Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Comments
Was gonna make a wisecrack about Wolraich predicting "Biden won't last", but I thought again. Seems to me from anecdotals, what happened to Bernie actually happens more commonly, I think, to 60-somethings! By the time they are in their 70's and 80's, they've either survived a heart procedure, or they kicked the bucket.
So I am dropping the ageism thing and moving on to razz this part of the story: Bernie trying to take political advantage of his situation:
Later Wednesday, Sanders tweeted that he was "feeling good" and used the situation to tout his "Medicare for All" health care proposal....
Right, but only because hospital procedures are covered 100% under Part A with a $1,000 deductible. If you had previously gotten the proper preventative medicine that would avoid having to get stents (which are iffily dangerous and controversial, by the way), Senator, now that would only be covered 80% under Part B. Unless of course you had the money to buy expensive top-of-the-line supplemental insurance and top-of-the-line drug plan. Or if you enrolled yourself in an extremely limited network Advantage Plan to save those premiums and then found out the co-pays were ridiculous for proper treatment. So in the latter case you wouldn't be seeing the best providers who knew prevention, so you'd be going broke and still end up in the hospital.
My point: this is why hospitals are the current major cause of our huge health care costs in this country and keep growing all the time. Being non-profit doesn't stop institutions from growing into monster behemoths feeding on themselves with highly paid bureaucratic jobs and ever rising revenue and billing up the kazoo for god knows what including lawyers to defend from increasing malpractice...And not fully covering the costs of the best preventative medicine gets ya: lotsa money spent on hospital procedures, ever flowing, 100% covered.
by artappraiser on Wed, 10/02/2019 - 5:23pm
Back to white people abusing emergency rooms? Don't be racially divisive...
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 10/02/2019 - 7:13pm
I talk a little about this based only on my experience with getting a stent put in and what the doctor told me. If there was an actual emergency it's likely Sanders was having a heart attack. That's scary but no quite as scary as it sounds. I had three heart attacks and didn't even realize it. Or I realized something was very wrong but I ignored it because I didn't have health insurance. My heart attacks were likely caused by over ten years of untreated diabetes until it got so bad I had to see a doctor. In some ways my situation is worse than Sanders in that if I wasn't so active hiking 6 days a week in the mountains I probably would have died. But when diagnosed it wasn't an emergency that needed immediate attention but needed to be dealt with quickly, within a couple of weeks.
Any heart attack causes loss of heart function. I've lost 50% of my heart function. Sanders has likely lost heart function. How much depends on whether this was his first heart attack and the severity of the attack. Loss of heart function isn't as bad as it sounds. The heart has a lot of over capacity. How much of your heart function are you using reading this post. 5%, less maybe? Now that my diabetes is under control and my heart problems fixed I feel fine and can even do a moderate amount of work. But the moment I try any vigorous activity it feels like my body is shutting down. My arms and legs get wobbly. I have no stamina and my strength has taken a big hit.
This will have some but probably not a big effect on his ability to be president. Much depends on how much heart function he's lost. He's not going to be able to jog or bike around the White House like Bush did. He's not going to be playing basketball like Obama. But the moderate physical activity of reading briefing papers or having meetings is likely well within his ability. I don't sense any loss of ability to read and think. It feels like my mental acuity is as strong as it's every been. But the old adage: If you're losing your mind how would you be able to tell?
by ocean-kat on Wed, 10/02/2019 - 9:42pm
What if all the aged Dems drop out? Dag dream administration:
Wolraich (unreasonable man) - President
Doc Cleveland - VP
Peracles - Sec Defense (or Offense?)
Arty - Sec HHS
Okat - Sec Interior
RM - Chief, Civil Rights Division, DOJ
Cardwell - Attorney General
Moat - Sec Education
NCD - Grand Marshall of Annual Easter Egg Roll
by NCD on Wed, 10/02/2019 - 11:30pm
Flavius the elder might have some objections here, just warning ya.
by artappraiser on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 12:02am
Flavius - Dept Energy, and Dept Commerce (Flav's knowledge, experience and honesty more than equals the sum of the two in these posts now)
by NCD on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 1:56pm
PP - Sec Defenestration
NCD - NSA, FBI, CIA, other Alphabet Soup (which now includes Google)
Arta - Cultural Minister, leader Cultural Revolution & Great Leap Forward
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 5:45am
Thanks for the nomination. Accepted.
I would however need 90 days leave to prepare the Easter Egg ceremony.
Since I would be among children and students, a $26 million security detail will be of course absolutely essential to ensure my safety, similar to the one of Education Secretary DeVos.
by NCD on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 4:41pm
Sorry, security money's a bit tight since we've diverted most of the budget to building the Moat moat (pretty sure you don't wanna be on the wrong end of his gators), but we can give you 2-factor authentication for your phone and some leftover chicken wire from the last Wall fiasco. Will that suffice? (please say yes)
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 5:58pm
That seems pretty harsh. NCD needs some protection, there's children involved here. I think we can trust him. I'm unbiased since I've never met NCD nor do I know anything about him beyond his posts here at dagblog. How about we give him a blank check and admonish him to only use the amount that is truly necessary.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 6:53pm
You're literally encouraging him to do the Manhattan Project he's always dreamed of.
Are you sure you're on board with this "new government" thing?
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 10/04/2019 - 1:45am
Employees will be required to do the Wakandan greeting.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 9:44pm
Did Bernie Sanders Have a Heart Attack?
by ocean-kat on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 12:41pm
The question is why Sanders expected recuperation is taking so long
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/10/02/how-serious-is-bernie-sanders-heart-problem-this-is-stent-procedure-his-doctors-just-performed/
If recovery is delayed, is it because he has decreased heart function that requires medication or an implanted device to improve heart muscle function?
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 12:56pm
Placing a stent is common and safe. The reason it was placed is what determines recovery time and any subsequent therapy. Of course his campaign doesn't want to say heart attack nor answer questions about how severe it was.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 2:07pm
The campaign says that he will participate in the next debate
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/us/politics/bernie-sanders-debate-heart.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 2:12pm
Harvard ER doc:
by artappraiser on Fri, 10/04/2019 - 6:34pm
It's good he's finally coming clean about what happened but it's not enough. Was this his first heart attack? Why did he have to spend over two days in the hospital? When I got a stent put it I was in and out in less than a day. How much loss of heart function did he lose?
by ocean-kat on Sat, 10/05/2019 - 9:37am
Message: Here I am just dandy, the new and improved healthy vigorous Bernie, can even smile now, just like Tony the Tiger I feel grrrreat:
by artappraiser on Fri, 10/04/2019 - 8:22pm
Bernie campaign asks for a few days privacy - he's worked so hard, least we can do to give him 3 days absence and a week or 2 downtime. We'd do that with any candidate, right?
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/07/bernie-sanders-heart-attack-ele...
Median survival? 3.1 years.
Life expectance for a 78-year-old male is 9.43 years - halve that to get ~4.7 years. Except Bernie wouldn't enter office for 1 1/4 more years, so his life expectancy is just below 3.5 years into office.
Though some have noticed that the job of President seems to age men prematurely. Plus Bernie's father died at age 57 (didn't find a cause of death), mother at 46 from a second failed heart surgery.
So good luck.
PS - in case you wondered, "Coronary Stents Do Not Improve Long-Term Survival" - they just lower the chance of needing to open the patient up again. https://www.onhealth.com/content/1/stents_save_coronaries_not_lives
PPS - had McCain won, he would have died 1 1/2 years after his second term, though his tumor would have a half year after leaving office, and it's quite possible his health would have deteriorated faster due to stress.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 10/08/2019 - 5:10am
Looks like Bernie's gonna take it a bit easy now:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49982041
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 10/09/2019 - 12:07am