Free Republic

New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a quick answer when asked how Americans would pay for the 'Medicare for all' plan she and other socialist-leaning Democrats favor: "Just pay for it." In an interview with Jorge Ramos last week, Ocasio-Cortez was asked how she would pay for the multi-billion dollar health care plan promoted by liberal lawmakers like Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif. Ramos noted critics say the the program would be "more expensive" than the current system, to which she answered that people would "just pay for it." “People often say, like, how are you...

If you're considering eating raw or undercooked snails, slugs or centipedes — you may want to think again. Some of these delicacies may carry "rat lungworm," a parasite that can infect critters through rodent feces. Here's what you should know about the parasitic roundworm, Angiostrongylus cantonensis, and how it can be avoided. Where is the parasite found? Rodents have the adult form, with sickened rats passing the parasite's larvae in feces, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says online. How are snails, slugs and humans infected?Infections occur in snails and slugs when they consume the parasite's larvae, the agency says, adding that humans...

A man in Australia has died from rat lungworm caused by a garden slug he ate for a dare eight years earlier. Sam Ballard, who was a promising rugby player, died at the age of 27 after developing a series of complications from the disease. Ballard was 19 in 2010 when he and some friends were drinking wine with his friends in a garden. “We were sitting over here having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying to act as grown up and a slug came crawling across here,” his friend Jimmy Galvin told news.com.au. “The conversation came...

Health officials have confirmed 12 cases of rat lungworm disease in the continental United States since January 2011 — including six patients who had not traveled abroad but still contracted the illness caused by a parasite endemic to tropical regions in Asia and Hawaii. [...snip...] The disease is also known as angiostrongyliasis, after the parasitic roundworm Angiostrongylus cantonensis whose larvae hatch in the lungs of rats and then are expelled in the rodents’ excrement. At that point, the larvae can be picked up by snails and slugs, and then passed along to humans if the snails and slugs are eaten...

Centipedes mean business. They can slay animals 15 times their size, even devour whole snakes if they want. But the true horror of the centipede may be something else, hiding unseen inside their many-legged forms: a dangerous parasite, which scientists say has never been observed in these segmented critters – until now. The stowaway in question is the parasitic roundworm Angiostrongylus cantonensis – aka 'rat lungworm' – a food-borne parasite typically found in snails and other mollusks, which has now for the first time been detected in centipedes too. As for the strange reason we know this? It starts with...

Humans have been cooking food since before they were Homo sapiens....but ... There was a raw food festival in Novemeber 20-23, 2008 in Kalapana....and now this.... (From the Star-Bulletin) Jan 5, 2009: ...Halda said he and a friend, Silka Strauch, who live in Black Sands between Pahoa and Kalapana, have been eating raw vegetables and taking precautions by cleaning the produce with a peroxide rinse. He suspects they may have accidentally consumed tiny larvae of slugs lodged in the deep folds of peppers.

Sam Ballard never did anything wrong, if you ask family and friends. The teenager from Sydney’s upper north shore was having a laugh and some red wine with mates in the backyard, “trying to act like grown-ups”. It was 2010 and it was a night that would change his life, and the lives of everybody around him, forever.A slug crawled across the concrete patio and, teens being teens, a dare emerged for Sam to eat it.One of his best friends, Jimmy Galvin, later described the moment. “We were sitting over here having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying...

What is a pre-existing condition? This is strictly an insurance term that was created to characterize a particular health condition a person applying for insurance may have. The vast majority of people have pre-existing conditions. They may range from migraine headaches or chronic acne to multiple sclerosis or breast cancer. Historically, insurance companies went through a process known as underwriting, which meant they assessed the health conditions, current and past, that the applicant experienced. The cost of the insurance policy was based on the perceived risk and exposure of the insurance company. In some cases, the risk was so great...

Nancy Sobin knows her way around paperwork. She started her own business three years ago, helping small business owners and elderly clients manage their finances. That's when she turned to the Obamacare exchanges for health coverage. "I was fortunate enough, because I was just starting my business, to get a subsidy … and it was pretty good insurance" for about $300 a month, said the owner of Professional Paperwork Services in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. But as her business improved, her insurance options changed last year. "I didn't get the subsidy anymore, because my business went well," Sobin explained. So, she...

The 2018 midterms could be remembered as a turning point for America’s health care system.Until recently, only the far left of the Democratic Party openly called for the United States to completely abandon capitalism in our health care system in favor of socialized medicine. Few remember that when the Democrats last had control of the House of Representatives, in 2010, most Democrats chose to reject pushing for a single-payer health care model, despite the fact they had control of both houses of Congress and the White House. Even then-President Barack Obama, a longtime supporter of enacting a single-payer scheme, told...

Venezuela’s government says there is no humanitarian crisis in the country. But the stories of worried families navigating its crumbling health system suggest otherwise. **SNIP** Her images, taken at a hospital and a clinic in the eastern city of Cumana, show a debilitated health system: shortages or a complete dearth of antibiotics and other medicine, run-down equipment, dirty facilities, and often no running water. Amid the shortages, tiny medical organisations are taking on the responsibilities of the state. Fundación Jesed is one of them. Vanessa Ramos and her husband run the charity out of their living room in Cumana. Desperate...

On immigrationWith an army of people marching toward the U.S. from Central America, let’s remember there was a huge controversy in America because the Trump administration was separating children from their parents and holding them after they illegally entered the country. A court order stated that children can be held for no more than 20 days after crossing the border. This came from a 1997 case -- Flores v. Reno (as in Attorney General Janet Reno). Some of us were called heartless and worse because we sought to put at least some of the blame on parents who traversed a...

(SOME READERS MAY FIND THIS DISTRUBING) We all know that the Republican Party propaganda machine demonizes the Clinton's, Barack Obama, George Soros etc. and milks resentment of them to drive up voter turnout. What better way to neutralize that than to stage this kind of activity two weeks before an election to neutralize the GOP game plan. My own personal experience with hatred and resentment of 'enemies', real or imagined, reminds we of why I say this. My own experience with political activism reminds me of this and my experience applies to any kind of political activist, "Right" or "Left"....

... In anticipation of Mr. Sanders’ arrival this week in another Midwestern battleground state, Mark Sommerhauser of the Wisconsin State Journal noted on Thursday that “the policy views Sanders champions have become touchstones for many Democrats here and nationally.” Mr. Sommerhauser adds: Examples include Sanders’ “Medicare For All” health care plan and his call to raise the minimum wage to $15. Peter Rickman - a Milwaukee labor activist who led Sanders’ Wisconsin delegation to the 2016 Democratic National Convention - said Sanders “created the political space” to tout those issues, as well as free college tuition, within the Democratic mainstream....

NEW YORK — When future historians look back on the 21st century, one of the most iconic photos may be of a smiling, dark-haired man in blue scrubs protectively holding a newborn — the world’s first commercially produced “three-parent” baby. This is John Zhang, the Chinese-born, British-educated founder and medical director of a Manhattan fertility center that is blowing up the way humans reproduce. In 2009, Zhang helped a 49-year-old patient become the world’s oldest known woman to carry her own child. In the not-too-distant future, he says, 60-year-old women will be able to do the same. In 2015, Zhang...

The average wait time for children to see an audiologist in the Northwest Territories is 70 weeks, a number Frame Lake MLA Kevin O'Reilly says is unacceptable. "A wait time over 70 weeks? That's over a year," he said. "Kids, they could be in school over a year, miss a grade, without their proper hearing or being assessed, and that doesn't seem right." O'Reilly first started looking for this information for a constituent and raised the issue in the N.W.T. Legislative Assembly Tuesday, asking questions about government data he'd been provided by the territory's health department.

The current political debate over Medicaid has centered on the idea of putting patients to work so they can earn their government benefits. Yet some experts say the country would be better served by asking this question instead: Are insurance companies — which receive hundreds of billions in public money — earning their Medicaid checks? More than two-thirds of Medicaid recipients are enrolled in such programs, a type of public-private arrangement that has grown rapidly since 2014, boosted by the influx of new beneficiaries under the Affordable Care Act. States have eagerly tapped into the services of insurers as one...

The GOP just won’t stop.Senate Leader Mitch McConnell today revealed plans to renew efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act if Republicans control Congress next year.Washington Post: McConnell: GOP may take another shot at repealing Obamacare after the midtermsMcConnell said that his party’s failure last year to repeal the health-care law, also known as Obamacare, was “the one disappointment of this Congress from a Republican point of view.”“If we had the votes to completely start over, we’d do it. But that depends on what happens in a couple weeks …” McConnell said.McConnell only echoes other Republicans hoping to return to...

Non-Issue: In recent weeks, you may have begun to hear Democratic attack ads aimed at bashing Republicans over their stances on “healthcare.” Whether the ad claims GOP candidates want to “take away coverage for preexisting conditions” or “make health care more expensive,” Democrats cannot escape the fact that they, not Republicans, own the disaster that is the current state of U.S. healthcare delivery and financing.

Support from family and community appear to shield Latinos from rising suicide rates. ... experience illustrates a “suicide paradox,” experts say. Even though Latinos face economic disadvantages and other stress in their lives, their suicide rate is about one-third that of non-Hispanic whites, both in Texas and nationally. Experts attribute the relatively low suicide rate among Latinos to the culture’s strong family and community support systems, which appear to provide some degree of protection. In Texas, the suicide rate among non-Hispanic whites has been steadily increasing during the past 16 years, from 13.4 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2000 to...