Some links/stories to keep you occupied

I may be otherwise engaged with BlogHer today and tomorrow, but I want to make sure you're engaged as well, so here are some stories I've been meaning to link to:

Would you be surprised to learn that immigrants use less health care than those born here? Per capita the expense is a lot less, although more heavily weighted toward Emergency Room usage than non-immigrants. I don't find these figures too surprising, but I'm sure there are some politicians out there who would like them not to see the light of day. Such an inconvenience, facts and figures.

Key excerpt: Results. Immigrants accounted for $39.5 billion (SE=$4 billion) in health care expenditures. After multivariate adjustment, per capita total health care expenditures of immigrants were 55% lower than those of US-born persons ($1139 vs $2546). Similarly, expenditures for uninsured and publicly insured immigrants were approximately half those of their US-born counterparts. Immigrant children had 74% lower per capita health care expenditures than US-born children. However, ED expenditures were more than 3 times higher for immigrant children than for US-born children.

For those of you who continue to wonder how the "uninsurable" get insured, InsureBlog has a 2-part series on high-risk pool solutions. We know the "uninsurable" on this blog, from my friend with the twisted intestine, to the blogger who has diabetes. They both found solutions, the former through a short-term plan, the latter through his girlfriend. But what's the long-term solution? InsureBlog's series doesn't prove the case that high-risk pools are the solution, but doesn't think of anything better either.

You know I have an interest in theatre, and an ActorMan friend who has no health coverage right now. Perhaps this lengthy post from Butts in the Seats (yes, great name, huh?) will help him. Some innovative programs are out there to tend to artists and their general, and specific, health needs. What kind of specific health needs? How about tinnitus, performance anxiety and hand care of musicians? Anyway, it's a cool story, and one that highlights that there are opportunities out there to get health care that people don't hear or know about.

Lastly, Forbes did a review of the MedBlogosphere, and named the "best." Of course they only reviewed MedBlogs from "doctors, professors and scientists" (because we laypeople, we consumers, we customers, we patients, we sufferers...we are the least important part of practicing medicine I guess?) so HealthyConcerns wasn't eligible. Because otherwise I'm sure they would have come knocking on my virtual door. Just like Brad Pitt, if he hadn't happened to have met Angelina Jolie first.

Can I just have a BlogHer moment and say I can't believe a doctor out there named his blog, Medicine and Man??? I've notice some vets focus on cats or reptiles or whatever. I guess this guy focuses on men?

On the other hand, Straight from the Doc looks pretty good. I'm going to subscribe to it for a while and see if it's MedBlogRoll-worthy.

See, I'm looking out for you!

Comments

[Sudeep Bansal]

Just to mention that i named the blog as "Medicine and Man" because of the rhyme and not because I focus only on men.

I have no intention of hurting anyones feelings.

Sudeep

[Elisa Camahort]

Hey Sudeep, thanks for commenting. It's not that you hurt feelings with the name of your blog (well, not mine anyway.) I mean there are men's health magazines just as there are women's.

I love alliteration as much as the next person, but I think in this case you place a barrier between you and your many of your potential readers.

[Sudeep Bansal]

Thanks for the tip but i guess its too late to change the name of the blog ( I will definitley try some day when I come up with a better name and some extra time)

[Emma Simpson]

Can I just have a BlogHer moment and say I can't believe a doctor out there named his blog, Medicine and Man??? I've notice some vets focus on cats or reptiles or whatever. I guess this guy focuses on men?

I completely disagree with what Elisa Camahort wrote about the Medicine and Man blog.

Firstly, the alliterative aspect of the title is pretty obvious. Most people would not find anything distasteful about it in the least: certainly Forbes didn't - and they picked that blog out of a pool of hundreds.

Secondly, if she really did think that the blog concerned men's health issues, why should that be such a bad thing? I hardly believe she'd have made a fuss about a blog on women's health.

Thirdly, the gripe may be that "man" is being used in a generic sense to refer to humans. This I kinda sorta understand; some feminists can see paternalistic oppression in everything, and the use of male nouns and pronouns to denote both sexes in English has some of them in very bunched panties.

I've always thought this idea both 1. much ado about nothing, and 2. hypocritical: the very same folks who gripe about it are the ones who use feminism, for example, to denote the idea of equality between both sexes, such that a man who believes that the sexes deserve equal treatment must label himself feminist. Feminists (there's that word again) who believe that descriptors ought to be gender neutral ought to start the preaching at home.

[Elisa Camahort]

As I say in my comments above, there's nothing wrong with having a men's health focus, but I could tell he doesn't mean to have one. I think it's bad MARKETING, not outrageously offensive.

[Blue Cross of California]

Great blog I hope we can work to build a better health care system. Health insurance is a major aspect to many.

[Macgrath]

Macgrath
blogingid@yahoo.com
http://www.directhealthnow.com/

Health can be defined negatively, as the absence of illness, functionally, as the ability to cope with everyday activities, or positively, as fitness and well-being.In any organism, health is a form of homeostasis. This is a state of balance, with inputs and outputs of energy and matter in equilibrium (allowing for growth). Health also implies good prospects for continued survival. In sentient creatures such as humans, health is a broader concept.