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Positive Message Of The Day

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Source: thatshappy.blogspot.com via Dawn on Pinterest

*This blog post was originally published at On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess*

Surgeons Criticize Medical Tourism: You Can’t Sue If Things Go Awry

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In an earlier post, DrRich offered several potential strategies for doctors and patients to consider should healthcare reformers ultimately succeed in their efforts to make it illegal for Americans to seek medical care outside the auspices of Obamacare. To those readers who persist in thinking that DrRich is particularly paranoid in worrying about such a thing, he refers you to his prior work carefully documenting the efforts the Central Authority has already made in limiting the prerogatives of individual Americans within the healthcare system, and reminds you that in any society where social justice is the overriding concern, individual prerogatives such as these must be criminalized. Indeed, whether individuals will retain the right to spend their own money on their own healthcare is ultimately the real battle. The outcome of this battle will determine much more than merely what kind of healthcare system we will end up with.

DrRich, despite his paranoia on the matter, is a long-term optimist, and believes that the American spirit will ultimately prevail. So, to advance this happy result DrRich (in the previously mentioned post) graciously offered several creative options that could be employed to establish a useful Black Market in healthcare, which will allow individuals to exercise their healthcare-autonomy against the day when such autonomy again becomes legal. His suggestions included offshore, state-of-the-art medical centers on old aircraft carriers; combination Casino/Hospitals on the sovereign soil of Native American reservations; and cutting-edge medical centers just south of the border (which would have the the added benefit of encouraging our government to finally close the borders to illegal crossings once and for all).

As entertaining as it might be to imagine such solutions, a readily available, though much more mundane, option exists today, which is to say, medical tourism. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*

British TV Character Worth Watching: Doc Martin

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No, not the shoes. The British TV series.

Martin is surgeon, whose glittering career comes crashing down around him when he develops a phobia which prevents him conducting operations. He makes a life changing decision to retrain as a GP, and applies for a vacant post in the sleepy Cornish hamlet of Portwenn, where he spent childhood holidays.

Doc Martin is as grumpy, short-tempered and brilliant as House, and while he has no cadre of residents to torture, he does have a town full of varied and wonderful characters to annoy him. And of course, there’s a love interest.

We’ve barely started watching, and already there have been these memorable lines –

Patient – Am I your first official patient?
Doc Martin – You are indeed. Collect a thousand loyalty points and you get a free coffin. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*

License Plate Of The Day

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Texas, ah luv u

*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*

Coffee Talk And Type 1 Diabetes

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It’s been well-documented that my coffee addiction is … substantial.  Briefly on hiatus during my pregnancy, I was reunited with my beloved beverage after the baby was born, and now I’m back in the habit.

Since I work from our home office and I’m also the primary caregiver for BSparl, sleep is a hot commodity.  Actually, I don’t get to sleep much, so the coffee is very much my friend these days.  Work hard, play hard, drink much of the coffee.

The other day, I was out with the baby, running a few errands.  I had to visit the post office, the grocery store, CVS … and Dunkin Donuts.  I try to make my order sound fresh and new (versus something I say almost without thinking), and I leaned out the window to order into the drive through speaker.  (Instead of into the garbage can, which is something I’ve done more times than I’d care to admit.)

“Hi!”  Total joy.  “Can I please have a medium iced coffee with cream and two Splenda?”

“Sure thing.  Please drive up.”

So I drive up.  But when I get to the window, there’s a little bit of confusion.

“Okay, so one coffee with milk and sugar, two doughnuts, and a bagel with cream cheese?”  The boy attending the window had a bag of deliciousness in his hand.  My stomach said “YES!  YES. THOSE BELONG TO ME.”   Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*

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