QOTD

Some of the right wing blogs are saying that this starts a slippery slope to a single payer system, and the end of the HMO industry as we know it.

God, they’re optimistic.

via mccarty.tim

Bug links

The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World is an amusing round up of some scary-ass bugs:

They embed one video of a botfly being removed, but I remembered seeing this one, which gives a much better view of the removal process. They also somehow missed the grandaddy of all botfly stories. Needless to say, neither of those links are for the squeamish.

Single Payer

What is Single Payer health care? Watch this video for an easy-to-follow explanation.

Health Care Crisis

USA Today has a piece on the health care crisis in America, focusing specifically on Houston. In fact, they profiled Ben Taub hospital, right next door to where I work, as one of the best examples of the problem. A few points really jumped out at me:

• 30% of people in Harris county (which is essentially Houston) have no insurance. That’s the highest rate among the top ten metropolitan areas in the US
• In order to qualify for Medicaid in Texas, a family of three must make less than $4,822 in income.

Are you freaking kidding me? A 40-hour per week job at minimum wage pays around 10 grand, and if you’ve ever tried to live on that kind of salary, you know that they certainly need all the help they can get. Other states have more reasonable levels set: In Florida it’s $10,000, in California it’s $18,000, and the cutoff is $25,000 in New York.

The state has forfeited more than $900 million in federal money under the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) during the past six years because it wouldn’t put up 28 cents for each 72 cents in federal aid. Restrictions put in place in 2003 cut about 200,000 children from the program in a state with the highest percentage of uninsured children, nearly twice the national average.

Welcome to Texas: We don’t give a rat’s ass about children.

Hat tip to Mike for the link