Megalextoria

To justify more government control of America’s health care, ObamaCare supporters frequently assert that access to and quality of health care in the United States are poor. However, the facts from source documents and medical journals show that Americans enjoy superior access to care compared to nationalized systems, the very systems put forth as models for ObamaCare — whether defined by wait-times for diagnosis, treatment, or specialists; timeliness of surgery; access to screening; or availability of medical technology and drugs. The separate issue of quality of care also demands analysis of objective data – and that means data from peer-reviewed medical journals, rather than subjective “rankings” and surveys by advocacy groups.

Even before medical care quality is compared, one should understand that a population’s lifestyle, behavior, and heterogeneity impact health outcomes and life expectancies, even when medical treatment is sound.

For instance, cigarette smoking and obesity are proven to increase risk for serious diseases, worsen outcomes from those diseases, and decrease life expectancy—even with excellent medical care. And their impact is huge.

Cigarette smoking alone accounts for about 443,000 deaths, or nearly one of every five, each year in the US, and is independently responsible for about 35 percent of all heart attacks, particularly fatal ones, and about 20 percent of strokes.

ecause smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, it causes or exacerbates many additional diseases, and it worsens outcomes from surgery and innumerable other treatments.

Obesity is now linked to greater risk of death from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, all of the most prevalent cancers, and worse treatment outcomes after heart surgery, trauma and burn surgery, and transplants. It is not simply that rates of diseases are higher; the treatment outcomes are significantly worse for cigarette smokers and obese patients.

Why would these behaviors have particular impact on US health care rankings?

First, the prevalence of obesity is far higher in the United States than in all other OECD nations.

…

Second, the United States harbors a far higher burden of cigarette smoking than other nations.

Full article: http://www.foxnews.c … t-world-doesnt-know/

Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.

The talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Obama administration and other top lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides. Discussions have stretched out for months, sources said.

A source close to the talks says: “Everyone has to hold hands on this and jump, or nothing is going to get done.”

Yet if Capitol Hill leaders move forward with the plan, they risk being dubbed hypocrites by their political rivals and the American public. By removing themselves from a key Obamacare component, lawmakers and aides would be held to a different standard than the people who put them in office.

Full article: http://www.politico. … des-90610.html?hp=t1

Monday, Regal Entertainment Group, the largest movie theatre chain in the country, announced that thousands of employees will have their work hours cut — as a direct result of the added cost of the new ObamaCare mandates that become effective later this year.

via DUE TO OBAMACARE, NATION’S LARGEST MOVIE THEATER CHAIN CUTS EMPLOYEE HOURS