I hear the term ObamaCare used contemptuously by conservatives who oppose health care reform.  I won’t go into what I think of that position, but regular readers can probably guess where I stand on that.  I do, however, want to pass along an anecdote about something that happened today, and you can draw your own conclusions.

I have a friend who has a severely disabling disease, and I’ve watched him deteriorate steadily for several years.  For the last 8 months or so he’s been having seizures almost every day, and all the nurological tests they’ve done haven’t revealed a cause.  Yesterday his wife took him to the doctor for a routine visit, and the doctor said his office was switching over to something called eScript for prescriptions because this will be ”required by ObamaCare in 2012.”  His office is trying to get a jump on the matter.  The web site of RelayHealth, the company that runs eScript, says this about it:

Through eScript, prescribers can instantly assess the patient’s accompanying online medical profile and check for compliance with the patient’s health plan formulary. What’s more, RelayHealth automatically screens each prescription for possible interactions with recorded patient allergies, health problems or previously prescribed medications.  https://www.relayhealth.com/specific/hco/onlineServices/escript.aspx

Today the doctor’s office called my friend’s wife to say eScript revealed a serious medication interaction.  Two of his medicines, when taken together, cause seizures.  Duh!  Admittedly, the two medicines were prescribed by different doctors, but nobody, including the pharmacy they’ve used for years, caught it.  The next time you hear somebody use “ObamaCare” in a disparaging way, tell them this story and tell them to go interact with themselves.

ED

Like the rest of the country, we here in Florida are in the middle of an election.  In addition to a host of local races, we’re electing a new governor and a new U.S. Senator.  Two of the candidates are billionaires, and they’re both new to politics in the state.  According to the New York Times, one guy (a Republican) has already spent more than $20 million of his own money on his primary campaign for governor, and, according to the same article, another guy (a Democrat) has spent $7 or $8 million of his personal funds on his primary race for U.S. Senate.  Absentee voting has been going on for about a month, and yesterday they started early voting at polling places around the state for the primary election.  What’s both interesting and annoying is that we are being bombarded by TV campaign ads, and most of the ads are attacks on the opposition candidates.

I suppose there’s really nothing ironic about all of this.  What is ironic, though, is that one of the candidates for the U.S. Senate has the same rather unusual last name as my son-in-law, my daughter, and my blond-haired, blue-eyed granddaughter, Liza.  Under most circumstances one would think that he’s a distant relative–and he might very well be–except that the candidate for the Senate is African American and my son-in-law and his family are very white.  Go figure.

ED

Last Friday I posted about the current religious make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court (6 Catholics, 3 Jews, 0 Protestants), and I pointed out the irony in the fact that Catholics and Jews have historically been the object of religious bigotry. This morning, about 30 minutes after I came home from Catholic Mass, I read in the New York Times about the current round of religious bigotry that’s sweeping the country regarding Muslims. To read the article, . This is shameful to me, in the same way that all bigotry is shameful.

ED

EDIT: Sorry, but I couldn’t add the link. Here’s the URL for the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/us/08mosque.html?_r=1. Cut and paste this into a browser.

ED

As of yesterday, with the confirmation of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, we now have six Catholics, three Jews, and zero Protestants on the nation’s highest court. I don’t know if this religious composition will have any significant impact on how they rule [the decision a couple of weeks ago not to hear a case that would have granted sovereign immunity to the Vatican in sex abuse cases makes me think it won't have much of an effect at all, at least as far as the Catholic Church is concerned], but this is a historic first for the United States.

What’s remarkable about the current situation is that Catholics and Jews–more than any other religious groups–have suffered from prejudice and discrimination pretty much all through our history. It’s ironic that the two groups that have been persecuted now completely dominate the American judiciary. Another touch of irony is that I recently got into an argument with my cousin about having all those Catholics on the court. He’s a very serious and very “with it” Catholic. He’s also a lawyer, and his father was a federal judge. I maintained that having all those Catholics on the Court was potentially dangerous, and he maintained I was “full of shit.” We’re still great friends and probably always will be, but we relish “intellectual” arguments. Unfortunately, we disagree about so few things that arguments are hard to come by.

ED