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Wednesday, November 20, 2013
White House braces for doctor dump
By Chris Stirewalt
Published November 20, 2013
FoxNews.com
• White House braces for doctor dump
• Perk-packed version of ObamaCare for Congress
• Feds try roadside blood tests
• Sliding faster than Obama’s approval ratings
WHITE HOUSE BRACES FOR DOCTOR DUMP - The president’s “if you like it” bait-and-switch on insurance is not the only pledge that will be broken under ObamaCare. Press Secretary Jay Carney appeared to step back from the second part of President Obama’s oft-repeated campaign promise: that Americans could keep their doctors if they like them. Carney hinted consumers could lose their doctors too saying, “So, if you are looking for, if you want coverage from your doctor, a doctor that you've seen in the past, and want that, you can look and see if there's a plan in which that doctor participates in.”
[Asked at a WSJ forum what he might have done better in implementing ObamaCare, the president blamed Republicans for failing to help him in “fixing glitches and fine-tuning the law.” Washington Examiner has more.]
He doesn’t like it, he won’t keep it - President Obama meets today with state insurance commissioners, whom he charged last week with undoing his order to crack down on individual insurance policies. After working for three years to impose regulations required by ObamaCare that have led to the cancellation of millions of policies, the commissioners learned Thursday that the president was upending the rules. Facing withering anger from voters after being forced to admit that he misled them about the law, the White House said in talking points that cancelled policies would no longer be the fault of the law but rather insurance companies and state insurance commissioners.
Poll: 7 percent say ObamaCare working well - A new CBS News poll shows President Obama’s job approval rating dropped to 37 percent, the lowest of his presidency – a 9-point drop since October. The poll also found Americans’ approval of ObamaCare has dropped to 31 percent, the lowest rating ever in the poll. Just 7 percent of respondents said the president’s health law is working well.
Perk-packed version of ObamaCare for Congress - Members of Congress may have to enroll in ObamaCare, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the same smashed system ordinary Americans are facing. NYT details the perk-puffed version of ObamaCare for Congress: “…access to ‘in-person support sessions’ …a special Blue Cross and Blue Shield website for members of Congress and…. a ‘dedicated congressional health insurance plan assistance line’…Lawmakers can select from 112 options offered in the ‘gold tier’ of the District of Columbia exchange, far more than are available to most of their constituents.”
GOP governors huddle on ObamaCare - The Republican Governors Association gathers this week in Arizona, one of the issues they will tackle is how to minimize the damage of ObamaCare at the state level. Of the nation’s governors, 30 out of 50 are Republicans. –Watch Fox: Campaign Carl Cameron is following the gathering from Scottsdale, Ariz.
OBAMACARE SITE ONLY 60 PERCENT FINISHED - Henry Chao, deputy chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told a House committee that the crash-prone ObamaCare Web site is not yet finished. Chao said Tuesday that up to 40 percent of the technical systems supporting the federal health insurance marketplaces have not yet been built, including a system to issue payments to insurance companies. Chao said the site will be “greatly improved” by the end of the month -- not fixed. Read more from Fox News.
No magic - Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius does not consider the previously announced Nov. 30 deadline to fix problems with ObamaCares’s online home “a magic go, no go date.” She told the AP she sees the project as “a work of constant improvement.”
ObamaCare’s security scares - David Kennedy, a cyber security expert who testified before a House committee Tuesday, told Greta Van Susteren he believes there is so little monitoring done on healthcare.gov, Health and Human Services officials “probably don't even know if they're getting hacked right now.” Watch the interview from “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.”
[“Given the distressing testimony we heard at the Science Committee’s hearing about Healthcare.gov, there is only one reasonable course of action. Mr. President, take down this website.”—Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, head of the House Science the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, in a Breitbart OpEd.”]
Read more
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Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Medical schools failing to cover LGBT health issues: Study
The average amount of time medical schools spend teaching students about health issues facing the LGBT community is about five hours over the entire curriculum, according to a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine published in the Journal of American Medical Association.
In the study, researchers submitted a web-based survey to 176 medical school deans in the U.S and Canada, receiving responses from 85 per cent. Of those, 11 of the participants were Canadian institutions.
Although many medical schools do address some LGBT-related health issues in their curricula, the conversation needs to go deeper, said the study's lead author, Dr. Juno Obedin-Maliver, of the University of California, San Francisco.
"These are misconceptions in the public at large and because there isn't specific education in medicine about it, doctors-in-training — who are just people in society — don't get disavowed of their social thinking about this group," she said.
Of the 150 survey respondents, 70 per cent described their school's coverage of 16 LGBT-related topics, like HIV and STIs, gender identity, and mental health issues, as "fair", "poor" or "very poor."
Ninety-seven per cent said their school teaches students to ask patients if they have sex with men, women, or both when taking a sexual history. Seventy-two per cent of schools stated their students are taught the difference between behavior and identity, like men who have sex with men but still identify as straight.
However, less than a quarter of respondents did not know whether the difference was taught.
Without adequate education, the study's authors suggest new doctors are often left with fallacies about lesbians and gays that are rampant throughout society.
One of the common misconceptions is that lesbians don't need regular pap smears to screen for cervical cancer, which is related to the presence of the HPV virus, said Obedin-Maliver.
"Many physicians out there still believe HPV and other STDs can't be transmitted from a woman to a woman, which is not true," she explained.
Another often-overlooked issue is lesbians, compared to straight women, tend to have higher rates of breast cancer as they tend to have fewer children. Research has linked having children as playing a role in reducing the risk of developing breast cancer, said Obedin-Maliver.
Understanding the specific health needs of LGBT people can only begin when a comfortable dialogue is established between physician and patient, said Obedin-Maliver.
"LGBT people don't necessarily feel comfortable talking openly about their life to a doctor, and that can lead to difficulties in treatment if you don't have accurate information," she explained. "But most patients will talk about things if their providers are really openly interested and wanting to learn from their patients."
The study's high survey response rate demonstrates medical schools are interested in improving the level of LGBT education offered in their curricula, said Dr. Raymond Curry, vice dean for education at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
However, Curry, who wrote an editorial on the study, said the researchers' method of calculating hours spent on teaching LGBT-related issues in the curriculum avoids some key questions about campus culture.
"Are there educational leaders or course directors that are gay or lesbian, or that are clear allies who speak to the issue?" asked Curry. "Seeing what the range of responses would be, whether there are easily identifiable faculty that students can relate to has a lot to do with how open and free the discussion is about patients' issues."
As the survey asked medical school deans to self-evaluate their institutions, Obedin-Maliver said it is possible their perceptions could be slightly skewed.
"We expect people to round up, so it could be quite a bit worse even," she said.
Obedin-Maliver said she hopes the study's results yield a greater focus on including LGBT education in medical school curricula in the future.
"I think that this is a topic whose time has come," she said.
tfletcher@postmedia.com
Source: http://www.canada.com/health/Medical+schools+failing+cover+LGBT+health+issues+Study/5366742/story.html#ixzz1XJoLxCH1
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Monday, February 21, 2011
Doctors Writing Sick Notes for Teachers
wluk | February 19, 2011
Several school districts around the state had to shut down this week because too many teachers were no shows. They turned up at the capitol instead to protest.