WEEKLY POSTING #1: Possible Solutions?

So looking at the current health reform issue what do think could be a potential solution?  It is not an easy task attempting to find a solution that solves every aspect of the issue and can be applied to every very diverse case.  You always hear the voices of the people in power or big fancy health professionals, but what do you think as an everyday American living with this struggle.
            What is the President doing right now to help with this issue you ask; well there are many components to his current process.  The first component is he is implementing provisions for those Americans who have lost their job.  This component entails that administration will provide Americans who lose or lost their job a tax credit that allows them to keep their health insurance through COBRA. For those that do not know what COBRA is, it is the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act.  This is a continuation health program that allows certain people to continue their health insurance.  (For more information on COBRA click here to visit The United States Department of Labor website.) This helps cover those who are now unemployed and without insurance.
            The next component reenacts the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP).  This gives States incentives to help cover children.  An estimated 4 million children on average would be covered.  It will help those children and their families in risk of losing their coverage in this uneasy economy.  The third component which will help save money by cutting down time is computerizing medical records.  Paper systems take way more time and relying on the memory of a patient can be costly, time consuming, and somewhat unreliable.  This is an important step in modernizing health care practices and reducing health care costs.
            The fourth component is creating and distributing information on health and interventions.  Basically medicine changes incredibly fast and its practically impossible for a single physician to keep up with all the new research.  Without this information it’s difficult for a physician to diagnose and give the individualized treatment a patient is expecting and deserves. By solving this problem we can prevent wasting money, time, and services on wrong treatments.  Last, but certainly not least, he wants to invest in prevention and wellness programs to save money in the future.  This is very important because prevention helps prevent future health care costs due to behaviors that could have been prevented earlier. 
            These are all great steps in the solution to this health care reform, but one important question is where does the money for these processes come from? So my question for you is what is your opinion? How do you think we should approach this?  Well stay tuned in for our next discussion on THE GREAT HEALTH REFORM DEBATE.
{My source for this post was HealthReform.gov which is a great resource for this topic.  I encourage you to explore it to help further your knowledge}

The Great Health Reform Debate Introduction

 So if you do not listen to the radio, watch the news, or listen to other people gripe then you might not have heard about the great health reform debate that is taking place. According to the Center For Disease Control and Prevention in 2008 17% of America's population under the age of 65 did not have health insurance and 65% had private insurance. These numbers do not seem terrible, but would it not be great to have every American's health care covered?  The problem today is that private insurance prices are starting to spiral upward increasing until its nearly unaffordable.  Asa result our number of 65% privately insured will decrease and our 17% completely uninsured will increase drastically.  Employers today are in a money runch with raised insurance prices and are having to increase the amount employers pay, cut back on benefits, or cut coverage all together.  Individuals who are do not or no longer recieve benefits from work are now realizing that trying to buy their own policy is nearly impossible due to pricing and some companys will not sell them a policy.  As a result of this crazy spiral in increasing prices our uninsured population will continue to rise and this is where the debate comes in.

        What will work? What health system will be unflawed? Should we copy Canada? So many questions are asked and unanswered as The United States Department of Health is trying to find solutions to make health care affordable, insurance affordable, and to better the overall health of the United States.  The Secretary of the US Health Department states,"Today, Americans spend more on health care than any other country in the world, yet we don’t live longer." (Full Statement) Children today may live shorter lives than that of their parents, which says a great deal about America's health.  So what are the problems here? First off the US health status is much lower than it should be, health care is extremely exspensive as well as the insurance to cover it, there is not enough critical preventative measures being taken to prevent our next generation's health status to decrease, and there is not enough money to go around.  There are many more detailed issues with health care today, but we will explore those further as time goes on. 

    So what are we doing about it? The government (US Health Department and President Obama) is working together to find a solution that will cover the problems we are facing. For the sake of keeping this just an introduction and not putting you to sleep we will discuss the ideas that have been presented later. So as we wait for a solution to be put in place, what are we Americans doing? Some are still keeping their private insurance or are paying the higher shared pay at work. Some are lucky enough to still have coverage from their employer such as myself [as a college student I still receive my Father’s benefits]. Others are not so lucky. Some simply avoid going to a doctor, which sometimes is fine and their health concern goes away, or it can get much worse and in the end cost much more. Others seek Alternative forms of medicine which is another thing we will discuss here.


Alternative forms of medicine can include acupressure, acupuncture, supplements, vitamins, herbal remedies and the list is endless. In 2007 Americans spent nearly 33.9 billion dollars on complementary or alternative medicines according to the CDC.  That is a great deal of money spent on something other than a doctor.  Alternative medicines can be argued numerous ways on whether they are effective or not, but the problem with some of these alternatives is that they are not FDA approved.  Many vitamins and supplements are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration which has its approval to assure consumers that proper testing has been completed, information on the product is correct and displayed for the consumer, and that it is simply safe to consume. 

   The Health Reform Debate is an important subject that indirectly or directly effects everyone so its an important thing to familiarize yourself with.  As the debate continues we will continue to wait and in turn do what we can to try and keep ourselves healthy.  Stay tuned in for our next discussion on the GREAT HEALTH REFORM DEBATE and what we're doing about it.

Questions Presented for Class:

QUESTION #1.) What makes an opinion different from a "fact"? Are all opinions equally valid? If so, why? If not, why not? What impact do opinions and "facts" have on individual consumer health and on the health of a whole population of consumers?

QUESTION #2.) In our Public Health Code of Ethics, an underlying value is that "Humans have a right to the resources necessary for health" (Public Health Leadership Society, 2002, p. 2). How does this underlying value add to our basic three ethics to help explain why the majority of public health professionals do not encourage using the free market perspective as a base for health care systems?

QUESTION #3.) When looking at the "new media" out there - the grassroots groups on the web, Twitters that seem to get a lot of attention, talk radio, 24-hour news channels, etc - do you see more of the market perspective or more that appears to be based on a Public Health ethics perspective? What does the general public need to know? What are the barriers to them knowing it?


1.) An opinion is a belief or feeling someone has towards a certain subject. There can be an infinite amount of opinions towards a given subject and none are technically wrong because that is their belief or feeling. A fact on the other hand is something researched, proven, or equally accepted as fact. I believe all opinions are not equally valid. Opinions are like the brain, everyone has them but they are all quite different. Some are based off of facts and some are just pulled out of misinformation. No one opinion is necessarily more right than the next, but an opinion based on fact would hold more creditable than one of no fact. More people may agree with a certain opinion, but that does not mean it is a fact. Facts and opinions impact consumer health immensely. Not everyone knows the facts or what is true about a product, but an opinion can spread like wildfire and either help or hinder a consumer when considering a product. Facts are what the consumer needs to know, but if the facts are not out there and only opinions are the whole population of consumers are not aware if whether a product is god or bad in terms of their health. Consumers need to be aware and able to recognize what information is fact and what is opinion. For example the Flu Vaccine, fact is that it is a dead virus that is inserted in the body. Opinion would be that it makes them ill afterwards so many consumers will not get the Flu Vaccine even though it is very helpful in keeping their health up during Flu season.
2.) This value is very important because consumers need to know what it is they are consuming. The government puts policies and regulations in place that help make sure information and products display important information and that consumers have easy access to the information they need before consuming a product. Health professionals discourage a free market perspective because then the government policies and regulations will no longer be in place and consumers do not have that safety net of information there for them. Without policies requiring information be available on products there is not much incentive for product companies to let the consumer know what they are really buying which can put consumers in danger.
3.) There is a lot of “new media” out there and one issue is that older generations and underprivileged generations do not have access or knowledge to use these new forms of media. There is a market perspective in this new media rather than public health ethics. The public needs all the information that is out there because it all can affect them in one way or another. Everything should be available to the public, but one barrier that one encounters is that not everyone has access or the knowledge needed to access this information. The government really tries to have everything available to the public, but it is difficult when low income communities do not have cable or internet, or if there is not a local library. It can be difficult for some people to find access to this information.