Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2009 (21. évfolyam, 1-50. szám)
2009-11-27 / 45. szám
"Obama Care" is Beginning to Take Shape Rationing of Mammograms, PAP Tests, EKG and other procedures Massive rationing of health care has begun in the United States. First it was a government agency “suggesting” the rationing of mammograms, a proven method to save womens lives via early detection. We know about the mammogram and Pap cut backs - In Europe the mammogram system that is proposed for us causes a 30% higher death rate among women with breast cancer. Now, a medical organization is promoting the rationing of Pap tests, another test that saves womens lives. Only days after a federal panel scaled back on breast cancer screening recommendations for many women, another organization - the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists - has done the same for a screening credited with drastically reducing the rates of cervical cancer in the U.S. Women of all ages should undergo Pap smears less frequently than they do now, those new guidelines say. And young women are advised not to bother until age 21. Why would doctors suggest this? “But together, the two sets of revisions might give rise to a suspicion that women’s health has suddenly taken a back seat to economic pressures, cancer specialists acknowledged Thursday. The annual Pap smear is the only reason some women see a physician, and some doctors fear that, without a sense of urgency to get that test, many women might skip preventive healthcare.” Churchill had a saying, “An appeaser is one who feeds his friends to the alligators, hoping they eat him last.” That is why the drug companies jumped on board, hoping the government would wait a while before they are taken over. That is why the AMA approved the government take over of health care, hoping that doctors would be able to stay private, not government employees, a while longer. My guess is that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is hoping for some concessions on other issues by showing their “good faith” on giving women the best possible health care. Looks like the first to take a hit on life are women. The Pap test has cut the death rate for cervical cancer by more than 50%. “Introduced in the 1940s, the test is considered the most successful cancer screen in medical history, reducing cervical cancer deaths in the U.S. by more than 70% over the last half-century. Death rates fell from 14.8 cases per 100,000 women in 1975 to 6.5 per 100,000 in 2006.” Now, the Feds are cutting back on other health care procedures as well. Transthoracic echo with spectral and color flow Doppler (93306): 42 percent cut Left heart catheterization (93510-26): 24 percent cut * EKG: 21 percent cut * Level 4 established patient office visit (99214): 11 percent increase. CMS projects that the proposed changes would reduce total Medicare payments to cardiology by 11 percent. This is from the American College of Cardiology. So, under the ObamaCare doctors would receive less reimbursement, but 31 million more patients. How soon before the doctors either turn away patients (rationing) or just retire? “This boost for GPs comes at the expense of certain specialties. The 2010 rules will visit an 11% overall cut on cardiology and 19% on radiation oncology. They’re targets only because of cost: Two-thirds of morbidity or mortality among Medicare patients owes to cancer or heart disease.” Source: Stephen Frank - California Political News and Views - www.capoliticalnews.com The Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and the EU Center of Excellence Washington D.C. Invite you to a discussion on “Europe Shifts Gears: The View from East Central Europe” with His Excellency János Martonyi Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Republic of Hungary Amb. Kurt Volker, Moderator Senior Fellow and Managing Director, Center for Transatlantic Relations Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Central Europe remains one of Europe’s great success stories as well as an area of great challenge. Several factors - the global financial crisis and recession, a newly assertive and authoritarian Russia, growing fatigue and divisions within the European Union, the U.S.-Russia re-set, and home-grown ethnic divisions and nationalism - have all put Central Europe back on the front burner of the transatlantic agenda. János Martonyi was Hungary’s Foreign Minister in 1998-2002 in the government of FIDESZ, which again leads in national polls ahead of the Spring 2010 elections. Hear his perspectives on how challenges in this critical region affect, and are driven by, the challenges in the broader transatlantic relationship. When: Thursday December 3, 2009 Time: 11:30 AM - 12:45 PM Where: Rome Auditorium, 1619 Massachusetts Ave N.W., Washington, DC RSVP to transatlanticRSVP@jhu.edu (Please put *December 3* in the subject line) or call 202-663-5880 for questions. Man Unable To Enter China Languishes In Tokyo Airport Activist Feng Zhenghu has been sitting at Narita International Airport for weeks, refusing to enter Japan in hopes his protest will gain him entry back home. Oprah To End Her Show In 2011 In another blow to the struggling business of network television, Oprah Winfrey is expected to announce on her program today that she will step down from her syndicated afternoon talk show, which over the last two decades has transformed her into one of the richest and most influential forces in popular culture. Although she has kept mum about her plans, Winfrey, 55, is expected to furnish a new show to OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network, the long-delayed cable outlet she is starting in partnersliip with Discovery Communications. The network is scheduled to roll out in 2011 in about 75 million U.S. homes. The media personality and mogul — whose show has served as the main pedestal from which she has engaged newsmakers high and low, transformed obscure products and personalities into runaway successes, and preached a gospel of self-empowerment to her devoted, largely female audience — is betting that, in a world of ever-fragmenting audiences, the future lies with creating her own branded network. She was recently ranked No. 234 on a Forbes list of the world’s richest people, with an estimated net worth of $2.7 billion. Tim Bennett, the president of Winfrey’s Chicago-based production company, Harpo Inc., confirmed to station partners that she would end the existing program Sept. 9, 2011. “Oprah’s personal comments about this on tomorrow’s live show will mark an historic television moment that we will all be talking about for years to come,” Bennett wrote. Meanwhile, CBS and Walt Disney Co.’s ABC are expected to bear the brunt of the financial pain ushered in by Winfrey’s departure. CBS, which acquired Winfrey’s original syndicator, King World, for $2.5 billion 10 years ago, has taken in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue over the years from “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” ABC carries the show on many of its stations, including its owned-and-operated outlets KABC-TV in Los Angeles and WABC-TV in New York. The show, which has aired in late afternoon on most stations across the country, can be counted on to deliver big audiences for the local newscasts that usually followed it. “She uniquely remains appointment television,” Bill Carroll, vice president at New York-based Katz Television Group, which advises local stations on programming and other issues, said earlier this week when the Winfrey development was rumored but not confirmed. “When she came on and established herself, it was a sea change in the industry, and when she leaves it will be a sea change.” Winfrey, however, now confronts a broadcast medium that is scarcely recognizable compared with the one that greeted her Sept. 8, 1986, when she took her local Chicago talk show into national syndication. Broadcast ratings have plummeted in recent years as viewers have fled to cable and online programming. Although “Oprah Winfrey” is still the top-rated syndicated talk show, its ratings have not been immune from the erosion. Station managers are finding themselves hard-pressed to continue making rich programming deals, even for “Oprah.” Industry scuttlebutt had it that her rich license fees were going to drop as much as 50% in her next renewal deal. Some observers have pointed out — although not publicly, for fear of alienating someone who retains unrivaled power in the entertainment sphere - that Winfrey had little choice but to give up the syndicated show and bend her empire to new realities. (L.A. Times) SUBSCRIBE TO THE HÍRLAP! He is a man caught between two countries, a political protester who has stubbornly steeled himself inside the sterile purgatory of Tokyo’s Narita International Airport. Each day, Feng Zhenghu sits on a bench in front of the Japanese customs booths, calmly looking on as tens of thousands of arriving passengers go by, resigning himself to residence in a diplomatic no man’s land. He refuses to pass through government customs because that would mean entering Japan — something Feng has decided he simply will not do. He wants to go home to China. Eight times since June, the 55-year-old activist has been rebuffed by Chinese officials in his attempts to reenter his homeland, with no reason being given. On four of the occasions, airlines in Japan didn’t allow him to board. On the other four, he got as far as Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport before being dispatched back to Tokyo. During the last go-round, on Nov. 2, a defiant Feng drew the line: Arriving back at Narita, he refused to enter the country. Feng, an economist turned human rights author and blogger, was sentenced in 2000 to three years in a Chinese prison for writing a book he said criticized Chinese regulations against foreign company investment. He also believes a speech he once gave criticizing the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown is being held against him.Still, he said, officials cannot banish him on mere pretense. Speaking on his cellphone recently, Feng said he would prefer to languish in a Chinese jail rather than live as a free man in Japan or anywhere else. Although he is angry at his government, Feng misses his homeland - his family, his friends, the place he has spent most of his life. “I just want to go home,” he told a reporter Wednesday, tears welling in his eyes as he spoke. “I’m Chinese. Why can’t I go home? I didn’t do anything illegal. I just wrote a book that didn’t meet with the regulations of the Chinese government.” AMERICAN Hungarian Journal DUNA Travel 8530 Holloway Dr. #102 W. Hollywood, CA 90069 Spa, Hotel foglalások, Kocsi bérlés Kedvezményes repülőjegy árak LAX-BUD-LAX $535.-tői +Tax +Fee Információért hívják ZSUZSÁT TEL: (310) 652-5294 FAX: (310) 652-5287 1-888-532-0168 November 27,2009
