As we head into Independence Day weekend, it’s a time for Americans to reflect on the many things we have to be proud of in this country. But we also have things that need to be fixed. Some problems — like our health care delivery system — are daunting, complex, and arguably urgent.
It’s often said, “you can’t fix a problem until you understand it.” Writers who take on complex health care issues — like those we feature below — and make them easier for the rest of us to understand, are to be commended … and read.
It seems most of the health care stories I read are sourced from urban, multi-specialty medical centers where the patients are insured and receive their high tech care from adequately paid physicians.
But there’s another perspective that most of us aren’t familiar with. Maybe we don’t want to see it or, at least, admit it exists in our $3 trillion health care industry (give or take a few billion).
Freelancer Charles Bethea shares the story and insights of Dr. Karen Kinsell, a Columbia-trained physician who sees patients in a former Tastee-Freez in Clay County, Georgia (“It’s a bad place to live, which is why I moved here. I was looking for a place that needed me”). She sees 30-35 patients a day, almost half have no insurance, and she’ll take $10 a visit if the patient can afford it.
Suffice to say her take on how Obamacare did or didn’t work – and what Trumpcare promises — is one that doesn’t get heard enough, but should carry tremendous weight.
You may think Medicaid is just an insurance program for low income women and children. If so, Rau’s piece may be an eye-opener. He reports that Medicaid pays for about two-thirds of the 1.4 million American elderly people in nursing homes. Two money quotes:
Another example of the fine reporting by Kaiser Health News.
Joy Victory
In this piece, Larocca explores an intriguing question: In our increasingly have-or-have-not world–especially when it comes to healthcare–why do the haves still seek out questionable but often expensive wellness cures? She speaks to a range of sources–from those who fully embrace ideas like juice cleanses and “vagina jade eggs” to those who consider a lot of it mostly just “batshit crazy.”
Larocca looks at the current wellness fads through the filter of those who read Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop.com site, and how over time the site has shifted from fun things Paltrow likes, to self-improvement advice and a related (and huge) e-commerce section. It’s no coincidence, Larocca posits, that Goop came about at the same time pharma began to exert increasing control over our medical care. She writes:
“Goop became less about hotels and restaurants and more about chakras and thyroids, with the implication that maybe what’s actually standing between you and your inner Gwyneth is some mysterious virus that your overextended, pharmaceutically corrupt doctor is too narrow-minded to address.”
An in-depth look at a barely regulated experimental procedure — fecal transplants. As Subbaraman writes, “It’s difficult, after all, and perhaps futile, to control a ‘drug’ that’s so abundant, free, and 100% natural.”
Readers meet a patient (a 6-year-old boy with autism and constipation), a donor (a healthy-eating fitness trainer), and a doctor who avoids FDA trouble by teaching patients how to do the transplants themselves. Other voices advocate for caution against the procedure, which seems alternately disgusting, crazy, and intriguing. Compelling stories, superbly reported.
Buzzfeed earned a 5-star review this week, for an explainer on female condoms. Our reviewers were especially pleased to see an in-depth discussion of the cost and availability of this lesser-known contraception.
You can find more 5-star offerings HERE.
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Comments are closed.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like