Welcome to another edition of our weekly MedBlogger Roundup. This week, we've got an eclectic mix of posts -- some are frontline caregiver perspectives, some are election-themed, and others are about, well, blogging.

1) As everyone knows, last week was the Vice Presidential Debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin, and one of the topics discussed was, in fact, healthcare. A few blogs covered this, including The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog and Managed Care Matters.

The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog provides a fairly balanced pro/con overview of the healthcare exchange:

"Joe Biden cited an estimate that 20 million people would lose their employer-sponsored health insurance under the McCain plan...Several analyses of the McCain plan found that it's likely to lead to a decrease in the number of uninsured in the short term, but an increase in the number over the long term, the Post says."

"Sarah Palin referred to Obama's 'plan to mandate health care coverage and have [a] universal government-run program.' As the AP points out, Obama would only mandate health insurance for children; he wouldn't require adults to buy coverage. Nor has he proposed a "universal, government-run program." He would allow people to choose between buying private health insurance and buying insurance from a government-backed plan like the one that covers Congress."

For the full article: http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/10/03/sarah-palin-and-joe-biden-tussle-briefly-over-health-policy/

Joe Paduda at Managed Care Matters took a slightly more, shall we say, partisan approach, with his summary, entitled "Palin Doesn't Understand Health Insurance."

Says Joe:

"The woman who, according to her, once went without health insurance (fact check please) said once again that eliminating state regulation of health insurers (the real world impact of allowing interstate sale of individual policies) would solve the health insurance crisis."

"Not..."

"Palin also said that McCain's proposed health insurance tax credit would help families buy insurance. What kind of policy would $5000 buy a family? Perhaps a 'mini-med' without coverage for hospital stays and a $5000 deductible."

Read the full article here: http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001320.html

2) Shadowfax over at Movin' Meat (who gets the honor of being "linked to" twice in two weeks) makes a really interesting semantic argument against the phrase that "healthcare is a right," arguing that healthcare is instead a moral obligation. Shadowfax, fairly convincingly (in my own personal opinion), says that using the term "right" provides for some good fodder for pushback from opponents.

Says Shadowfax:

"Fellow bleeding heart (and shyster) JimII said it well in the comments the other day: rights are limitations on government power. Exactly. When we use the language of "rights," we are generally discussing very fundamental liberties, which are conferred on us at birth, and which no government is permitted to take away: free speech; religion and conscience; property; assembly and petition; bodily self-determination; self-defense, and the like. Freedoms. Nowhere in that list is there anything which must be given to you by others. These are freedoms which are yours, not obligations which you are due from somebody else. There is no right to an education, nor to a comfortable retirement, nor to otherwise profit by the sweat of someone else's labor."

"Now some societies, ours included, from time to time decide that its citizens, or certain groups of them, should be entitled to certain benefits. Sometimes this justified by the common good -- a well-educated populace serves society well, so we guarantee an education to all children. Sometimes this is derived from humanitarian principles -- children should not go hungry, so we create childhood nutrition programs. Healthcare would, in my estimation, fall into the category of an entitlement rather than a right."

(Please) read the full article here: http://allbleedingstops.blogspot.com/2008/10/healthcare-is-not-right.html

3) Nurse Bear over at Nursa Minor gives some insider tips on making sure that your hospitalized family members get the best care possible. It took me a few seconds to get the joke. Here's what she starts out with:

"Complain early and complain often. Make sure that the administration knows that your family member is important and you're not going to let any mistakes be made on your watch. Drop your lawyer's name while you're at it. As always, be firm and unyielding, and let the administrators know that you're not going to back down about anything."

A few more lines like this, and then, the joke:

"...Which is great, if your aim is to antagonize every member of the medical staff you come in contact with. The problem is, you actually get worse care, because the staff become afraid of you, or simply sick of being yelled at and insulted. Because it's very insulting to be told that i don't know what i'm doing, or that i'm doing anything other than my best when i'm caring for your loved one."

"The patients who get the best care are the ones who treat us with respect, who are nice and who don't treat us like idiots. They're the ones we make sure to check in on often; they're the ones who get service above and beyond, from all members of the staff; they're the ones we're more likely to make sure are fully invested in all aspects of their treatment."

Full article here: http://nursaminor.com/?p=44

4) And finally, if you don't know what Twitter is, check out this post by Clinical Cases and Images:

"Micro-blogging on Twitter is easy, fun and can be useful and educational if you follow/subscribe to interesting people. Two interesting discussion threads are posted below -- one comments on the demise of physical diagnosis in clinical medicine and the other one on the importance of radiology for development of medicine. Check for yourself to see why you should listen to the doctors on Twitter."

Kevin MD chimes in:

"We've talked earlier about the demise of the doctor's lounge."

"But here's an example of the power of Twitter, a popular microblogging service. Imaging if doctors were connected here, and able to converse and curbside akin to a 'virtual' lounge?"

Check out the articles here: http://casesblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-you-should-listen-to-doctors-on.html and here: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2008/10/doctors-and-twitter.html

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