Category: Health

A study out just this past December, of US mortality data for the period 1979 to 2012, revealed that there is a curious jump in the death rate at age 62, especially for men (not so much for women). Why is that? Researchers think the eligibility for social security payments at age 62, and retirement at that age, is the combined culprit.

Retirement from a desk job could very well have long-term benefits (more exercise, less stress, being better able to take care of oneself).  But it could also mean the person becomes more sedentary after doing physical labor as part of his job, smokes more, or even drives around a lot more, and end up in a traffic accident.

Says one of the authors of the study: ‘We aren’t necessarily saying people shouldn’t retire. But if you are thinking about retirement, particularly if you are 62 and your health is poor to start with, think of preventive health measures. Stay healthy, see a physician, don’t just sit on the couch, but don’t overdo it, either. Be careful about driving. Just be careful. It’s a tricky time’. 

I have a new health insurance plan for 2018.  It turned out my new plan does not cover a prescription drug that I use, and was looking to refill.

Now I know why prescription drug prices, is a top health care issue in the United States. Insurers and pharmacies can basically charge any price they want for prescription drugs. The drug I was looking to refill today, has been around a long, long time (more than 10 years).  Its manufacturer sells billions of dollars of it every year.  A generic version came out in 2016.

To illustrate:
Walgreens 90 day out-of-pocket, no insurance: $575. What?! 
Walgreens w. GoodRx coupon 90 days, out-of-pocket $168. Better. 
Costco w. GoodRx coupon 90 days, out-of-pocket $26. <Yes! I pick this one. 

What is going on here? The vaunted free market at work? I say it is capitalism and healthcare-for-profit, both gone haywire.  Bernie Sanders for President!

President Trump is in ‘excellent health*’, and mentally fit for office reported Dr. Ronny Jackson, presidential physician, on Tuesday.  Trump aced the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test, a brief, basic test used to detect mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease. (Critics point out that Jackson is not a  psychiatrist nor a psychologist, and mention other tests that could have been done).

*Trump is in fact borderline obese and has elevated cholesterol. He maintains a poor diet, has a stressful job, and gets very little exercise. Dr. Jackson did admit that Trump has to work on his diet.

Here is Forbes magazine, weighing in:  We are invited accordingly to ask: ‘excellent’, compared to what? Even that tends to vary, but the customary answer would be: the prevailing norms of a given population or culture. The typical American, with a typical American diet and lifestyle, is at massively elevated risk for debilitating chronic disease relative to, say, the typical Blue Zone resident, or the atypical Americans who manage to take good care of themselves here in spite of it all. America overall is famous for spending more on disease care than peer nations around the world, while having far less health to show for it by the measures that matter most: years in life, life in years, and the bounty of both. Americans lag behind much of the developed world in longevity, and lag even further behind in vitality.

About 90 Americans die every day due to opioid drug overdoses. Opioids are powerful painkiller drugs that attach to receptors in the brain. Once attached, they send signals to the brain which blocks pain, slows breathing, and has a general calming and anti-depressing effect.

President Trump finally declared it as a ‘public health emergency’ on Thursday (but not the national health emergency that it really is).  A ‘public health emergency’ does not appropriate federal funds the way a ‘national emergency’ does.

Congress is not helping.  Politicians are addicted to money from big pharma lobbyists, as comedian Trevor Noah noted on his Daily Show.  (Leave it to comedians to tell us the truth).  In 2015, the American Medical Association petitioned Congress to outlaw the running of commercials for prescription drugs on TV, to no avail.  In one case that came to light, pharmacies in a West Virginia town with 400 residents, received 9 million opioid drug pills in one year.  Did Congress pass a law that made it easier for the Drug Enforcement Agency to prosecute shady distributors of prescription drugs? Of course not: they made it harder.