plucky tree
It's the plucky ones that will surprise you most
wannabe housewife, foodie, pacifist, amateur chef & tennis player, libertarian, food rights & backyard chicken supporter, consultant @ flipboard, angel investor
how homeopathy “works”
For a long time, I put homeopathy in the same category as organized religion. I felt both were based primarily on faith with little science to back them up. I believed that both were the refuge of the weak or less intelligent among us.
The problem is that even among smart people, homeopathy is very popular and many people swear by it. Heck, in much of Europe and Asia, homeopathy is practically mainstream. Is this a pervasive mass delusion?
Before too many people think I’m crazy, I should mention that I strongly believe that homepathic remedies simply cannot work based on their physical content. They are basically salt or sugar pills or plain water and the notion that they contain some “essence” or “memory” that has a physical effect on the body makes little sense.
So, how is it that so many people feel that homeopathy works?
compromise healthcare doesn’t sound so bad sometimes
When I wrote this a few weeks ago:
…I never expected to see something like this happen:
The centrist alternative on healthcare
Even though it’ll never pass, because it wouldn’t siphon money away to politically powerful companies and organizations, it’s still heartening to see there are a few people in Congress that are interested in improving health care, rather than giving the appearance of “doing something” while actually making the health care system worse than it already is.
This is an excellent idea, and I’m not just saying this because I wrote about it two weeks ago. There’s hard data to show that co-ops and non-profits have been doing a phenomenal job for decades at providing excellent health care, coverage, and doing what’s best for patients and doctors.
corporations and health care
It might seem otherwise, but there’s a difference between health care motivated by capitalism and health-care run by publicly-traded for-profit corporations. It’s been shown to be true that non-profit health care systems have the lowest costs, the best care, and happy, well-compensated employees. Non-profit doesn’t mean they aren’t motivated by market forces to succeed. Here are two examples:
While both started as small and regional, the Mayo Clinic has attempted and succeeded in replicating their success and Sutter Health is growing year over year geographically.
handy tips for finding a good doctor
On your first visit to a new doctor, here are some handy questions to ask:
- If I disagree with your diagnosis or treatment recommendations, will you report me to the authorities?
- If I bring in my child to you and we mutually disagree with your decisions, will you actively seek to have my child taken away from me?
That might help avoid insanity like this:
Judge orders chemotherapy for 13-year-old cancer patient
It may seem like a no-brainer, but things like this are a slippery slope. Medical decisions are private matters and it’s a shame that the situation wasn’t treated with good old fashioned persuasion and compassion instead of law enforcement and the court system.
a kinder, gentler health care
The upside of catching a nasty flu bug on my last week in New Zealand was getting a genuine glimpse inside a health care system outside the USA for the first time. Without getting into the pros and cons of socialized medicine, the experience was profoundly more humane and comfortable than I’m used to:
