Universal healthcare v. universal healthcare insurance

By Michael Fraase

Sunday, 19 October 2008 10:40AM CDT

Section: ESRD

Healthcare moneyA simple question for the Obama acolytes: If the candidate truly believes—as he’s said—that healthcare is a right in the United States, and not a privilege or even responsibility, why is he campaigning on a program to provide not access to healthcare, but rather access to healthcare insurance.

There’s a big difference between the two.

Could the reason be that the candidate is bought and paid for by the US insurance lobby? That would certainly explain Hillary Clinton’s near-miraculous shift from supporting universal healthcare to supporting universal health insurance. Oh, and by the way, if you need a clear indication that the tide is turning in the US electorate just take a look at how the insurance lobby’s contributions have shifted in the last year.

I’ve suspected all along that Obama was little more than just another politician, and this does very little to assuage the perception. And don’t take this as any sort of backhanded endorsement of John McCain’s healthcare plans—McCain’s plan isn’t even worth criticizing.

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Study finds ESRD patients less likely to get cardiovascular medicine

By Michael Fraase

Wednesday, 23 July 2008 08:36PM CDT

Section: ESRD

Heart attackKevin McKeever, writing for HealthDay News, reports a study published by the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology found kidney failure patients are less likely to receive recommended medications after a heart attack. Even though kidney function is a known risk factor for cardiovascular events, end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients are “often deprived of heart-protecting medicines such as beta blockers and cholesterol-lowering statins.“

“The researchers analyzed data on medication use after a heart attack, or myocardial infarction, in approximately 21,500 patients, 17 percent of whom had kidney disease. After adjustment for other factors, those with chronic kidney disease were 22 percent less likely to start beta blocker treatment. Those with end-stage renal disease were 43 percent less likely to be treated with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers and 17 percent less likely to be put on statins.“

Why?

Meanwhile, Frank Sietzen Jr. has written a pretty good hemodialysis overview for the Washington Post. My experience over the past eight years matches Sietzen’s, except I use larger (14-gauge) needles.

Having recently started using the buttonhole needle placement technique (needles, my ass; they’re big as nails), I’m finding that it’s less painful and I have fewer bleeding problems at the end of each dialysis run.

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Elbow-leading health advocates

By Michael Fraase

Sunday, 22 June 2008 01:45PM CDT

Section: ESRD

AssertivenessDoc Searls is struggling through health problems and blogging about the experience.

A couple of days ago Searls linked to Francine Hardaway advising patients not to go to the hospital alone. Always take an advocate—preferably one that leads with their elbows—with you. Good advice. Read it.

When my kidneys failed I was blessed to have a good friend—a nurse practitioner who actually wrote the early dialysis protocols—as an advocate. She was with my wife and me for the hospitalization, every medical appointment, and even found a better dialysis center than the one to which I was originally assigned.

My funniest recollection is when she’d start asking my first nephrologist questions like, “Aren’t you going to check….“ His response was invariably, “Oh, right, I was just going to do that.“

To this day, I’m not sure I would have survived without her questions like that.

So here’s to all the elbow-leading health advocates and all the questions they bring. Happy solstice.

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