Category: Health Care
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The “Occasional” Butchery of Children
By James C. Sherlock The New York Post wrote recently: At 12 years old, Chloe Cole decided she was transgender. At 13, she was put on puberty blockers and prescribed testosterone. At 15, she underwent a double mastectomy. Less than a year later, she realized she’d made a mistake. Note the gracious acceptance of agency…
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Sen. McClellan Charges Racism as Va. Health Commissioner works to Improve Health of Black Mothers and Babies
By James C. Sherlock The left will not be swayed from invoking racism in every situation, everywhere. They deploy that charge especially disgracefully when conservatives attempt to help poor people be healthier, better educated, safer and more successful. Because those actually are not the objectives of the left. They simply don’t care about such things.…
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Thinking About Gun Control
by Bill O’Keefe After each mass shooting there is an outcry for Congress to do something. In 2021, there were almost 21,000 murders involving guns and almost 700 mass shootings (those involving four or more victims). There has been no responsible action at the Federal level because Congress seems more interested in political food fights…
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Don’t Break a Leg Looking for Baby Food
by James C. Sherlock Iodinated contrast media (ICM) are diagnostic imaging support drugs containing iodine that are given to patients to enhance the ability to see blood vessels and organs on medical images such as X-rays or computed tomography (CT) scans. These images provide greater detail when necessary to help health care professionals diagnose potential…
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Medicaid, Public Health and Chronic Disease Management
by James C. Sherlock From the CDC: Chronic diseases have significant health and economic costs in the United States. Preventing chronic diseases, or managing symptoms when prevention is not possible, can reduce these costs. Virginia pays a great deal of money every year to contractors who manage the care of its Medicaid population. It is…
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Personnel Shortages that Plague Virginia’s Health Facilities Inspection Staff in the Hands of Budget Negotiators
by James C. Sherlock One of the most important responsibilities of Virginia state government is to inspect medical facilities and home care providers to ensure we are safe when we enter their care. It continues to fail in that responsibility thanks to years of Virginia budgets that have consciously ignored the need for increased inspector…
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TAVR Tuesday and Barbecue Thursday
by Steve Haner Fourteen nights in a hospital, especially if you are fully awake and observant, is very instructive. Here are some things I want to share: The hospitals are understaffed and otherwise under major stress, to the point that patient standards of care have changed. As nice and diligent as everyone is, nurses or…
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Virginia Supreme Court Gives Hope to Competitors of Regional Healthcare Monopolies
Is the Virginia Antitrust Act now in play? by James C. Sherlock There is good news this morning for those of us hoping for more competition to regional healthcare monopolies in Virginia. The Virginia Supreme Court (the Court) overturned the decision of the State Health Commissioner to deny the application of the Chesapeake Regional Medical Center…
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Improving Petersburg Public Health is a State Issue as Well as a Local and Personal Responsibility
By James C. Sherlock The RTD today published an article “Petersburg is Virginia’s least healthy locality, and money is a big reason why” about one of my favorite subjects – the stubborn health problems in Petersburg and other poor urban areas of Virginia. The story references the latest annual study from the University of Wisconsin…
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A Lot of Unanswered Questions
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Painting racial slurs on the face of an unconscious Black teenage boy is wrong. That being said, a recent incident in the Richmond area leads to a lot of questions, including concerning the quality of reporting done by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. According to an RTD on-line story Friday by reporter Mark Bowes,…
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Unionize Virginia’s Worst Nursing Home Chains
by James C. Sherlock If you go back to the series of articles I published here in October of 2021, you can refresh your memory on the dangers represented by Virginia’s worst nursing home chains. If you look at the complete spreadsheet of every Virginia nursing home from that data sorted by ownership, the bad…
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Fix the Virginia Department of Health
by James C. Sherlock Governor Youngkin and his new administration have an opportunity to fix crucial problems in the Department of Health that have been festering for decades. The issues: How can Virginia regulate effectively its state-created healthcare monopolies? In a directly related matter, how can we fix the failures, famously demonstrated during COVID, of…
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Things Are Not Always As Intuitive As They May Seem
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Sometimes, public policy proposals can be counterintuitive. Virginia law authorizes health insurance companies to charge smokers up to 50% greater than the premium that would otherwise be effective. The 2022 General Assembly passed legislation that would have repealed this authorization. The bills, HB 675 (Hope, D-Arlington) and SB 422 (Edwards, D-Roanoke), passed…
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Pill-Popping Nurse Gets Three Years in Prison
by Kerry Dougherty If there’s a special ring in hell for those who prey on children — and I hope there is — there should also be a place reserved for those who hurt the elderly. Consider the monstrous acts of Janeen Bailey, a 57-year-old LPN with 25 years of nursing experience who stole painkillers…
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Virginia’s COVID Performance Rates a D
by James A. Bacon Virginia performed worse than 35 other states during the COVID-19 recession, based on an analysis that encompasses mortality rates, economic performance and educational performance. The Commonwealth fared better than average in health outcomes, worse than average in economic performance, and near the bottom in school closures. The overall ranking: D. Nationally,…