News and Politics // Current

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2 days ago

Senate Democrats win vote to begin debate on healthcare bill

Sweeping health carelegislation has cleared its first hurdle in the U.S. Senate on a party-line vote. The 60-39 vote clears the... more

Future_America
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Unclaimed dead stack up

The abandoned corpses, in white body bags with number tags tied to each toe, lie one above the other on steel racks inside a giant... more

asherp
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War Is Peace: Can Science Fight Media Disinformation?

When I saw the statement repeated online that theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge would be dead... more

pjacobs51
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Health Care Senate Debate: Why Should We Pay For Abortion?

HEY SENATOR HATCH! How Bout Those Of Us Who SINCERELY BELIEVE WAR IS WRONG?

Jenime
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Tax Cuts for the rich lead to a higher Deficit

Funny is it just me or dose it look like every time the Rich people get a big tax cut the Deficit gose up.

macfan
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Senate's healthcare plan includes tax on Botox

If you're considering Botox to erase frown lines or liposuction to get rid of love handles, you might want to move fast. The... more

Future_America
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Don't Panic! Climate Change Fraud EXPOSED?

FEVER I AM's youtube channel has a ton of links to what he's talking about that I can't post here (it screws up the... more

Jenime
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President Obama Views The Troops As Second Class Citizens?

President Obama Views The Troops As Second Class Citizens? Col. Ralph Peters on Fox News is interviewed and says "No."... more

Jenime
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American Community Survey Alert Letter

We received our American Community Alert letter today. It explains that we were "not you personally" selected to... more

nursediesel
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Franken Talks Down Angry Mob

I got to witness something really special. About a dozen tea party activists had staked out Sen. Al Franken's booth, and... more

Jenime
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New guidelines push back age for Pap smears

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Women in the United States should start cervical cancer screening at age 21 and most do not need an annual Pap smear, according to new guidelines issued on Friday that aim to reduce the risk of unnecessary treatment.

The guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists or ACOG now say women younger than 30 should undergo cervical cancer screening once every two years instead of an annual exam. And those age 30 and older can be screened once every three years.

The recommendations are based on scientific evidence that suggests more frequent testing leads to overtreatment, which can harm a young woman's chances of carrying a child full term.

"Overtreatment of minor abnormal pap tests in young women and adolescents can lead to consequences such as preterm labor in some cases. It increases the risk," said Dr. Thomas Herzog of Columbia University in New York, who is chairman of an ACOG subcommittee on gynecologic cancers.

"Preterm delivery has become a huge problem in the United States that has potential serious consequences for the unborn fetus," said Dr. Jennifer Milosavijevic, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, who supports the guideline changes.

AVOIDING UNNECESSARY PROCEDURES

"These new guidelines will allow us to avoid doing unnecessary procedures on the sexually active adolescent female," she said in an e-mail.

The guidelines are unlikely to be met with the kind of rebellion that accompanied new breast cancer screening guidelines this week, which were largely based on computer projections, Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said in a telephone interview.

"There is a lot more agreement about the science of cervical cancer screening," Lichtenfeld said.

Prior recommendations called for annual cervical cancer screening to start three years after a women first becomes sexually active, or by age 21. Although the rate of HPV infection is high in this population, rates of cervical cancer are very low.CHICAGO (Reuters) - Women in the United States should start cervical cancer screening at age 21 and most do not need an annual Pap... more

Ihatethemall
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added
3 days ago

President Obama's approval rating drops below 50%

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's job approval rating has dropped below 50 percent in a second major poll in an... more

Ihatethemall
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3 days ago

China asks US, How will you pay for healthcare?

Guess what? It turns out the Chinese are kind of curious about how President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plans would impact America’s huge fiscal deficit. Government officials are using his Asian trip as an opportunity to ask the White House questions. Detailed questions.

Boilerplate assurances that America won’t default on its debt or inflate the shortfall away are apparently not cutting it. Nor should they, when one owns nearly $2 trillion in assets denominated in the currency of a country about to double its national debt over the next decade.

Nothing happening in Washington today should give Beijing any comfort or confidence about what may happen tomorrow. Healthcare reform was originally promoted as a way to “bend the curve” on escalating entitlement costs, the major part of which is financing Medicare and Medicaid. That is looking more and more like an overpromised deliverable.

For instance, a new study from the U.S. government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finds that the healthcare reform bill recently passed in the House of Representatives would increase healthcare spending to 21.3 percent of GDP by 2019 compared with 20.8 percent under current law. That’s bending the curve the wrong way. The study also questions the “long-term viability” of the $500 billion in Medicare cuts meant to help pay for expanded insurance coverage.

In addition, the CMS study gives a clearer cost estimate than the one provided by the Congressional Budget Office. According to the CBO, the 10-year cost of PelosiCare is $894 billion. But that analysis includes early years with little government spending, According to the CMS, the House approach would cost $1 trillion from 2013-2019, or some $140 billion a year when fully put into effect.

Few realists in Washington think any of the current reform plans make a significant dent in the long-term healthcare cost to government. Indeed, the Senate Budget Committee recently held hearing about creating a bipartisan commission to find solutions to America’s entitlements problems.

If healthcare reform really bent the curve, there would be a no need for such a commission to do Healthcare Reform 2.0.

The Chinese might want to keep up the questioningGuess what? It turns out the Chinese are kind of curious about how President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plans would... more