Happy Independence Day
July 4, 2009 by Suchita S
New student loan plan goes into effect
July 3, 2009 by Suchita SGreat news for undergraduates who rely on student loans:
The extended payment program, called “income-based repayment,” limits what borrowers have to pay to 15 percent of the difference between their gross income and 150 percent of federal poverty guidelines. After borrowers make payments on loans for 25 years, the balance is forgiven. (The Education Department already offered an “income-contingent” repayment plan, which was similar, but less generous.)
“These programs are such an enormous victory,” said Christine Lindstrom, director of the higher-education access program at U.S. PIRG, the consumer advocacy group. “It enables all borrowers to be able to face their life circumstances and know there is some flexibility and responsiveness based on what life throws their way.”
This program (put in place through the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007) really is great news and will help many people. Except a lot of medical and dental students are feeling miffed.
To pay for this income-based repayment model (IBR), funds were redistributed from the “20/220″ rule, which sunsetted on July 1. The 20/220 rule allowed for economic hardship deferments when monthly loan payments were more than 20% of income and where the income-minus-debt-burden was less than 220% of the federal poverty line. About 67% of incoming medical residents (aka just-graduated medical students) qualified for this economic hardship deferment. Not loan forgiveness – just deferments and continuation of subsidizing the interest. Which is really nice when you are carrying an average of $140,000 in debt and making $43,000 for your first 3 to 7 years post-graduation.
Yes, I’m sad to see 20/220 go (temporarily, perhaps, as there is constant pressure to revive it). But the silver lining…
Also on Wednesday, the interest rate on new federal Stafford loans, the most widely used federally guaranteed student loan, will drop to 5.6 percent, from 6 percent. By 2012, the rate will fall to 3.4 percent, under a schedule mandated by Congress.
EDIT 10:27 am: Grrr. The new Stafford loan interest rates only apply to undergraduates. Can’t a grad/professional student get some love?!
Black Bears
July 1, 2009 by David LSaw a bunch in the northern woods of Wisconsin this past weekend (up in Price County). They really like eating the garbage around there lol.
Good stuff.
I think I am as obsessed with bears as ducks now…
2009 NYC Pride March
June 29, 2009 by Suchita S
Sign of the Times
June 27, 2009 by Suchita SAt the 6th Ave (fine, Avenue of the Americas) “Summerfest” street festival, earlier this beautiful afternoon.
The rest of the fair? Packed.
Drama with trauma
June 26, 2009 by Suchita SA worker was seriously injured earlier today in an “explosion” at the Columbia med center. The injury happened less than a block away from Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, a world-class institution. Yet the man – who was burned on about 70% of his body – was taken 40+ blocks to Harlem Hospital, a quality (public) hospital.
It had nothing to do with insurance but everything to do with money.
Presbyterian Hospital does not have a Level 1 Trauma Center. When the new operating rooms were built here relatively recently, they were placed in a different building, over a block away from the ER. You have to either go outside on the street or meander through hospital hallways and through a skywalk to get from the ER to the OR. That nixes the idea of having a trauma center; you can’t take care of these severely injured patients if the ER/ambulance bay isn’t next to the OR.
I can’t certify the veracity of this claim, but I’ve been told by credible sources that the ORs here at CUMC were built with the stipulation by donors that they wouldn’t be near the ER (another equally believable story is that it is NYC and there’s no space to have the ORs right next to the ER, but the former story is a bit more dramatic).
Level 1 trauma centers lose money. Period. Who is most likely to need a trauma center? MVAs, usually drunk driving accidents — car insurances often don’t pay for drunk drivers. Gunshot victims, stabbings, other violent crimes — these people are likely to be uninsured. Etc. Hospitals lose money on trauma cases.
And so, this morning, a man in critical condition had to travel probably 15+ minutes and 40+ blocks from an amazing hospital to one that could treat him.
Harlem Hospital is an NYC public hospital. What happens if/when these safety-net institutions that are providing a vital service shut down due to lack of funds?
What a great birthday present!
June 24, 2009 by Suchita SThanks in advance, New York-Presbyterian! But I wonder if they’ll be able to deliver it in the city.
(from an e-mail to the CUMC community):
…On Aug. 10, 2009, Columbia University Medical Center will become a completely smoke-free environment. While the interior spaces of our buildings are already smoke-free, a newly revised CUMC smoking policy will prohibit smoking on all CUMC property, both indoors and outdoors. Smoking of tobacco will not be permitted in CUMC buildings, residences, entrances, grounds, gardens, courtyards, parking facilities, shuttle buses, and Public Safety vehicles.
A COMPLETELY SMOKE-FREE ACADEMIC MEDICAL CENTER
This effort is being undertaken with our hospital partner, NewYork-Presbyterian, which also goes smoke-free on Aug. 10. Together, we will be creating an entirely smoke-free academic medical center. Weill Cornell Medical College will be fully smoke-free on Aug. 10, as well.
SMOKING CESSATION RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE
To support members of the CUMC community who may want to quit smoking, several smoking cessation resources will be shared throughout the summer….
Wisconsin roundup
June 23, 2009 by Suchita SSome recent UW-Madison news, as it has been a while.
Its summer, you’re strolling to Picnic Point, but it’s about to become a little less natural. Furlough means you have time to spend on the lakeshore path. And soon you can pack a picnic from a new grocery store near the lake.
Make a pitstop to rub *really* Old Abe’s toe for good luck. Think back (or look forward) to when you sat on his lap. You’re moving on and away after graduation, but there really isn’t only one reason why.
Meandering west on the path, you look up towards the top floor of Van Hise. And you hear the groans.
But hark! There is success and there are shiny new buildings on the west end of campus, and they look like they could use a new neighbor. Though, a new building without enough teachers is a new building that we’re not ready for, a new building to lobby against.
Good news, though, as Wisconsin docs appear to be amongst the highest paid in the country. Congrats to the med school?
Homeless animal scheme
June 20, 2009 by Alec L
"For food for the animals. Thank you."
Walking down Nevsky Prospect yesterday, I came across two terriers holding buckets in their mouths, on which was written “For a big sausage.” Passersby were going apeshit tossing change in the buckets, taking their photograph with the dogs and doing other such disgustingly banal things. The dogs’ handler stood a few feet away, quietly collecting change from the buckets whenever there was a break in the action.
Making money off homeless animals is a chronic problem in St. Petersburg, where folks known as “korobochki” (from the word for “box,” “korobka”) have a very lucrative racket worked out. For a small fee, they accept unwanted animals into their care, then display them on the street, often in cardboard boxes, and collect money to supposedly feed them.
What actually happens, according to the testimony of a woman who tried to save some of these animals, is they immediately contract a variety of diseases from the motley crue of dying animals they’re placed with. The korobochki make money off them until they die from their illnesses, then cast the carcasses into an abandoned basement somewhere, not hard to find in St. Petersburg.
The AMA is not hopeless
June 17, 2009 by Suchita SAfter attending the 2009 AMA annual meeting in Chicago (well, all of the MSS – med student section – meeting and most of the “big house” AMA part), I’ve concluded that the AMA is neither hopeless nor irrelevant. A conclusion made after a week of terrible and even disheartening press (albeit somewhat misconstrued) for the organization. Seeing all that negativity, reading about declining membership numbers, and getting e-mails from new competing organizations (like Physicians for a National Health Program, Doctors for America, etc.)…well, I was a little disheartened going into Chicago. Here is an organization that I am putting a lot of time into, and then I turn around and some of the physicians and medical students whom I respect most and are most knowledgeable about health policy are vowing their eternal hatred of the AMA.
I don’t believe in everything that the AMA stands for or agree with everything it does. But it is the nation’s largest organization of physicians, and it sets policy that affects the entire profession and lobbies on behalf of all of us. So I’d rather be part of the system, fighting from within, having a voice, than give up on it entirely. If good people with fresh ideas leave, we’re going to be left with only the most entrenched opinions and then the AMA will be entering into a downward spiral towards irrelevance. I’m not so sure it hasn’t already entered that downward spiral, but I do know it’s not too late to escape it. Yes, I know it’s a little naive, but it’s not hopeless.
The push for a new Iran
June 16, 2009 by elewienI was watching Al Jazeera today and couldn’t help but shudder at the images of Iran’s police force raiding student dorms. It brought to mind one of the best books I read at UW, assigned by one of my favorite professors:Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism, by Danny Postel.
The book was published in 2006, but describes the strong underground liberal debate occurring in Tehran by youths risking their lives to read and discuss the greats that we like to put off until the night before finals. Just think Reading Lolita in Tehran, but for those interested in what the next generation of future leaders were/are hopefully still doing in a country on the brink of revolution.
I highly recommend you pick up a copy of this excellent book.
Nepal round II
June 16, 2009 by elewienI’ve hung up my Fulbright spurs. After nearly 10 months of learning what Nepal’s politics are all about, I was hired for another 14 months with the Carter Center to do long term monitoring of the political situation. Not exactly what I expected, but cannot complain about spending another year here (especially with the economy and gas prices in the States). Certainly, I’ve been a little negligent with my blog updates. I plan for this to change, once I have internet hooked up in my new house, wherever that may be. Also, got the computer fixed, so, there will be pics from throughout the year, and some new ones, to bring a little multimedia to the front page.
After too long of a wait, I find out tomorrow whether I move to Biratnagar, Nepalgunj or Dhanghardi – one of three cities based in the Tarai, the southern strip of flat land that bumps into the foothills of the Himalayas. It will be warm – on average 35 to 43 C this time of the year – but we’ll have the luxury of moving north as we discuss the country’s political situation with everyone from the netaa to the kissan (leaders to the farmers).
Fulbright was an adventure, and a wonderful way to have spent my first year out of UW. I highly recommend it to anybody that wants to continue on an academic path while learning the culture (and language) of a new place.
AMA responds to NY Times article
June 12, 2009 by Suchita SThis NYTimes article: “Docotrs group opposes public insurance plan.”
But in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the American Medical Association said: “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”
If private insurers are pushed out of the market, the group said, “the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”
AMA response, according to the AP:
AMA’s leaders agree that the nation’s health system is sick. But the group has long opposed government intrusion into health care and believes reform can be achieved by revamping private health insurance plans.
Dr. Nancy Nielsen, AMA’s president, says the group wants details on Obama’s proposal for a public health insurance plan to compete with private plans.
In a written statement Thursday, she said the AMA “opposes any public plan that forces physicians to participate, expands the fiscally challenged Medicare program or pays Medicare rates.”
But, she added, the AMA “is willing to consider other variations of a public plan that are currently under discussion in Congress.”
In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Nielsen sounded more conciliatory than combative. She said AMA shares Obama’s concern “that we need to have comprehensive health care reform” that offers everyone affordable, high-quality health insurance.
Dr. Nancy Nielsen’s official statement, June 11:
“Make no mistake: Health reform that covers the uninsured is AMA’s top priority this year. Every American deserves affordable, high-quality health care coverage.
“Today’s New York Times story creates a false impression about the AMA’s position on a public plan option in health care reform legislation. The AMA opposes any public plan that forces physicians to participate, expands the fiscally-challenged Medicare program or pays Medicare rates, but the AMA is willing to consider other variations of a public plan that are currently under discussion in Congress. This includes a federally chartered co-op health plan or a level playing field option for all plans. The AMA is working to achieve meaningful health reform this year and is ready to stand behind legislation that includes coverage options that work for patients and physicians.”
Take what you will from this.
Wait, so tobacco isn’t a drug?
June 10, 2009 by Suchita SIs tobacco a drug? Because apparently it’s not under FDA regulation…yet.
In April, the House approved a similar bill giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate tobacco. President Obama, who has struggled to quit smoking, has said he’ll sign the legislation.
“It’s historic in that we’re finally saying tobacco needs to be regulated,” said Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois…
In 1998, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona pushed a bill to give the FDA such authority, but he was thwarted by a well-financed tobacco lobby.
But then who does regulate tobacco? It appears that it’s currently the job of the DOJ’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Nevermind that explosives aren’t really related to tobacco, and I don’t understand why they would fall under the same bureaucratic jurisdiction. The more surprising thing is what else the Food and Drug Administration doens’t regulate: alcohol (a drug) and meat and poultry (um…food?), for example.
I see the argument about why the FDA doesn’t regulate illegal drugs with no medical purpose. The FDA is there to make sure what foods and drugs (especially prescription drugs or those with purported medical benefits) we do consume legally are safe. They shouldn’t be concerned with the safety of, say, heroin, because ideally no one is even using heroin, and those who are using it should be dealt with by some other legal agency.
But for tobacco and even alcohol to not be under the FDA’s watch… I don’t get it. Someone please explain it to me (with hopefully a better reason than simply saying, “That’s how the patchwork bureaucracy evolved”).
Granted, this isn’t just semantics, as the “Family Smoking and Tobacco Control Act will require tobacco companies to disclose detailed information about their products’ ingredients and will allow the FDA to require changes to protect public health.”
A legitimate warning though, from “North Carolina’s senators, Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Kay Hagan, [who] oppose the bill. They say it would burden the FDA.” Agreed; Congress will have to decide if that burden and subsequent investment is worth the benefits that come with reclassification/reorganizing.
