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What is the public option? It’s a term that’s been tossed around pretty freely since the 2020 candidates released their healthcare proposals. But ask three people and you get five different answers. We come by our confusion honestly.
So, when it all boils down, what do you need to know?
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I’m lucky. With a few notable exceptions, everything I have been diagnosed with since I was a teenager has made sense in the context of what I already had. The meningitis was a lucky guess, and the diabetes took longer than it should have, but there was no mystery in any of them. But sometimes that’s not what happens. I have spoken to several patients in the last few months who have been through the wringer before they got a correct diagnosis.
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If you’re reading this blog, it means you’re one of the millions of people who have been diagnosed with something. Or you’re close to someone who has. This is never a fun process but there are some steps you can take to make it easier on yourself.
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Last year was a marvel of health advancements – precision medicine, 3D printing to tailor medical devices to the patient, scanning visor for stroke diagnosis, moving past open-heart surgery for valve replacement, tons of AI advances – the list goes on. It’s a big profitable market and as long as it stays that way, we will continue to see progress that blows our minds. Even as 2020 begins, AI is doing quite well diagnosing breast cancer.
Read moreOne of the best things about the holidays is getting to spend time with the family and friends you may not get to see very often. For many of us, that means traveling to make that happen. For both host and traveler, there can be difficulties.
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It’s been a few weeks since Senator Elizabeth Warren released her plan to pay for Medicare for All. I confess, I had hope. Senator Warren knows a boatload more than I do about economics and the mechanisms that would have to be in place to pay for a multi-trillion dollar government program. Now, it appears that in the process of laying out her plan and seeing her own plan laid bare, she has unconvinced herself.
Read moreI like to think I know myself pretty well. I’ve worked hard with my therapist to be able to take a step back and figure out the why when I act self-destructively. That way I can make an informed decision about whether I want to continue doing whatever I was doing that isn’t healthy for me.
Read moreThis blog post originally appeared on The Chronic Disease Coalition’s News on November 12th, 2019.
I want to help people, but I only recently realized how. For 20 years, I specifically steered my life away from any and all activities related to healthcare beyond what was necessary to be healthy. Recently I’ve rethought that. I would really like to improve communications between patients and their providers. Because honestly, even if our current circumstances somehow evolve into a utopian healthcare system, if we can’t tell our providers what we want and don’t want, it won’t work. Universal access does not guarantee effectiveness. It’s a giant leap, but it won’t get us there by itself.
Read moreIt is documented fact that I watch too much TV.* Well, maybe watch isn’t the right word. I like to have something on in the background when I am home. Otherwise the silence starts to close in sometimes.
As such, I am privileged to hear all the ads. Turns out there are a lot of ads touching on healthcare, including discussions of high drug prices, wellness, or the latest drugs to treat certain diseases. The one that caught my ear recently was one for GoLo, a “treatment” for insulin resistance. As someone who has insulin resistance, I was curious to find out what they were selling.
Read moreI spend as little time as possible on social media. Partly because I just don’t have the time and partly to save my sanity. The times I do sign on, in addition to a lot of good discussions of the challenges facing our community, I have noticed a good number of chronic and autoimmune patients labeling themselves [insert-condition-here] warriors.
Warriors. That’s a heavy word. It conjures mythic tales of people fighting for all they’re worth for or against something. And I can certainly see how many of us would feel that way. I did, too, for a long time. But then I started to think about who I was fighting.
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