thoughts, rants, and otherwise about the passing world
Posted in economy, health, history, politics on Jan 25th, 2010
This week’s decision by the US Supreme Court to allow corporations, including unions, to hold full rights to free speech and political action under the First Amendment to the Constitution once again reminds me of the strange practical and ethical relationship we have with corporations. In the 1886 ruling, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific [...]
Posted in economy, family, health, history on Dec 10th, 2009
Karen and I went on a one of our mid-week jaunts to Albany and the NYS Museum. The museum is quite large with more than one visit’s worth of exhibitions about NY and its history. As a longtime New Englander with a somewhat Boston-centric view of history, it is obvious that I need to do [...]
Is $2.3 billion really a lot of money?
The Obama administration is touting the action taken this week against Pfizer for illegal promotion of several of its drugs. The $2.3 billion sounds like a lot of money to me, and I suspect most people. Is it really a lot of money or just an annoyance to [...]
Acknowledge the basic facts about how the healthcare system is working today.
Yesterday in a radio interview, “How to conquer health care challenges”, with Professor Glenn Melnick from the Rand Corporation and USC, we were again offered up “expert” opinion that does not even acknowledge the basic facts about how the healthcare system is working today.
Here are a [...]
Originally written in 2005
The healthcare crisis in the US is growing in severity and yet is not the subject of any real public debate. More than 44 million Americans are without health insurance and almost 65 million will experience a lack of coverage during the year. Emergency rooms are the primary care provider of necessity. [...]
The healthcare crisis in the US is growing in severity and yet is not the subject of any real public debate. More than 44 million Americans are without health insurance and almost 65 million will experience a lack of coverage during the year. Emergency rooms are the primary care provider of necessity. All of this [...]
(this posting was originally published on my old website in 2005)
Bull’s Eye: unraveling the medical mystery of Lyme disease by Jonathan A. Edlow, M.D. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003)
Background
In June 2001 I came down with a mysterious illness that quickly landed me in the hospital. Before too long, I could barely walk nor readily [...]
{Here is a text, an “elegy” as Linda describes it, on the closing of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center building in Boston}
By Linda Larson
Incoherent thoughts become complete sentences. Thought begins. Unbound by common reasoning. Transparent eyes window the routine terror of people in glass houses dodging imaginary stones.
Dreams of glory careen into nightmares of war-torn [...]
