Socialized insurance necessarily leads to socialized medicine, and if the government controls well over half of the insurance sector through Medicare and Medicaid, and tightly regulates the rest, it is only inevitable that it will also seek to control how health care is bought and sold.
David Dranove on ObamaCare, at The Health Care Blog
Many smokers experience stress and weight gain when they quit. These are common after-effects of quitting smoking. These circumstances happen as the body deals with the absence of nicotine that it was used to having regularly before quitting took place.
Weight gain cannot be prevented when smoking is completely stopped. Even if you dont eat much nor do some exercise to avoid it, you still end up adding a few pounds. Cases also show that more women gain more weight than men once they cease smoking. This is why some smokers do not continue with quitting because they do not want to get fat. This should not be the case since studies have shown that the amount of weight gain due to quitting is just minimal. Their health is more endangered if they continue to smoke.
Obama is living in a parallel Vulcan universe if he thinks he and his strategists can spend the next two months using campaign appearances, advertising, robocalls and other voter communication to demonize Republicans on Social Security, and then turn around in January and try to make a deal on that same issue.
Mark Halperin, writing in TIME
The most common charge involving marijuana is possession. Most of the volume of confiscated substance comes from said offenses and an arrest for such could lead to a lot more complications than what most people would think. Although there are differences on how cases are handled in some states, the New Jersey law seems to be a good example just to have an idea of what a person might face in possessing marijuana.
If you are found to possess less than 50 grams of marijuana with no intention of selling, it usually makes the disorderly persons offense. At this stage, licensing boards, potential employers, and other third parties will be able to access this information in the event of conviction. Aside from these, a six-month revocation of drivers license will also be applied if proven guilty.
The Obesity Paradox: While overweight people are more prone to heart failure, patients with heart failure have lower mortality rates if they are obese.
MIT scientists are trying to enable Type I diabetes patients to test their blood sugar levels with light. It beats using a needle.
Here is something that a lot of people may not agree with or may find surprising. Despite the many adverse effects associated with alcohol, the consumption of which is included as a risk factor in several diseases, a study has indicated that absolute abstinence from alcohol is not exactly better for a persons health.
A feature on ABC News shares the controversial conclusions of a study conducted by researchers from the University of Texas, Austin. Researchers followed a group of middle-aged test subjects into old age and determined that more subjects who abstained from alcohol died within twenty years of the start of the study, when compared with those who drank moderately and even heavily.
We previously reported on Larry Kotlikoffs assessment. The first issue of a new publication by Morgan Stanley called Sovereign Subjects is captioned Ask Not Whether Governments Will Default, but How. Here is Richard Posners comment at his blog:
Morgan Stanleys report estimates that the ratio of current U.S. public debt to realistically realizable tax revenues is 3.58 to 1, which is the highest by a large margin of the countries in the reports list; only Greece comes close (3.12 to 1) Americas net worth is negative, and this negative net worth is eight times larger than our GDP. This means that the net present value of the governments liabilities, minus assets, is approximately $120 trillion At [some] point the bondholders, and holders of other contractual rights against the government, have to start worrying about the prospects for outright default or default through inflation. These are possibilities in our future, just as in the future of Greece.
When Paris Hilton got caught for having 0.8 grams of cocaine in her handbag at Las Vegas, she tried to tell officers that it was just gum. The controversial celebrity now claims that despite the handbag containing her identification, credit cards, cash, and a prescription inhaler, the cocaine was probably placed by someone who wanted to set her up. She says that there might be a group of people who conspired to put her in a very compromising situation.
It could be a setup, Hilton allegedly told pals. Everyone knows how against cocaine I am. She adds that the whole mess could have been avoided if the authorities werent so star struck and then blew the whole thing out of proportion.”
Should you write health care or healthcare?
Why is it called CMS instead of CMMS?
If God is capitalized, should his reference be His or his? (Or her?)
Michael L. Millenson has answers at The Health Care Blog.
The results of a study conducted by a team of Canadian researchers provide a scientific basis for the benefits that smoking cannabis may bring to people suffering from chronic pain, as shared in a feature on WebMD. The research was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Henry McQuay, an emeritus fellow at Balliol College at the Oxford University in England, wrote a commentary that accompanied the study, and indicated that the new study adds to the trickle of evidence that cannabis may help some of the patients who are struggling [with pain] at present.