearly two-thirds of a sample of more than 5,000 patients who had been given a diagnosis of depression within the previous 12 months did not meet the criteria for major depressive episode as described by the psychiatrists’ bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or D.S.M.).
So we are prescribing more antidepressants more quickly for longer periods of time. The article is rich in its analysis and thought but the best part of it are the comments which just speaks to medicine, science, research, and the Internet. Oh boy.
How Much of a Subsidy Will You Get in Obamacare? Here’s an Estimate.
Julie Appleby in the Washington Post (aka Amazon’s in house newsletter) presents work from the Kaiser Family Foundation they looked at the subsidies and stated they will average $5,548.
Because that figure is an average, some families will get more and some will receive less when they enroll through new online marketplaces, which open Oct. 1.
Here is the link to Kaiser Family Foundation