Health officials have confirmed Jefferson County’s first human case of West Nile Virus. Here’s some information that might come in handy:
How to Attract Bats for Natural Mosquito Control
I expect Jennifer to be all over this story. She doesn’t like germs. 
If you’re in the Birmingham area and you like to eat, head over to La Paz Restaurant in Crestline tomorrow (Thursday) between 4 PM and closing. You’ll get a good meal and help out a struggling family at the same time. Be sure to leave a big tip.
Alfredo Colin is a married father of four who has worked at La Paz Restaurant in Crestline for the past 10 years. Last Wednesday, Colin had to have a large tumor removed from his brain. Fortunately, the surgery went well and Colin is safe. Unfortunately — like many in the service industry — Colin does not have health insurance, and his medical bills are staggering.
La Paz’s staff has decided to chip in and do what they can to ease the financial burden on Colin and his family. So, on Thursday, August 21, from 4 p.m. until closing, all tips at La Paz will be donated to Colin, and whatever is raised will be matched by La Paz.
It’s great to see the staff and the management pulling together to help a colleague. I hope the place is packed tomorrow.
h/t Madison at Mixed Media
Re: Del’s post below, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Patty Murray (D-WA) responded yesterday to the Bush administration’s proposed change in HHS rules that would redefine abortion and chip away (even more) at both Roe and Griswold.
Sens. Clinton and Murray said NO to the proposed policy in the strongest terms yesterday. Liss includes their letter to HHS Secretary Michael Levitt in her post. Here’s an excerpt:
…One of the most troubling aspects of the proposed rules is the overly-broad definition of “abortion.” This definition would allow health-care corporations or individuals to classify many common forms of contraception – including the birth control pill, emergency contraception and IUDs – “abortions” and therefore to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it.
As a consequence, these draft regulations could disrupt state laws securing women’s access to birth control. They could jeopardize federal programs like Medicaid and Title X that provide family-planning services to millions of women. They could even undermine state laws that ensure survivors of sexual assault and rape receive emergency contraception in hospital emergency rooms.
We strongly urge you to reconsider these regulations before they are released. We are extremely concerned by this proposal’s potential to affect millions of women’s reproductive health…
Okay, y’all. I had a mammogram yesterday. I have a family history of breast cancer, so (reluctantly) when I turned 45 I dutifully began the annual pink-ribbon ritual. I’m small-breasted and not at all modest, so to be honest it just isn’t that much of an ordeal for me. Physically, that is. Mentally, from the minute I schedule the appointment, I am constructing various scenarios starting with phrases like, “Now, Ms. D., there’s no need for you to worry yet, but we need to run a few more tests…” and ending with my writing good-bye letters to the children and donating my hair to Locks of Love. (I am now two years younger than my mother was when the cancer was diagnosed that killed her five years later.)
Used to be, at the place I go, you were alone with either the technician, the doctor, or your own sweet self from the minute you left the waiting room until you went home. But they remodeled, and it’s different now. Yesterday the tech called me in along with two other women. We were led to a hall with several closet-sized dressing rooms containing lockers with keys and a minuscule waiting area. There we were instructed to undress to the waist, put on hospital johnnies, lock up our clothes, and have a seat. We were called from there to be scanned, and returned there to wait for The Doctor to give us the final verdict. As my husband said when I told him later: “like the menstrual hut.” (more…)
I posted below on the general excellence of last night’s health care forum sponsored by Over the Mountain Democrats. It’s unfortunate that my strongest negative response was invoked by the Democratic politician on the panel.
I was not terribly surprised to hear Congressman Artur Davis advocating improvements and expansion of our existing system for health care coverage. He quoted polls that show a plurality of people who currently have health coverage are satisfied with it. He pointed out that people want choice and that anything short of abolishing private insurance would result in some percentage of the population opting out of a public plan, likely taking wealthier and healthier people out of the pool. And he said, quite realistically, that providing universal coverage will be expensive and we must incorporate effective cost containment measures. I would have preferred to hear him talk about some more innovative approaches, but I was glad to hear him advocate, forcefully and repeatedly, for universal coverage.
Well, almost universal.
Last night, an overflow crowd of around 400 people packed the auditorium at the Botanical Gardens for the health care forum sponsored by Over the Mountain Democrats. Clearly the crisis in cost and quality resonates with the public. The panel featured keynote speaker Dr. Wally Retan, Terry Kellogg of Blue Cross, Dr. Max Michael, and Congressman Artur Davis (D-7th District).
Dr. Retan pointed out that national expenditures on health care in the US (including direct care, research, structures, and equipment) have risen from $28 billion in 1960 to $2,016 billion in 2005 and a projected $2,879 billion by 2010. In more personal terms, a family of four spent on average $14,500 for health care/coverage in 2007, while pretax median income stood at $60,298. He also noted that spending more than twice as much as any other developed country has still left us with higher infant and maternal mortality rates and lower life expectancy than many of them.
The other speakers all agreed that we have a crisis on our hands, but there was no agreement on how best to address it.
There was some good discussion, and I certainly left feeling more informed on the subject. The purpose of the forum was not to push a specific solution but to educate potential voters, and once again the OTM Dems succeeded — putting together a an excellent panel, asking good questions, providing information, and leaving audience members to make their own decisions about how meaningful reform should be structured and implemented. And, as usual, Barry Ragsdale provided effective and witty moderation.
Kudos, OTM Dems. Well done!
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ADDENDUM: Joe at Bessemer Opinions has posted his account of last night’s forum.
Don’t forget tonight’s Healthcare Forum sponsored by Over the Mountain Democrats. See you there!
On Friday, January 11, Alabama Arise is sponsoring a free showing of Sicko at Church of the Reconciler at 6:30 pm.
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On Monday, January 14, Over the Mountain Democrats will present “Crisis in American Healthcare: Is Universal Coverage the Solution?” at 6:30 pm at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.
Panelists include:
This event is free and open to the public, and it promises to be an informative, high-quality presentation, in the tradition of previous OTM Dems educational forums. For more information, click here.
UPDATE: More information here. The bulk of the payment ($14.2 million) will come from HealthSouth; Andrews will pay $450,000 and Lemak $250,000. Sounds like the doctors were relatively small spuds in the potato field — and HealthSouth was successful in blaming the whole thing on a “previous administration”.
The U.S. attorney’s office announced this afternoon that HealthSouth Corp. and two doctors have agreed to pay the federal government $14.9 million to settle health fraud claims.
U.S. Attorney Alice Martin said the settlement stems from allegations that the company submitted false claims to the government and paid illegal kickbacks to doctors who referred patients for care in some of its hospitals. Martin identified the doctors as orthopedic surgeons, James Andrews and Lawrence Lemak.
Many years ago, I was part of a team working on a strategic plan to turn then-South Highlands Hospital (which later became HealthSouth) into the primary care provider for the Birmingham area. In the midst of that process, Larry Lemak abruptly reversed course and hired James Andrews away from the Hughston Orthopedic Clinic to start a gold-plated sports medicine practice. With a gold-plated contract, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. It was fun to backtrack and write an after-the-fact business plan justifying that decision.
I don’t know about y’all, but $14.9 million sounds like pretty damn substantial fraud. So, Alice, how come you didn’t try to put them in prison? Did losing the Scrushy case give you cold feet? Or — and I’m just speculating here — could they be…Republicans? Well, maybe one of them is. But I’m sure that had nothing to do with it.
I’ve been asking this question for some time now, but Courtney Haden puts it much more eloquently in the latest issue of the Birmingham Weekly:
…I worry about the recent revelation that Spencer Bachus hates poor children. I’d always thought our congressman a reasonably empathetic guy — he cares enough about his constituents not to draw their attention unduly with too much legislating between elections — but when I checked out the House votes on reauthorizing the SCHIP, who should be practically heading the list of Nay-sayers but the Sixth District’s one and only?
To be fair, Bachus was near the top of the list because it was in alphabetical order, but he definitely put himself on record as not wanting to expand the scope of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to give more poor kids and their families access to health care. Not, apparently, out of any deep-seated political principle (according to his website, Spence is still vociferously in favor of a Defense of Marriage constitutional amendment, but he has exactly zip to say about his position on SCHIP), but just because all the other Republicans were voting that way.
Spencer also defended his vote on SCHIP in a recent letter to the editor in which he tries to pit poor children against those whose families have slightly higher incomes, saying the poor children should get coverage first before those rich kids start cheating the system. (Spencer, does that mean you support better funding for Medicaid? You know, the program that is actually intended to provide health coverage for poor children? Gee, I see Medicare on your list of issues — old people vote, you know — but there’s nothing about Medicaid or health coverage in general.) He then goes on to play the “illegal” card, making sure we’re all horrified by the prospect that a sick child whose parents are here picking our produce, processing our chickens, or cleaning our hotel rooms might not be relegated to the emergency room after all.
Courtney continues:
The interesting thing about SCHIP is that not all the Republicans were in lockstep on this vote. With an election at hand, more than a few realized that voting against children’s health care might not be the best way to demonstrate compassionate conservatism.
Many rank and file GOPers wail about the rising costs of the SCHIP. Would that they were as concerned about the billions of dollars irretrievably poured into the bottomless rathole at the center of George and Dick’s Excellent Adventure. No one who’s consistently voted to fund the criminal boondoggle that has become permanent Iraqi occupation should be nattering about paltry millions for sick kids at home in America.
Then he moves on to my question:
Another thing that worries me is that local Democrats won’t even try to oust Bachus in the next cycle. At some point, to be taken seriously again as a statewide political party, Dems must challenge the moss-encrusted GOP incumbents in the House and Senate. They still control a shrinking patch of turf in Montgomery and at certain precinct levels, but straight-ticket Republican voting endangers those little fiefdoms.
2008 is going to be a flux-filled election year, and what better time to mount a campaign against a guy who hates poor children? Remember, all you have to do is make him deny it…
Hey, state party officials, are you listening? I know a Democratic challenger isn’t going to defeat Bachus — at least not this time. Does that mean you won’t even try? If Howard Dean can have a 50-state strategy, can’t Alabama Democrats have statewide strategy? Just asking.