Culture Wars – The Health Care Blog

Fighting the Wrong (Culture) War

Jan 20, 2023

By KIM BELLARD

News flash from the culture wars: they’re coming to take our gas stoves!

Well, actually, “they” are not, but the kind of people who got alarmed about it are a threat to our health, and to theirs.

The gas stove furor started with a Bloomberg News interview that Richard Trumka, Jr, a Consumer Product Safety Commission commissioner. “This is a hidden hazard,” he said. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

He was referring to the well known but little acknowledged fact that gas stoves emit various pollutants, especially nitrogen dioxide. Last year the AMA adopted resolutions about the risks of gas stoves, and urged migration efforts to electric stoves. Shelly Miller, a University of Colorado, Boulder, environmental engineer has said:

Cooking is the No. 1 way you’re polluting your home. It is causing respiratory and cardiovascular health problems; it can exacerbate flu and asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in children…you’re basically living in this toxic soup.

So one can see why the CPSC might be concerned. But the outcry about Mr. Trumka’s comments were immediate and vociferous. “I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!” Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) tweeted. The Atlantic further reported:

Governor Ron DeSantis tweeted a cartoon of two autographed—yes autographed—gas stoves. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio declared simply, “God. Guns. Gas stoves.” Naturally, Tucker Carlson got involved. “I would counsel mass disobedience in the face of tyranny in this case,” he told a guest on his Fox News show.

Almost as immediately, Mr. Trumka clarified: “To be clear, CPSC isn’t coming for anyone’s gas stoves. Regulations apply to new products.” CPSC Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric issued a statement making it clear that, while “emissions from gas stoves can be hazardous…I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.” The White House issued its own denial. Case closed, right?

Fools’ Gold Rush: Obamacare And The Medicaid “Opportunity”

Aug 27, 2012• 13

By J.D. Kleinke

You know we’ve gone through the looking glass when the hottest health care money on Wall Street is chasing Medicaid.

No, I didn’t mean Medicare, the $560 billion per year federal program for insuring the elderly that has launched a thousand IPOs. The current darling of health care investors is Medicaid, the hybrid federal-state program for insuring the poor that now dominates, and often overwhelms, state government budgets.

Last month, Wellpoint agreed to pay $4.5 billion for Amerigroup, a Medicaid managed care company, representing a nearly 50% premium over Amerigroup’s market price. Not to be outdone, Aetna this past week purchased Coventry for $5.7 billion, which also services Medicaid populations. These deals and several others like them rumored to be in the pipeline have driven up the share prices of Amerigroup’s competitors – other Medicaid managed care companies like Centene and Molinas – in anticipation of the latest round of monkey-see, monkey-acquire deals by health insurers.