May
4
Even the Insured Feel Strain of Health Costs - New York Times
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The economic slowdown has swelled the ranks of people without health insurance. But now it is also threatening millions of people who have insurance but find that the coverage is too limited or that they cannot afford their own share of medical costs.
Many of the 158 million people covered by employer health insurance are struggling to meet medical expenses that are much higher than they used to be — often because of some combination of higher premiums, less extensive coverage, and bigger out-of-pocket deductibles and co-payments.
With medical costs soaring, the coverage many people have may not adequately protect them from the financial shock of an emergency room visit or a major surgery. For some, even routine doctor visits might now take a back seat to basic expenses like food and gasoline.
“It just keeps eating into people’s income,” said James Corbin, a former union official who works for the local utility in Tucson.
Mr. Corbin said that under their employer’s health plan, he and his co-workers are now obliged to pay up to $4,000 of their families’ annual medical bills, on top of about $1,600 a year in premiums. Five years ago, they paid no premiums and were responsible for only about $2,000 of their families’ medical bills.
“That’s a big jump,” Mr. Corbin said. “You’ve just lost a month’s pay.”
Already, many doctors say, the soft economy is making some insured people hesitant to get care they need, reluctant to spend a $50 co-payment for an office visit. Parents “are waiting longer to bring in their children,” said Dr. Richard Lander, a pediatrician in Livingston, N.J. “They say, ‘The kid isn’t that sick; her temperature is only 102.’ ”
The problem of affording health care is most acute for people with no insurance, a group expected to soon exceed 48 million, but those with insurance say they too are feeling the pain.
Read more: Even the Insured Feel Strain of Health Costs - New York Times
Apr
21
Multiple sclerosis eludes doctors | NewsOK.com
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Michelle Floyd woke up one morning about four years ago, her body numb from neck to feet.
The sensation — if being numb is a sensation — went away in slices, like lights were turned off sequentially from one end of a long room to the other.
Multiple sclerosis often strikes people in the prime of their lives; it hit Floyd, now 29, when she thought she was in perfect health.
The autoimmune disease, in which neurons in the brain and spinal cord lose the fatty covering that allows them to effectively conduct the electricity of nerve impulses, happens commonly in women in their 30s. It may eventually leave them in wheelchairs, their minds clouded and their muscles uncontrolled.
Or it may not. One of the hallmarks of multiple sclerosis is its unpredictability — perhaps the disease’s only real consistency is that it is inconsistent. Some patients are unsteady, while others are blinded. Some have numbness, slurred speech. Many have weakness.
“It’s exactly the lack of repetitiveness of it from patient to patient that gives you the clue to the diagnosis,” said Dr. Gabriel Pardo, medical director of the MS Center of Oklahoma at Mercy NeuroScience Institute and the state’s only physician who specializes in the disease. He called the disease “fascinating.”
read more: Multiple sclerosis eludes doctors | NewsOK.com
Apr
9
Sensory symptoms of MS
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Multiple sclerosis is getting under my skin: A new sensory symptom - MS blog - HealthTalk
If you’ve ever wondered what MS feels like (or you have MS and have wondered whether you’re simply going crazy), check out the comments to this blog post. Keep in mind that many neurologists say that there is no pain associated with MS, an assertion that ought to earn each of them a free membership in the Flat Earth Society.