Monday, August 22, 2011

MSNBC: "After uproar, man with breast cancer OK’d for coverage":
Although he was not eligible for traditional Medicaid coverage, Johnson was told to apply for coverage under Medicaid’s Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act, an 11-year-old federal mandate designed to help people who may not fit into traditional Medicaid eligibility requirements. But the program only provides care for women....

There is a misperception that Medicaid is for all poor people, when you actually have to fit into a very specific category, much of which is determined at the state level,” explained Jeff Stensland, a health department spokesperson. For example, if Johnson was diagnosed with, say, colorectal cancer or a brain tumor, he still wouldn’t get coverage under Medicaid. South Carolina, like most states, does not provide Medicaid to single, childless adults.
I love one of the comments on the article stating: "Haha... I'd like to see a private insurance company make this decision. Fat chance! They would have let him die."Umm, doesn't this fool realize that the Medicaid program is a government-run program that left to its own devices would have let this man or any other die of breast cancer? They normally don't allow access to the cancer program for men, it is a women-only program. Only because of an "uproar" did this guy luckily get coverage. The next guy many not be so lucky. Just wait until we get universal care.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

"More than 30 percent of the cases investigated by detectives each year are deemed unfounded, five times the national average."

In response to my previous post, Dave from the BaltoNorth blog sends in this article from the Baltimore Sun on false rape allegations:
The Baltimore Police Department has for the past four years recorded the highest percentage of rape cases that officers conclude are false or baseless of any city in the country, according to The Baltimore Sun's review of FBI data. More than 30 percent of the cases investigated by detectives each year are deemed unfounded, five times the national average. Only Louisville and Pittsburgh have reported similar numbers in the recent past, and the number of unfounded rape cases in those cities dropped after police implemented new classification procedures. The increase in unfounded cases comes as the number of rapes reported by Baltimore police has plunged — from 684 in 1995 to 158 in 2009, a decline of nearly 80 percent. Nationally, FBI reports indicate that rapes have fallen 8 percent over the same period.

Many people mistakenly think that women never falsely report rape. You would think that after all the mess with the Duke Lacrosse team and the resulting books such as Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, that academics and others would realize the error of their ways but ideology often wins out against the truth.

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