Letters to the editor have gained a lot of attention from our online audience in the past week. Donna Helwig’s letter titled “Stop Promoting Envy” saw 17 lively comments. Helwig, of Auburn, argued in part … “If (President) Obama really cared about women, he would be creating good jobs with higher wages so women would […]
health care
Posted inLetters
Dr. E. Walworth: Embrace national health plan
Economic competition would not bring big Pharma or medical suppliers to their knees; it would just make them leaner and more efficient. As T.R. Reid points out in “The Health of America,” health insurance companies in Europe, required to be nonprofits, still vie for customers. Whenever I hear the label “socialist” applied to “Obamacare,” I […]
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Posted inNation / World, sj-web
Painkiller sales soar around US, fuel addiction
NEW YORK (AP) — Sales of the nation’s two most popular prescription painkillers have exploded in new parts of the country, an Associated Press analysis shows, worrying experts who say the push to relieve patients’ suffering is spawning an addiction epidemic. From New York’s Staten Island to Santa Fe, N.M., Drug Enforcement Administration figures show […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Thomas Page: Health care: No easy explanations
It is not that the conversations evolve around national issues on a regular basis; far from it. Why the kids are wearing sandals in the middle of January, or who needs rides and where this weekend is usually the extent of household management decisions on a regular basis. However, my intimate business associate (together, we […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
Bangor psychiatric hospital to lay off 45 employees in effort to close budget gap
BANGOR — notified 45 employees Monday that their jobs will be eliminated, Superintendent Linda Abernethy announced Tuesday. In all, the hospital plans to cut 91 positions, about half of which were unfilled because of funding concerns, according to Abernethy. “We have spent the last year trying to hold every vacancy as people left or retired,” […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Mark Eves: A prescription for real change
We can better manage our health care delivery without dismantling the safety net. An ideological battle has been brewing in Augusta. It is the kind of battle that goes straight to the heart of our state’s priorities and values. For the past three months, lawmakers have been working to resolve a shortfall in the state’s […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
Health providers gird for DHHS cuts under compromise deal
Lawmakers may have reached a bipartisan deal to close a budget gap at the Department of Health and Human Services, but health care providers are still bracing for deep cuts. Members of the Legislature’s budget committee pushed back against Gov. Paul LePage’s proposal to drop coverage and tighten eligibility for some MaineCare beneficiaries, but left […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
Top 5 percent of MaineCare recipients account for more than half the program’s cost
Lillian Davis spends many of her nights at an Orono nursing home wide awake. Deceived by advanced dementia, the 83-year-old loses sleep for days on end tidying imagary messes in her room or talking to visitors who aren’t there. Sometimes, the nurses push her wheelchair under a table and lock the brakes so she can’t […]
Posted inLetters
M. Tetenman: Not in the Constitution
The Sun Journal editorial of Jan. 15, “Founders began the first national health-care plan,” misses the point regarding the constitutionality of the individual mandate of the health care reform bill. Nowhere in the Constitution is the authority given to the federal government to compel citizens to purchase a product or service from another person or […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
Report: Older Mainers to pay more for health insurance, but many others will pay less
AUGUSTA, Maine — Older Mainers living in rural areas will pay more for health insurance under a controversial bill passed last spring, while many others will see lower rates, according to a new independent report. Most people who buy their own health insurance, particularly the young living in urban areas, will pay less for premiums […]