This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Health Care debate

  • Why Am I Not Surprised?

    Planned Parenthood – the nonprofit organization that really cares about women.

    This is supposed to be such a caring organization, right? Sure, as long as you can pay for what you want.

    But for their employees? Not so much.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/business/planned-parenthood-pregnant-employee-discrimination-women.html

    Planned Parenthood: biggest hypocrites on the planet; they do not care about their employees at all. As described in the article at the link, their employees seem to have no real rights under labor laws at all.

    There used to be rules about work-day breaks for non-exempt employees, but that has changed. But then, the PPs probably don’t bother to follow state regulations about it, and things have changed since I retired. Breaks are not required by the FLSA regulations. Glad I don’t have to work any more unless I want to.

    However, this form of abuse seems to be a pattern with the PPs, if it is accurately reported in the article They don’t really care at all about women, no matter what their self-labeling is. They only care about getting cash in the cash drawer.

    The woman who wrote the article was a part-time employee, which she says did not qualify her for the FMLA protection, which is outlined at the link below.

    https://smallbusiness.chron.com/circumstance-can-deny-fmla-55704.html

    The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) is a United States labor law requiring covered employers to provide employees with job-protected and unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons.

    Pregnancy was covered by that at the time if the firm had 50+ employees. And the PPs have far more than 50+ employees, nationwide.

    FMLA rules state that private-sector employers are not required to provide federal FMLA benefits if they have fewer than 50 employees. An employee who would otherwise qualify for FMLA can be denied if the company itself is not required to offer the benefits. This is something that employers should consider when making staffing decisions.

    However, Planned Parenthood is a nationwide organization with a LOT of employees – many more than 50. And as a nationwide employer with a large number of employees, you’d think that the PPs would at least accommodate their female employees. The author of the NYT article indicates that no such consideration was given to her. Just the opposite, in fact.

    While I find PP’s treatment of this employee abusive as reported, current federal labor law says that employers are no longer required to even give employees lunch breaks any more. There was a poster on the wall in the break room where I worked that informed us of the minimum hourly wage, and what we could expect in the way of work breaks: two 15-minute breaks plus a ½ hour lunch break, which could be combined into a 1-hour lunch period. But that was when things made sense. Now it seems that changes have been made and they are not for the better, and are exacerbated by companies that only have what is termed part-time employees,  even if those employees actually work full time and sometimes overtime.

    Essentially, what this woman has described is the equivalent of a sweatshop work environment.

    I’m glad I’m out of the work world now, if that’s the case. On the other hand, why am I not surprised by the way this woman was treated?

  • CBD is about to revolutionize the veteran community and PTSD, taking America by storm

    reefer
    Melissa Leon

    CBD is the latest product taking the United States by storm, and chances are you’ve probably already heard about it by now.

    The CBD market has grown so much that it has drawn in everyone from U.S. senators to multi-billion-dollar companies – and the veteran community, where it already has a huge following of vets who use the product to help with PTSD.

    Even Coca-Cola, the world’s largest soda company, released a statement earlier this year saying it is closely watching the growth of CBD “as an ingredient in functional wellness beverages around the world,” leading to speculation of a future CBD-infused drink.

    The CBD market is expected to grow to $22 billion by 2022 – an astronomical growth compared to its expected $591 million this year.

    Many people already swear by CBD’s pain-relieving, anxiety-relieving properties, delivered without a “high” or any psychoactive effects on body functions. There are veterans who say it has helped them deal with anxiety and PTSD more than anything they can get prescribed by the VA or a doctor.

    Veterans’ Experience

    We spoke with several veterans who have experience using CBD oil, specifically to treat PTSD.

    U.S. Army veteran Mike Stedman said he was taking anti-depressant and anti-anxiety pills for PTSD after he got out of military in March 2017.

    A friend recommended CBD oil to him, so he tried it.

    “I tried and it said ‘wow, it’s actually really good,’” Stedman, 24, recently told American Military News.

    He has been taking it for about a year and six months, Stedman said, and he orders it online.

    “When I wasn’t taking it, I had really bad anxiety and was constantly on the alert. I’d go out to public places and it was too much,” Stedman explained.

    “I started taking it, and everything calmed down. I’m more tolerable in public places. I love flying again. I used to hate being in planes with other people,” he said.

    “The good thing about CBD is, it doesn’t get you high or anything. You have THC and CBD [from hemp] – there are two compounds. THC gets you high, but CBD is what helps you relax and takes your nerves away, makes you calm,” Stedman explained.

    Plus, you don’t get addicted to CBD oil, he pointed out.

    Any port in a storm. To read the entire artical (and you should) go to American Military News.

  • The Spanish Flu 100 Years and Counting

    This link will take you to a full article (not pay-walled) on the Spanish flu pandemic, which may have originated in China as avian or swine flu, but erupted in a virulent way during and after World War I.

    https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/05-0979_article

    From the article: “The impact of this pandemic was not limited to 1918–1919. All influenza A pandemics since that time, and indeed almost all cases of influenza A worldwide (excepting human infections from avian viruses such as H5N1 and H7N7), have been caused by descendants of the 1918 virus, including “drifted” H1N1 viruses and reassorted H2N2 and H3N2 viruses. The latter are composed of key genes from the 1918 virus, updated by subsequently incorporated avian influenza genes that code for novel surface proteins, making the 1918 virus indeed the “mother” of all pandemics.”

    Prior to World War I, the causes of influenza were unknown. There were no separate strain names for the various types, such as swine flu or bird flu. Anyone could catch a “congestion of the lungs” and subsequently die of pneumonia after recovering from the “congestion”.  There were no vaccines for it or anything else back then.

    The post-war flu pandemic resulted in 50 million to 150 million deaths worldwide, although there was no actual census count. But we had another serious scare in 2006. Remember the bird flu pandemic? The research for the 2006 pandemic had already started at CDC in 1995, with researchers reconstructing the virus’s structure from autopsied materials left over from WWI and the Spanish Flu pandemic.  Shortly after that, the 1997 H5N1 avian influenza A pandemic broke out in Hong Kong. The finding that H1N1’s descendants include swine flu and avian flu RNA resulted in corporations like the one I worked for at the time offering flu and pneumonia vaxes while at work, for a modest fee.

    Here’s a 2006 article from American Family Physician regarding the 1997 outbreak and the 2006 pandemic:  https://www.aafp.org/afp/2006/0901/p783.html

    The UK had a popular TV series titled “Survivors”, which was about a worldwide pandemic caused by a combined RNA flu vaccine which was supposed to stop the flu, but instead it became as aggressive as the bug in Stephen King’s “The Stand”, which was based on the same idea. Both “bugs” were recombinant shifting antigen viruses constantly seeking new hosts for survival.  In both stories, the surviving populations were sparse, and if the viruses shifted into new hosts such as dogs or cats, humans were doomed.

    All I’m saying is, get your flu shot because the swine flu and avian flu viruses mutate and combine at will, always on the search for new hosts so that they can spread.  It’s survival. Oranges and lemons help repel it. Must be something about ascorbic acid, eh? That, and bacon.  And your VA flu shot is free, too.

    Let’s just help the flu bugs not survive, because if there were two major episodes of flu in less than 10 years (1997 and 2006), with air transportation the way it is now, it will happen again.

  • Trump Signs Law To Lower Drug Prices, Ends Gag Orders Against Pharmacists

    Trump Signs Law To Lower Drug Prices, Ends Gag Orders Against Pharmacists

    President Donald Trump signed a law that ends insurance companies’ pharmacist gag clauses in an effort to lower drug prices Wednesday.  Currently, insurers and pharmacy benefit managers use the gag clauses to “forbid pharmacists from proactively telling consumers if their prescription would cost less if they paid for it out-of-pocket rather than using their insurance plan,” according to a press release from Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the bill’s sponsor.

    Am I the only one the keeps noticing President Trump getting all kinds of things done that go unreported by most of the press?

    Collins’s bill also targets “pay-for-delay,” a tactic where a brand drug company pays a generic manufacturer to withhold a product that would compete with the brand drug for market share.

    Closing this loophole could save consumers and taxpayers money, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

    “Who would think that using your debit card to buy your [prescription] drugs could be less expensive than using your insurance card? It’s counterintuitive. Americans have the right to know which payment method provides the most savings when purchasing their prescription drugs,” Collins tweeted Wednesday after Trump signed the bill.

    I guess reducing the price of prescriptions for all Americans is more Russian collusion.  Our President has probably paid millions to keep this all hush hush.

    Source: Trump Signs Law To Lower Drug Prices, Ends Gag Orders Against Pharmacists

  • Veteran convicted of threatening N.J. congressman

    Veteran convicted of threatening N.J. congressman

    A veteran has been convicted of threatening to kill New Jersey congressman Frank LoBiondo and members of his staff.

    Thirty-nine-year-old Joseph Brodie of Millville was convicted in Camden federal court on Wednesday of making threats to officials and employees of the United States.

    Prosecutors say Brodie was unhappy with his healthcare treatment from the VA, when he reached out to LoBiondo’s office.

    They say he became angry and made the threats when the Congressman’s chief of staff refused to arrange a meeting between him and the lawmaker.

    The jury deliberated for approximately six hours before returning the verdict.

    I go to one of the best VA facilities in the country.  They have been amazing.  Going there later today on a 6 month follow up after they cut out parts of my throat to save me from dying.  I will have to sit around for a short while and listen to a few other constantly bitch about the free healthcare they are getting and why they should be getting $10,000 a month for their service-related injury that went undocumented for 30 years.

    My doctor is 82, an old retired Navy guy that knows how to say STFU.  He is the greatest.

     

  • 1st Lt. Katie Blanchard seeks $3.5 Million

    1st Lt. Katie Blanchard seeks $3.5 Million

    We first wrote about Katie Blanchard HERE.   She has filed a $3.5 million case against the Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

    One year ago, an Army civilian who tossed a water bottle full of gasoline onto his supervisor and lit a match was sentenced by a judge to 20 years in prison for attempted murder.

    For the nurse who survived the attack, the fight is not even close to over.

    The Feres doctrine prevents service members and their families from suing the Defense Department in the event of injury or death, but for 1st Lt. Katie Blanchard, that is beside the point. In September, she filed a personal injury claim against the Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she was working at Munson Army Health Center at the time of the September 2016 assault.

    “Is it okay for us to have gross negligence and zero accountability in the military? Because if you look at my case, that’s what it is,” Blanchard told Army Times in a Wednesday phone interview. “Zero accountability for the way they treated me and the things that they missed that will forever affect my life.”

    Blanchard, 28, is asking for just under $3.5 million to cover some of the costs of the permanent disabilities she faces, after more than 100 surgeries to date and an intense battle with post-traumatic stress.

    She had, for months before the Sept. 7, 2016, attack, warned her supervisors and security personnel at the hospital that she believed Clifford Currie, the civilian employee, would try to kill her. Their relationship had deteriorated over the previous year, as she tried to implement an administrative plan to get his work progress on track.

    A link to The Feres Doctrine is HERE.  Lt Blanchard had repeatedly tried to get her command to take action concerning her attacker.   I doubt Blanchard is perfect and from what I can gather seems to be more than capable of becoming a First Class Bitch at times.   After what she has been through…I can not say that I blame her in the slightest.

    While she’s fully insured with Tricare, she said she still fights constantly to get the treatments she needs. She has to fight for a temporary duty order to see specialists they don’t have at JBLM, or to fill a prescription for an extra-strength, non-irritating body moisturizer she applies daily just to be able to comfortably wear clothes and move around.

    They kept it stocked at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, she said, where she recovered from the initial attack in their specialized burn unit.

    “Here they’re like, ‘Nope, sorry, we don’t provide it,’ ” she said. “Well, it’s $20 for a tub of it, and I go through that every three or four days. This is not cosmetic. I don’t like just putting on a ton of lotion every day just to feel pretty.”

    “That’s for comfort,” was Tricare’s response, she said.

    So instead, she sleeps in a recliner in her basement after surgery, keeping herself in position with pillows that shift all night, waking up regularly to rearrange them.

    “Yes, you give me medical care, but how much of a fight do I want to do for that?” she said.

    The damages she’s seeking from Fort Leavenworth would cover those medical costs that are denied by Tricare, she said, as well as for child care for her sons while she’s in surgery and recovering, and her active duty officer husband isn’t available.

    “My husband is currently out in the field and then he’s deploying,” she said.

    Lt Blanchard deserves better than this.  I am not a big fan of those who file cases for money as if it will change the behavior of those who do not actually write the check…this is an exception.

    Please read the entire Article HERE.

     

     

     

     

  • When they start pimping out the corpse of a dead veteran for votes…everyone should lose.

    When they start pimping out the corpse of a dead veteran for votes…everyone should lose.

    The corpse of Jason Simcakoski seems to be popular fodder for political grazing these days.  Jason died in 2014 while in the care of the VA.  Now,  Leah Vukmir and Tammy Baldwin are using his death in their respective campaign adds.

    The parents and widow of a Marine veteran who died at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center appear in a pair of television ads that debuted Thursday praising Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and calling attacks against her “shameful.”

    The spots are an attempt by Baldwin to counter one of the main criticisms of her lodged by Republican opponent Leah Vukmir and conservative groups. Vukmir has charged that Baldwin failed to respond quickly enough to the crisis at Tomah, where veterans were being over-prescribed opioids leading up to the death of Jason Simcakoski in 2014.

    Simcakoski’s parents are in one new Baldwin ad and his widow is in another. In both, they praise Baldwin for working with them to enact a law that toughened opioid prescription guidelines. They also call for attacks against Baldwin on Tomah to stop.

    “When I see these attack ads against Tammy Baldwin, using Jason’s death, I think it’s shameful,” his widow Heather says in one ad. “Tammy has literally been there with us every step of the way for three years. She’s the one helping us do right by our veterans.”

    It’s not bad enough that two politicians are using his death for political gain…now his widow and parents have jumped into the ring.

    In an ad released Wednesday, Vukmir attacked Baldwin over her response to the Tomah crisis. It was the latest in a series of spots by her and conservative groups that have spent millions attacking Baldwin on the issue.

    “You knew about the opioid crisis at the Tomah VA and you did nothing,” Vukmir said in the ad.

    Baldwin’s office heard from a whistleblower about concerns at Tomah in March 2014. It received a report in August 2014 about its 2½-year investigation into Tomah that cited concerns over the prescription of opioids at the facility, which is about 100 miles northwest of Madison.

    Simcakoski died the day after Baldwin’s office received the report.

    The family of Jason Simcakoski became effective activists and were instrumental in passing the  Jason Simcakoski Memorial Opioid Safety Act.  They were also awarded $2.3 million.  The practice of treating veterans at “Pill Factories” needed to be addressed.

    Everyone is diminished when they are drawn into petty political fights.  Vukmir and Baldwin are political parasites feeding on the dead corpse of a veteran.  Shame on his family for jumping into this fight.  Vukmir needs to STFU and Baldwin lacks the dignity to ask this family to stay out of this petty fight.  The lawyers were all paid, the family was paid, even the doctor that was in charge of Simcakoski managed to get his back pay.  Now, these two political hacks seek to profit from his death.

    I hope my family has the dignity not to pimp out my corpse.    Maybe one day they will all find the dignity to let my brother rest in peace.

  • Veteran Suicide Data Report

    Veteran Suicide Data Report

    The VA published this year’s suicide data for veterans.   According to their raw numbers, there were 16.6 veterans a day who committed suicide.   If we deduct veterans suffering in pain from some terminal illness who decided not to end their life in a puddle of their own piss…that number gets dramatically reduced.

    Feel free to read the study yourself HERE.

    The WSJ published an article about it.

    “If any other population of 20 million people were exposed to these threats it would be considered a public health priority,” said Paul Rieckhoff, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which has many younger veterans as members. “There has never been a national call to action.”

    Quoting Paul Rieckhoff on a veteran issue is like quoting Mikey Weinstein on veteran issues.  They both have self-serving interests that promote the stereotypical image that veterans are victims of their service to this nation.

    IAVA and Paul Rieckhoff continue to have problems with integrity.

     

    Any veteran group that associates with a Valor Whore like Megan Morse, or whatever name she is going by these days, has no creditability with me whatsoever.  Paulie leans so far left he wouldn’t understand an objective opinion if it were spoon fed to him.   Just look at some of the IAVA events and see who is attending.  Steven Colbert is the keynote speaker at one of Paulie’s upcoming events.  Colbert defines what being Libtarded is all about and is not admired by the vast majority of veterans.   Paulie is pimping him out anyway.  But I digress… let me get back to those that canceled their birthday.

    In 2016, 58.1 percent of Veteran suicides were among Veterans age 55 and older.

    So about 7 veterans who are too young for AARP choose self-murder on a daily basis.    What does the CDC have to say about suicide rates in the general population?

    The principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warned on Wednesday that suicide is on the rise in the U.S. among almost every age group.

    “Suicide – in all ages except for young children and the elderly – is one of the few conditions that’s getting worse instead of better around the country,” Anne Schuchat told “Rising” Hill.TV co-hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton.

    Suicide is a leading cause of death in the U.S.

    Nearly 45,000 Americans have lost their lives to suicide in 2016, and suicide rates have spiked more than 30 percent in half of states across the country since 1999, according to the CDC.

    Wait…What?  Suicide in the general population has spiked 30 percent?  The article on the CDC results is HERE.  But, but, but, I thought to serve this country in the military resulted in…victim related stuff.

    Look, I do not want to make light of those who are in legit pain and struggle with emotional dysfunctions.  There are over 45,000 veteran-related charities in this country.  All this do-gooder charitable work really sucks at preventing people, who are victims of protecting this nation, from wanting to self-murder.  I have told people for years to stop giving money to these groups.  Let veterans take care of veterans.  When I hear someone pimping the “22 A Day” thing,  all I see is a huckster or an idiot.

    Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Office of Mental Health

    and Suicide Prevention. Veteran Suicide Data Report, 2005–2016. September 2018.

    https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/data-sheets/OMHSP_National_Suicide_Data_Report_
    2005-2016_508-compliant.pdf