News!

[danaeris]

US government is now funding abstinence-only education for people ages 19-29 (courtesy of nathanw)

Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007.

Patients with minor ills don't cause long ER waits, study finds -- an article from Macleans.ca (courtesy of Google Ads)

The researchers found that for every 10 patients with minor ailments arriving in any eight-hour period, there is only an average 5.4 minutes added to the length of stay for patients with more serious medical problems and about two minutes on average to the time they spent waiting to see a doctor.

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So, the US is getting flushed down the Religious Right toilet AGAIN, and one of the common arguments against universal healthcare is debunked.

The moral of the story? Move to socialist Canada. ;)

Comments

[concordantnexus.livejournal.com]

The other morals: stay in Canada if you're lucky enough to already be here and if you are going to the Doctor for whatever reason, bring a book or a laptop or an iPod to keep yourself amused - that or be smart like a little girl that I sat beside last year - she was doing her homework. :)

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Emigration is about two points away for me.

[foms.livejournal.com]

In general, I don't suspect the premise(s). However, the article doesn't seem to present much evidence that I see as relevant.

4,100,000 visits to 110 hospital emergency rooms over one year (356 days) works out to an average of just over 110 visits per emergency room per day. There is an implication here that many hospital emergency rooms get fewer than 110 patients in an average day. Given that I've rarely seen a hospital emergency room with fewer than a dozen patients, even rural ones, in the middle of the night, on unimportant days of the year, these numbers strike me as peculiar. Maybe the researchers discounted some visits. Maybe they discounted some hospitals. Maybe they reported oddly. Maybe the reported information was presented differently, in the article.

The article does not touch on how many of these nickel-and-dime minor-ailment patients are there nor on the ratio or minor- to major-.

The time covered by the study is after the great blitz to move people away from hospital emergency rooms and toward Telehealth and their family doctors. If it used data from before the blitz and compared it to the data that is claimed in the article, then I'd be more likely to accept it with less questioning, especially if the article gave any indication that the research covered my previous points.

Even the 10 patients who had minor ailments mentioned in the article, at 5.4 minutes each, can add up to almost an hour of extra waiting time for people who arrive at the end of the queue after the deficit has already occurred. That deficit probably wouldn't be there if everyone used a parallel system or if the existing system more resembled what it was back when it was more fully funded.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

It's not 5.4 minutes per patient that shouldn't have been there. It's 5.4 minutes per patient that SHOULD be there.

Any reporter has to pick and choose how much detail he puts in. The level of detail you're asking for would require far too many column inches. If you're going to be that skeptical or questioning, you'd probably get the most out of the article by using it to find the paper and then reading the paper itself.

I'm not saying this is good or bad reporting. I'm just saying that dismissing the study's findings because you don't like the article is not fair, and that's my impression of what you're doing.

[foms.livejournal.com]

I was trying to be all careful not to put it on either the reporter or the researcher or even both.
Nevertheless, I maintain that if all syllogisms have three parts, then this is not a syllogism. To include only part of a logical argument in an article in which one has to pick and choose which details to include, without indicating the lacuna, implies that one should be able to follow the argument (I think).

I understand that there is a fine balance and that there are many other concerns to address in the article, in a limited space. You are probably right that I should either read the whole paper or shut up.

[softflame.livejournal.com]

The moral of the story? Move to socialist Canada. ;)

Working on it.....almost there ;)

[tunape.livejournal.com]

I attribute many of these things to the republican party as follows:

Republican party -> moral and religiously correct party(read: christian) -> associates with churchs and priest -> priest molest kids

Republicans also molest kids, specifically men molesting boys in a homosexual way.

since homosexuals are bad, unnatural, and don't exist, we can conclude that republicans do not think they, themselves, exist.

In terms of this election, it seems that the choice is between men molesting women(democrats) or men molesting boys(republicans).