New Hampshire paper on Obama's health plan

One of the most interesting comparisons of Democrats' health plans was an editorial published by the Concord Monitor titled "Don't get sidetracked by the mandate debate." It sharply critisized the use of mandates as a substitute for offering universal health care coverage. The editorial was published a month before the New Hampshire primary, and reflects well the fact that the candidates' health care proposals may be very different in practice once implemented. Here is an excerpt:

The great health care mandate debate is a sideshow. Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Edwards insist that forcing individuals to buy a policy is crucial to providing universal health care or something close to it. Rival Barack Obama disagrees. A mandate may be necessary to force those who refuse to sign up once affordable options are available, he says, but that step should come at the end of the march to universal care, not at the beginning.

Doctors' empathy and cancer

A study of doctors' communication with their cancer patients found that physicians come short, on average, of listening well, and understanding, their patients' emotions. The research by Duke Medical School Professor James A. Tulsky is described in a recent feature New York Times article, "For Cancer Patients, Empathy Goes a Long Way." The study has several interesting findings, suggesting a possibility of a vicious cycle in the doctor-patient relationship. That is, physicians rarely engage their patients when they try to talk about their emotions, and the patients in turn tend to bring up their emotions surprisingly rarely. The article argues that this is relevant not only for quality of life but also for improving the odds that patients would remain compliant to their, often-long and difficult, course of therapy, with potential improvements in final treatment outcomes.

Hilary makes an emotional connection...

In addition to her performance in the NH democratic primary debate, Hilary's tearful moment on ABC displayed an emotional side. When it comes to health care policy, Hilary's main position seems to be that she is the most experienced candidate to set agenda for reform and to implement it starting from day one.

"Culture Can Change our Genes" --- What about Politics?

In an answer to what empirical evidence changed his mind, Nicholas Christakis at Harvard Medical School, wrote a penetrating essay arguing that human genes may be much more influenced by culture that most social scientists would admit. However, there is almost no systematic attempt in the social sciences to think about the question of how the human body (its physical makeup, health status and ultimately genetic expression) is shaped by the everyday political processes. If most culture and social interaction involves politics of power, to what extent could politics also govern human physical well-being, the makeup of our bodies, the physical survival of entire communities, and consequently human evolution in the long-run? You can read Christakis's essay here; its entitled, controversially, Culture Can Change our Genes. More than anything else, it poses some fascinating questions that could guide research in decades to come:

There may be genetic variants that favor survival in cities, that favor saving for retirement, that favor consumption of alcohol, or that favor a preference for complicated social networks. There may be genetic variants (based on altruistic genes that are a part of our hominid heritage) that favor living in a democratic society, others that favor living among computers, still others that favor certain kinds of visual perception (maybe we are all more myopic as a result of Medieval lens grinders). Modern cultural forms may favor some traits over others. Maybe even the more complex world we live in nowadays really is making us smarter.

Why John Edwards May Win on Health Issues

If you listen to speeches of top finishers in Iowa, both Democrat and GOP, there is little doubt that John Edwards was the only candidate to make universal health care coverage the central message of his presidential campaign. While most point to Obama and Huckabee as inspiring speech-givers, John Edwards' speech was clearly equally, if not more, inspired and passionate one on the night of the Caucuses.

Bush White House against expansion of Medicaid

In a yet another turn that continues its strategy of opposing the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the White House took measures to prevents states from expanding their Medicaid coverage to higher-income brackets. While most of the Democratic presidential candidates agree that universal health coverage in the US is attainable and necessary, the GOP and (more importantly for currently uninsured and those who cannot afford medical bills), the White House still thinks the federal government must stall and prevent any moves towards such as system. The New York Time's Robert Pear reports on the story in U.S. Curtailing Bids to Expand Medicaid Rolls:
The Bush administration is imposing restrictions on the ability of states to expand eligibility for Medicaid, in an effort to prevent them from offering coverage to families of modest incomes who, the administration argues, may have access to private health insurance.