January 19th, 2010 by admin

Medicalization is a wonderful word. It means the process of taking a natural condition and convincing people that it’s a disease to be treated and cured by the medical profession. Once a condition is medicalized, the pharmaceutical industry can sell drugs, doctors and hospitals can charge fees. The cash registers just keep on ringing up the profits. Once this happens, there’s a kind of bandwagon effect. The condition suddenly becomes a lot more serious. It’s now a disorder or disease. For health insurance companies, it’s a pre-existing condition.

Now there’s a funny thing about health insurance companies. They are never shy about coming forward with new reasons for not paying out on their policies. One of their classic excuses is the “disclosure” rule. The law sounds quite reasonable. If you are sitting in your office and never get to meet the person applying for a health plan, you have to rely on the honesty of what the person says when you decide whether to write the policy. It’s a sad fact that some people are less than honest when they apply for policies. They forget the heart problem and declare themselves fit and healthy. Insurance companies therefore need the right to rescind the policy – to cancel it if the applicant failed to disclose information needed to assess the risk.

So now we come to the case of Otto Raddatz who, courtesy of his sister, became a famous victim after his death. She testified to a Senate committee about what happened and the story, in suitably dramatic form, was later picked up by President Obama in support of his campaign for healthcare reform. The facts are easy to state. Here was a man lining up to get surgery for cancer. The hospital appointment was booked when, surprise, the insurance company decided to rescind the policy. Why? Because Otto had failed to disclose the fact he had acne as a teen! This was a serious pre-existing condition and likely an indicator he would get cancer later in his life. His failure to disclose it justified rescission. Well, fortunately, his sister was an attorney and she got the state attorney general on the job. Six weeks later, the insurer reinstated the policy and Otto got his operation. This gave him six more years of life. Read the rest of this entry »

January 19th, 2010 by admin

When viagra was just a gleam in its Daddy’s eye, no-one expected the extraordinary effect of its coming into this world. Not that this was the coming of the Antichrist or anything bad. In fact, it’s been quite the reverse with suffering men suddenly restored to the full power of their youth – as young gods, they date and enjoy life to the full all over again. So to celebrate the tenth birthday of this revolutionary pill, it’s time to let our hair down and have some fun. Here are some of the latest stories, ripped from the headlines and designed to raise a smile.

We’re going to start off in South Carolina. It’s the night before Halloween so, to put yourself in the mood as a sixty-six year old deputy assistant attorney general, you pack your car with sex toys and those little blue pills, pick up an eighteen year old stripper and head for the cemetery to celebrate whatever it is you celebrate on the night before Halloween. Presumably, he was just starting to practise those ghostly groans when the police cruisers surrounded his car. Apparently, the local residents were tired of sex between the gravestones and had persuaded the police to mount guard. Little did they expect to catch this leading Republican at his wiccan best. The humor lies in the man’s name. Have you noticed how often the letters “r” and “n” often look like an “m”. Well this guy needed pills as he was Corning, but ended up going into police custody before he was done. Actually, no-one will be prosecuted but the old guy has lost his job – something about not living up to Republican standards in a state made famous by Mark Sanford and his South American girlfriend. Read the rest of this entry »