Jezebel 
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New York, 8:17 PM
Sun Dec 20
20 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/02/09
How the hell is that NOT a death panel, Idiot Women's Forum?
09/02/09
My grandmother fell and broke her hip. She has Medicare. Visiting her, I am shocked to see several truths about Medicare. Namely, they only covered half the operation. Then, they only allowed for TWELVE days of rehab, for a woman in her 70's, to learn how to walk with a prosthesis implanted. And even then? They only paid for half.
This leaves my grandmother with a $40,000 bill. Which can be somewhat paid for by her ALTERNATE PRIVATE INSURANCE, that she pays for. And she's still left with some hefty bills that she'll have to pay.
09/02/09
09/02/09
And why isn't there a law against what the Repubs are doing? Spreading so much misinformation and fearmongering ought to be illegal.
09/02/09
09/02/09
Anyone have any stats to back this up?
09/02/09
09/02/09
Here are some very interesting results (all direct quotations form the article)...
"In the USA, the range of life expectancies in white and black populations did not overlap at all in the states and metropolitan areas for which life tables could be constructed for both groups. The ranges for men were 64·0–70·1 years in blacks and 71·1–75·9 years in whites, whereas the ranges in women were 73·3–76·5 years in blacks and 78·8–80·9 years in whites."
"Survival was lower for blacks than for whites in all 17 populations in the USA for which this could be assessed with race-specific life tables (webfigure 2). The age-adjusted pooled estimate of 5-year survival was 84·7% for whites (range 80–90%) and 70·9% for blacks (table 3). The range in survival was wider for blacks (60–83%), but the values at both extremes of the range were based on relatively few patients and have wider CIs. Within a given US population, the absolute difference in age-adjusted relative survival between blacks and whites ranged from 2% (Rhode Island, Nebraska) to 25–27% (Iowa and Seattle, WA; table 3 and webfigure 2). Even in areas where blacks comprise 25% or more of the population, survival for black women was 8–14% below the lowest estimate for white women (79·6%) in any of the participating areas: Atlanta, GA (71·1%), Detroit, MI (71·7%), New York City, NY (65·8%), and Louisiana (69·9%). The pooled estimate of 5-year survival for the USA was 84·0%, with 86·1% in areas covered by SEER and 83·1% in areas covered by NPCR (table 3)."
"Survival in black women was always lower than the mean survival for all US populations included, and often more than three standard deviations below it..."
"The differences in cancer survival between blacks and whites of both sexes in the USA are large, and remarkably consistent in 16 states and six metropolitan areas—more populations than it has been possible to study in the past.94 The differences were adjusted for age and for differences in background mortality between blacks and whites within each state or metropolitan area. It would be interesting to know if the differences were attributable to artefact, or differences between blacks and whites in tumour biology, in stage at diagnosis, in access to health care, or in compliance with treatment. The survival differences seen in this study are consistent with those in other studies.[47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52] and [53] Data-collection systems were identical for all races. The black–white differences in relative survival that we report would have been even larger if we had used race-specific national life tables instead of race–state life tables, because background mortality is higher (and expected survival lower) in blacks than in whites in all the populations studied.[23] and [95]
Survival from cancers of the breast, colorectum, and prostate varied with the type of health insurance in a population-based study:96 survival was highest in patients who had private insurance, intermediate with federal insurance, and lowest with no insurance. Another study97 suggested that prostate cancer is not more biologically aggressive in blacks than whites. Late stage,98 less treatment, and higher mortality seem to be associated with black race, low socioeconomic status, and poor survival in the USA.[99], [100] and [101] Extensive reviews have led to the conclusion that racial disparities in cancer treatment, which are not explained by clinical factors, lead to worse outcomes in blacks.[102] and [103] Analysis of SEER data suggested that some racial differences in treatment and cause-specific survival persist after adjustment for poverty.104 By contrast, the racial difference in survival from colorectal cancer was almost absent in patients managed under the equal-access, integrated health-care Veterans' Affairs system.105 Finally, overviews of race, socioeconomic status, and cancer outcomes strongly suggest that equal treatment yields equal outcome, irrespective of race.53 PB Bach, D Schrag, OW Brawley, A Galaznik, S Yakren and CB Begg, Survival of blacks and whites after a cancer diagnosis, J Amer Med Assoc 287 (2002), pp. 2106–2113. Full Text via CrossRef | View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (143)[53] and [106] The data presented here extend the evidence that cancer survival in the USA is lower in blacks than in whites."
09/02/09
09/02/09
I have to tell you that the stand that you are taking against health care for all sickens me more than my cancer experience did.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago at age 38. Fortunately I was insured at the time or I am certain that I would be dead. I personally know women who have lost everything they owned in the attempt to pay for treatment with substandard insurance, not to mention those who did not have cancer at the time.
While you are pushing a political agenda that is built on a fantasy real women's lives are at risk.
In your world I should be able to "just go out and purchase health insurance". I priced private health insurance last year in hopes of opening a business. The least expensive coverage was $1,400 dollars per month with a $5,000 deductible and a 50 percent co-pay.
Now I understand that in the wonderful world you live in this may be a reasonable price to pay for insurance but for those of us who live in the real world it is impossible. Just to give you a clue that monthly payment is more than my mortgage and all utilities COMBINED per month.
I will be blogging your video and will encourage criticism and widespread disbursement of it so that women can see what they really need to fear.
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I encourage all of you to do the same although I doubt that they will listen.
Website [www.iwf.org]
09/02/09
Charming bunch of folks.
09/02/09
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09/02/09
Write them comments about how wrong they are! Like I did!
09/02/09
09/02/09
And that is the proverbial, 'just sayin'
09/02/09
She was at her hairdresser's, and they were chatting as women and their hairdressers are wont to do. Hairdresser reveals that her mother has breast cancer, and that it's been a real hassle shuttling her back and forth to a million doctor's offices to begin treatment. Further, at each new doctor, the first thing s/he orders is a mammogram. Every. Single. Time. Eight (!) mammograms later, Hairdresser tells the doctor that they have done mammograms, and isn't it time to start, you know, doing something about the cancer that has been confirmed by eight (!) mammograms. He agreed, and finally just looked at one (or all) of the previously administered mammograms, and began treatment.
The end of Hairdresser's story: "I hope that this isn't what care is going to be like under Obama's health plan."
My mom: "Are you kidding? This happened now. This is what healthcare is like now.
It was amazing. Hairdresser had just experienced a failing of the US healthcare system, and somehow that wasn't a failing--it was a foreshadow of things to come. Weird, huh?
09/02/09
09/02/09
Does anyone get whatever treatment they want covered whenever they want it using the current insurance system? Are there not people who work for insurance companies right now whose job is to chose which treatments for which people get coverage and which do not? Our system already has a lot of the things going on that people are concerned will happen, but apparently people can't see that somehow.
09/02/09
09/02/09
09/02/09
That's what I find infuriating. Heath care already IS rationed. How do they not know that?
09/02/09
And somehow, women with breast cancer will be singled out, despite the fact that our government funds billions of dollars of breast cancer research and multi state screening initiatives like the Breast and Cervical Cancer Initiative.Interesting.
09/02/09
09/02/09
I don't even know WHERE TO START. OK, lists...
1. As many of you know, I have BC and have been "forced," as it were, to remain married to my husband (we were starting divorce proceedings) in order to stay on his health insurance. It would have been great to tell him to go stuff it, but instead he has me over a barrel.
2. I have seen many, many uninsured women at my clinic CRYING because of the bills they receive. Cancer/chemo/etc is difficult enough without adding a lifetime (esp when you are scared about how long that might be) of debt on top of it.
3. Saying there will not be enough health care to go around is like saying there isn't enough firefighting to go around.
4. I HAD TO WAIT FOR TREATMENT AND I HAVE INSURANCE. I cannot stress this enough.
5. A week before my first reconstruction (I have to do at least one more) I received a nasty passive/aggressive letter from my insurance company saying that they were covering my reconstruction out of the goodness of their hearts, not because they have to, and that I should be careful about having too many surgeries.
Sorry for the rant, I want to punch someone when these anti-universal health care people rear their ugly heads.
09/02/09
09/02/09
I have one receipt in my scrap book for my at-home shots. It shows my co-pay (ten dollars) then the actual price of the drug, which was over $8000. Can you imagine having to pay for that???
I don't know if it's one of the "life-saving drugs" that British women are being "denied," but what does it even matter if you can't afford to buy it?
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