Health Care Reform?

Everyone is talking about health care reform, but a lot of people have several misconceptions about various aspects of the conversation. How well do you understand this very complicated issue? You can test your knowledge with either CNN's quick quiz or that compiled by the Friends Committee on National Legislation, or both. (They touch on different points.)

Finding Good Facts

If your email has been brimming with scary emails about what the Congressional health plan might mean for you, you should check out FactCheck.org's evaluation of the most notorious of these fearmongering missives in which they found 26 outright lies and only 4 genuine truths among 48 claims. Another excellent source of information on the issue is CQ Researcher, a weekly publication that examines current issues in depth. (You'll need your DACC user ID and password for off-campus access.) They covered health care reform in last week's issue (8-28-09), which offers extensive reporting, background, pros and cons of particular aspects and references to find further information. Somewhat similar to CQ Researcher is Issues and Controversies, a Facts on File database that provides detailed, balanced coverage of current topics. (You'll also need your DACC user ID and password for off-campus access for this.) It too includes recent material covering the health care debate, especially issues related to the proposed public option.

Been watching coverage of all of those raucous town hall meetings? You might be surprised to find that they aren't quite what they appear on news programs on FOX or MSNBC or other media outlets. You can see the entire meetings, not just edited clips, on C-Span, the Congressional news channel. In fact, if you are interested in unbiased coverage of the entire issue, you can't do better than C-Span, which provides full coverage of meetings, hearings, and public statements, and also has an area for viewers to submit material. Feeling brave? Here's the actual text of the legislation H.R. 3200 , which is available through Thomas, the Library of Congress legislation search engine. Actually, it's not too bad. The bill has an index of terms you can use to search through it and a summary of contents.

Two excellent sources of online information on the state of the U.S. health care system are The Commonwealth Fund, which includes on its web site a report that compares the United States health care system to those in other countries. (The conclusion: ours comes off very poorly on several crucial counts.) The other is The Alliance for Health Reform's Covering Health Issues, 5th ed.

And finally, a moment of health care debate humor from The Onion.

H1N1 Flu Update

And little bit of additional information on the flu formerly known as swine. Here is a very useful flyer from the Illinois Department of Public Health that itemizes the symptoms and emergency warning signs to determine if you or a family member needs to go and see a doctor. They also provide a preparedness checklist to help you get ready for the flu hitting home. Here is the IDPH's general web page about the pandemic and seasonal flu, which has links to lots of good information. And on a final note, a new concern about this flu involves whether or not to vaccinate pigs to prevent them catching the flu from people and mutating it into yet another and potentially more dangerous variant. Yes, the swine are now at risk from the people flu...