INVITATION TO ATTEND PUBLIC MEETING | Virginia Minnesota Public …
For the Virginia School District this means potential bonding for Post Employment Benefits, i.e. Retiree Health Insurance. This meeting will be held on Monday, March 2, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. in the Media Center. … read more…
School Board Editorial on Retiree Health Insurance (OPEB Liability …
The challenge of paying for retiree health insurance has been in the news on several occasions over the past few years. Many cities, schools and counties are now formulating plans to address this issue. Virginia Public Schools has … read more…
Frequently Asked Questions- OPEB Liability | Virginia Minnesota …
Why does Virginia Public Schools have an OPEB liability? • Retiree health insurance benefits were first negotiated into employee contracts in 1974. At that time, public schools on the Iron Range were in competition for employees with … read more…
From Google Blog Search
Is Nutronix A Scam?
Internet based home business opportunities are all scams. They’re nothing but get rich quick schemes designed to get desperate and gullible people to open their wallet and pull out their credit card. … read more…
How to Keep Your Job After a Work Accident in Nevada
Most injured workers are shocked to learn that Nevada workers? compensation law does not require their employer to re-employ them in some other position if they are not released full duty by their … read more…
Prescription Drug Addiction Hitting West Virginia Community Hard
In Beckley, West Virginia, too few medical drug detox and drug rehab centers, lack of personal health insurance, a shortage of prevention resources, and too many addictive prescriptions for people who… read more…
From GoArticles.com
Open Question: Anthem Healthkeepers…can I keep it if we’re separated?
My husband and I seem bound for divorce. We will have to be separated for a while first because we can’t really afford a divorce. It hadn’t occurred to me that I would lose my health insurance when we divorced. Do you know if I’ll lose it when we’re legally separated?
Thanks, we live in Virginia.
Resolved Question: Is screening for cancer a giant con job?
Here’s an article in the NYT about people who are diagnosed with cancer in midlife, and the trials they face after beating cancer. Many of them are impoverished, even driven into bankruptcy, by the high cost of their treatment and medications. Many of them survive cancer only to find out that doing so has made them unemployable. Employers, acting in their own rational self-interest, will not hire someone who hs had cancer, since they are afraid that person will drive up their health insurance costs.
But hey, it’s better than being dead, right?
Now here comes the astounding part:
““Cancer used to be a disease that occurred after you retired, because that’s when you were diagnosed,” said Cathy J. Bradley, a health economist at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center who has studied employment among cancer patients. “Now patients are getting that diagnosis early on, which is a good thing. . . .But I don’t think they or their employers are prepared for the tradeoff, which is that someone may be out of work for a long time.”
In other words: these people had their lives ruined by being diagnosed with “cancers” which, according to the article, never would have bothered them until they were at the end of their lives anyway!
The word “cancer” is one of the most emotionally laden words in the English language, but when a pathologist uses the word “cancer,” all she means is a tiny growth of abnormal-looking cells, which may or may not be harmful. There is no evidence that getting screened for cancer helps people to live longer. The whole idea of screening for cancer was based on the hope — that’s all it ever was, a hope — that there were cancers that were so deadly that by the time symptoms appeared, it was too late to do anything about it, BUT, which if detected sooner by the new imaging technology, could be successfully treated. There is no evidence that such cancers even exist. What we do know is that, if they do exist, they must be so rare as not to make a difference in survival rates. What screening for cancer does do is detect the presence of tiny “cancers” which never would have harmed the patient. And, as the article makes clear, a diagnosis of cancer can ruin your life.
So is screening for cancer a giant con job?
Cancer Survivors Struggle to Find Jobs, Study Finds” by Roni Caryn Rabin http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/health/18cancer.html?_r=1&ref=health
Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here’s Why by H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH http://www.amazon.com/Should-Be-Tested-Cancer-Maybe/dp/0520248368/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234995311&sr=8-1
Worried Sick: a Prescription for Health in Overtreated America by Nortin M Hadler, MD http://www.amazon.com/Worried-Sick-Prescription-Overtreated-America/dp/0807831875/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234995363&sr=1-1
A third-generation freethinker
To PathologyGeek:
You are kicking over a straw man. I never denied that cancers cause serious harm. What I said was that, according to Hadler and Welch, there are no controlled clinical trials which show that screening asymptomatic patients results in a clinically significant reduction in mortality. If you have any studies that do show this, I’d love to take a look at them. Your sneering, mean-spirited response shows what you’re all about. I am glad I’m not your patient.
To PathologyGeek:
Your reply is an insult to anyone who has ever watched a loved one die of cancer (as I have). We already knew that cancer is a bad thing. That’s not the issue here. The issue is whether screening asymptomatic patients saves any lives.
Take screening for prostate cancer, for example. You know, the five-year survival rate for prostate cancer (survival rate after detection) is 90%. In the UK, it’s 40%. That would seem to be a point in favor of our health-care system, until you realize that the death rate for prostate cancer is EXACTLY THE SAME in both countries. There are two possible interpretations for this: 1) People are being diagnosed earlier, but dying at the same time, in which case the screening is useless, and/or 2) People are being diagnosed and treated for “cancers” that never would have bothered them, in which case screening is worse than useless.
Prostatectomy can leave a man impotent, incontinent, and/or both.
To PathologyGeek continued:
Am I to assume that’s okay with you, as long as your profession gets it cut?
Voting Question: Unemployment Insurance and Emotion Distress?
I quit my job yesterday and am filing for unemployment insurance. I had good cause for quiting, my manager was really stressing me out and I felt like I was going to have a panic attack, or maybe an anxiety attack, every time I had to work with her. She used to be married to my uncle, so she knows a lot about my personal life and was sharing it with my customers. She was constantly putting my family down, and also my co-workers and their families. I worked for her for a year, and about two weeks ago it really started to bother me. I would break down into tears at work just thinking about working with her the following day. So, basically, I am filing for unemployment in Virginia. I’m not sure how I should answer a few of the questions.
-Explain in detail what caused you to quit.
-What hardships or difficulties (financial, mental, physical, personal, professional, or moral) would you have experienced by staying on the job?
-Did you quit for medical or health reasons?
I quit because I felt my health was more important than that job. But can Emotional Distress be used as a medical/health reason for quiting? And would Emotional Distress be a mental or personal hardship? I think I’m going in the right direction with this, but I feel like I need a tiny bit of guidance. Thanks in advance for your answers!
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