Interactive: U.S. Health Care, State by State - Newsweek Health - MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19231399/site/newsweek/?GT1=10056)

Newsweek - Oklahoma ranks 50 out of 50 states in the US in health care.

Why is it that Oklahoma always has to be at or near the bottom in health related issues??

I think they have a little anti-south thing going on...

I wouldn't get too fired up in the panties about this, look at most large/populated states are red - so it is probably more of an indication about access or lack thereof rather than the health care system in OK or other populated states are poor.

Probably because our state does not dump a large chunk of money into free public health care. Not to mention there is not a charity hospital or an abundance of free clinics like there are in other states.

The one thing that disturbs me about health care is the fact that most Americans want excellent health care at cheap prices. While at the same time they refuse to follow preventative measures recommend by their doctors and health advocates.

Most of the categories listed in the survey data involve personal choices, not "evil empire" health care companies nor heavy handed government agencies. If Oklahomans, based on that criteria, avoid doctors and spend thier health care dollars in other areas so be it.

The Commwealth Fund that paid for the study is pushing government funded universal health care. This probably explains several things. First, this is why the NE rated so high (they have extensive public support health care). Second, the choice of blue for best and red for worst coincides with red and blue representations for Republican and Democrat voting states. Third, this is why it appears in Newsweek/MSNBC.

If you don't think this "survey" is politically motivated your nuts.

Here is the funny part:
Disclaimer on the report
Support for this research was provided by The Commonwealth Fund. The views presented here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Commonwealth Fund or its directors, officers, or staff, or of The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System or its members.

Here is who wrote the report:
"The differences we found between the top and bottom states were shocking, often a two- to three-fold variation or greater," said co-author and Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen.

Here is who testified before congress:
Our nation's failure to provide adequate health insurance to millions is a major factor in the inconsistent performance of the nation's health system, testified Commonwealth Fund vice president Sara Collins, Ph.D., before the United States Senate.

I thought the report didn't represent the view of The Commonwealth Fund

I can just see Universal Health Care in action now.

I am bleeding like a stuck pig because I was just injured in a car crash. Hospitals 1,2,3 and are on divert status because its Flu season. (Why would you spend $30 at Walgreens and treat yourself at home when the local hospital is free.)

EMSA rushes me to a hospital number 4 (which is 30 minutes away) just so I can die in the Ambulance Bay.

Before we jump the gun and create another goverment money pit, how about we learn to live healthy lifestyles, learn basic first aid, demand responsable pricing for health services and allow reasonable repayment plans. Those simple steps alone will save consumers and taxpayers millions.

Does anyone plan on seeing the Michael Moore movie, that shows all of the problems in the US heathcare system, "Sicko"???

MichaelMoore.com : SiCKO : 'SiCKO' News : 'Sicko' to open early in New York (http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=9915)

I plan on seeing it.. I can't wait. Health care is so outrageous. And horribly frightening to think of something catastrophic happening without proper insurance.

You know it's bull sh** when Texas is #49.

I love these self-serving, inflammatory "studies" that end up becoming "news."

Without even looking at the "study," I'm going to make this wild guess that it's primarily based on how much free (translated: government-paid) medical care each state provides.

There are manifest problems with health care, but "studies" and "news" like this doesn't help them.

-soonerdave

Gotta love the headline:

"Don't Get Sick in Tulsa"

Like if you get sick there, there are no hospitals or something. :rolleyes:

Here are a few other rankings with Okc near or at the bottom in health related categories.

The Best & Worst Cities for Men 2007 - Men's Health - MSN Health & Fitness (http://health.msn.com/menshealth/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100152357) Oklahoma City ranks near the worst at 92 out of 100.

Metrogrades: Ranking America's Cities - Men's Health - MSN Health & Fitness (http://health.msn.com/menshealth/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100162482) Oklahoma City ranks worst at #98 out of 100.

The Fast-food capital of America: Oklahoma City - Apr. 12, 2007 (http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/12/magazines/fortune/pluggedin_boyle_fastfood.fortune/index.htm) We all know this one Okc ranks #1 as "Fast Food Capital"

The fittest and fattest cities - Fitness - MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10737777/) Here Tulsa ranks #14 as the fittest city, and Okc ranks #17 as the fattest.

The Best Walking Cities of 2007 (http://www.prevention.com/article/0,5778,s1-2-92-752-7792-9,00.html) Here we have the top 100 Best walking cities, Okc comes in at #83 out of 100.


Are all of these lists biased against Okla. or Okc??

Do they all have hidden government agendas??

No.

Those are completely different. They are saying that Oklahomans are not living healthy lifestyles, essentially. No one's arguing with that.


This list purports that our health care is of poor quality, as if we have no good doctors or nice hospitals or state of the art treatment facilities. And that is insulting and not true.

I think that it all goes hand in hand. If the people of Okla lived healthier then I think that you would see that our Health Care would be held in a higher regard, and we would not place 50th in the US with poor healthcare.

I have heard over the years that many of our top doctors have been leaving the state of Okla because of lack of tort reform. It was only a year or two ago that doctors of Okc had a stand in at the legislature trying to get help with malpractice suits and insurance. I don't know all of the facts but I don't think that anything has changed since then, at least I haven't heard.

The fact that Oklahomans are fat and lazy doesn't mean that are doctors suck or that our hospitals don't have the most up-to-date equipment on the market.

It's hogwash.

Here is another ranking, Okla. is 2nd in the U.S. behind Mississippi in Strokes.

Strokes strike South the hardest - Heart Health - MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18724073/)

Lee, I gotta sorta agree with jbrown here. I think we're talking apples and oranges. The partisan study bemoaning the state of our health care system has little to to with the sorry state of our health. That's like saying "If they built better cars, I would be a better driver." Our health care system is not without flaws, but I don't believe it's as bad as the report would have you believe.

Well, only way to find out what biases may exist is to look at the foundation of the report. Let's look at the "Best Walking" cities.


Tops on the list of what makes a place "fitness walker friendly" are safe streets, beautiful places to walk, mild weather, and good air quality.

Here are some of the specific criteria we used. Each criterion was weighted as heavy, medium or light in terms of importance.

• % of pop that walks for exercise
• Use of mass transit
• Parks per square mile
• Points of interest per squre mile
• Avg winter/summer temperatures
• % of athletic shoe buyers


Let's see. "Beautiful places to walk?" Boy, that's not subjective, is it? Parks per square mile? How could an Oklahoma, with far less land area than, say, a Texas or a California, ever be successful here? "Points of interest?" What's interesting to you isn't interesting to me. More subjective criteria. "% athletic shoe buyers" - so the only "legitimate" walkers are those who pay >$100 for a Nike swoosh on the side of their sneaks? And they say only that they weight the criteria as "heavy, medium, or light," but don't tell you which they decided get what assessment.

The point isn't to villify their survey, or to say that OKC or Tulsa is or isn't a good place to walk; its to point out that I can come up with a dozen subjective criteria, plop it on a blog somewhere, and trumpet as "The 10 Most <Whatever> List," and no one can dispute me. It doesn't mean anything.

As far as this survey goes, what about "miles of sidewalk per house?" or "miles of sidewalk per capita?" Or "average discretionary time for walking" per capita? Maybe they're relevant, maybe not, but the point is that saying a given city finished low on the "walking list" doesn't mean squat.

And that famous "fast food capital" survey? Take a moment and look at how the results are couched:


Last year, well over half (55 percent) of Oklahoma City fast-food patrons dined in establishments like McDonald's or Wendy's

Note that the result is taken from a subset of the population - 55% of Oklahoma City fast-food patrons **not** the entire population. It doesn't say anything about the absolute rate of fast-food consumption or rate of visitation. Maybe the pool of fast-food patrons is higher or lower here, or there, but the point is you can't make a conclusion based on these half-baked statistics. The previous "winner" was Greenvile, South Carolina, with a gasp-inducing rate of 59%! Horrors!

But let's look into those numbers a bit more deeply. First, a "heavy user" was someone who visited a fast-food joint for "burgers and fries" more than 12 times per month. What's special about 12? What about 11? Would the statistical percentages and/or "winners" have changed if the number was changed? Is going to fast-food for burgers and fries 11 times a month suddenly considered healthy? How do OKC and Greenville's numbers compare there? Don't know, because the authors arbitrarily deemed them to be irrelevant.

Wikipedia reports that Greenville, South Carolina has a population of 75,000, and the greater Greenville metropolitan area encompases close to 207,000. Oklahoma City's population is listed at 531,324 (core), an 1.17 million (metropolitan).

Let's pretend, for the sake of argument, that 100% of the population in both cities is a "fast food customer," even though we know by the presentation of the data that's not the case. 59% of the "core" population works out to 44,000 people in Greenville, and about 292K in OKC. What we're finding out now is that we're comparing population bases that differ by a factor of about six. But since the authors chose not to tell us what those actual numbers are, we're left to draw the conclusions they intended for us to draw.

Are we the fast-food capital of the country? Only way to find that out is to determine a raw per-capita consumption rate of fast-food items. And that number is nowhere to be found in this article.

I'm not saying we do or don't consume too much fast-food. That's not the point. (I personally do not buy into the villain-food theology, but believe in moderation in all things. The idea of 12 trips to Mickey D's in 30 days makes me want to barf). The point is that we must be willing to analyze surveys for the ultimate purpose they are designed to serve.

Lastly, in that "Men's Fitness" article, they based their "fattest cities" list on things like "gym memberships" and "time spent in traffic." Heck, I'm dumb enough to believe that if you sell me a survey about "fattest cities" you've gone to the trouble of measuring average weight, standard deviations from the mean, and other statistical analyses, not my gym habits or my driving tendencies. I could be a member of 3 gyms and never visit them, and I could commute to-and-from work 100 miles a day but still run 5 miles every night. The point is that the criteria are arbitrary and meaningless, and the points of each predetermined. Men's Fitness wants men to lose weight; that's great. So what if I live in a city they think is "fat?" The Commonwealth group wants socialized medicine, so they put out a survey about "worst" health care. Someone wants to blame TV ads for making kids fat, so they release a study that shows a correlation, but not a causation and since no one bothers to understand the difference, some people start running around like a headless chicken thinking we suddenly have to "do" something about TV ads - completely igorning the fact that TV ads have zero calories.

Sorry to rant on about this, but I get so tired of junk science, junk surveys, and manipulated statistics based on arbitrary criteria that are then used to make or reinforce premediated conclusions. If you want to convince me of something as fact, give me factual, absolute research, not this claptrap our USA Today "Poll of the Day" graphic pseudeo journalistic subculture has inspired.

-soonerdave

Does anyone remember a year or two ago, the sit-in that local doctors had at the state capitol??

What was that all about??

If I remember correctly many of our top doctors do leave the state because it is to costly for them to practice medicine in Oklahoma.

2006 best hospitals list, nearly 200 listed not one from the state of Okla., again with the agenda or bias against Okla.

usnews.com: Health: Best Hospitals 2006: A-Z Hospital Index (http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/best-hospitals/directory/hosp_alph.htm)

:congrats: Preach it, Brother Dave.

I will agree that you can make a list of rankings read however you want it to read. Just like you can with anything else, but don't you think that once maybe once Okc or Okla would make it at the top of one of the rankings or lists??

The main report took in these factors:
Access - access to health insurance
Quality - quality of care give by the medical profession
Equity - equal care based on ethnicity or income level
Hospital Costs - the expense of hospital care
Healthy Living - measures how states support their residents healthy lives

Here is our State's rankings:
Access - 50th
Quality - 43rd
Equity - 50th
Hosptial Costs - 50th
Healthy Living - 47th

Sooner Dave..........with all things being equal, don't you think that at least once Okc would make it out of the bottom of all of these lists and rankings??

You can throw out the fast food list or the walking cities list, but you can not throw out all of the rankings and lists as pure biased agenda.

Okla #2 in strokes
Okla not one of the top hospitals in the U.S.
Okla top diabetes state
Okla fattest cities
Okla shortest life expectancy.

Why is everyone picking on Oklahoma??

At least USNews spelled out a rather detailed description of the methodology they used that allows the findings of their list to be discussed. That's a hopeful sign....but at the core of that discussoin, note that at the core of their survey was this:


The doctors were mailed a survey form and asked to list the five hospitals they feel are best in their specialty for difficult cases, without consideration of cost or location.

Oh, blast. You've just blown objectivity to you-know-where. We're no longer scientific, we're going on people's opinion. Doctors, yes, specialists, apparently, but still its' a "popularity" contest for about 1/3 of the survey's criteria. Was the "most popular" girl in high school really the "best" or "nicest" girl?

Look, too, at the fundamental selection criteria of a "best hospitals" list:


In individual specialties, hospitals had to admit and treat a minimum number of patients in 2002, 2003, and 2004 with sufficiently complex conditions in 2002, 2003, and 2004

This survey opts to find and celebrate hospitals that treat specialty situations particularly well - even rare ones, and that inherently puts smaller states at a disadvantage. If the occurrence rate of a particular rare cancer is reasonably distributed across the country, more populous states will have a higher incidence rate, thus hospitals in those areas will have a greater chance of being listed. There might be one, two, or ?? hospitals in Oklahoma that treated some of these "rare" conditions masterfully, but if they didn't treat what USNews decided was "enough" of them, you might as well be a guy with a knife and a bottle of disinfectant loitering outside McDonalds (after having your 12th fast-food burger and fries :) )

Fortunately, the lead paragraph of the story explains (in effect) that you're likely to find good, general care at your local hospital. It's a shame the list isn't entitled to reflect that sentiment, because as it is, the list is misleading, because the absence of any one hospital could merely be because it doesn't see enough of the candidate cases to qualify for rating.

This kind of list - and qualitative assessments about the "quality" of health care in Oklahoma - none of them take into account other factors, such as:

* We have one of the leading neuromuscular disease physicians groups in the country - right here in OKC
* I personally (and I recognize that personal observations do not a trend make) have had the services of a surgeon that has a sterling list of very high-profile patients (many of whom fly in to see him), and he chooses to maintain his surgical practice here in Oklahoma and use Oklahoma hospitals for some reason.
* The Dean McGee Eye Institute is a nationally recognized leader in vision research
* Oklahoma was among the first states in the country to experiment with lithotripsy in the destruction of kidney stones (Deaconness Hospital, if memory serves)

The point isn't about what few things I happen to know - it's that there are two sides to every survey. We can't allow ourselves to see two or three surveys and conclude "Oklahoma health care sucks, we're all fat, and we're all gonna die." It just isn't that simple.

Again, I'm not trashing the survey or celebrating it, I'm trying to call attention to those facts that should compel us to study the detalis of the survey to determine what is really being reported, not just what the author wants to tell us he or she is reporting, that's all. I'm a firm advocate of everyone using that paperweight between the ears - even me :)

-soonerdave

So it is just coincidence that all of these studies, lists, and rankings, are flawed against Oklahoma?

The details that determine the aformentioned are not set up to make Oklahoma at the top of one of these studies.


Also the US news lists of top 200 hospitals of 2006, there are many hospitals that are on that list from states that compare in size to Okla.

In 11 of the 16 specialties, hard data largely determine a hospital's position. (In the others five, as explained below, the rankings are based only on hospitals' reputation among specialist physicians.) Initial eligibility for these data-driven specialties requires a hospitals to meet any of three standards: membership in the Council of Teaching Hospitals, affiliation with a medical school, or—to open the door to non-teaching hospitals—availability of at least nine out of 18 key technologies like shaped beam radiation, an advanced cancer therapy. This year, fewer than a third of the hospitals qualified.

We didn't make the top 1/3...whoopee. Certainly not the worst hospitals.

I do know that University of Oklahoma will be building a world class Diabetes Center along with the Cancer Center at the Okc OU campus.

I would think that the fact that our state has neither a cancer center nor a diabetes center right now puts us at the bottom in health related studies.

The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation is one of the top 12 private medical research institutions in the country, so there's a ranking that doesn't reflect so poorly on the medical field here.

okclee, you keep lumping in the health-related rankings with HEALTH CARE. We do deserve to be at the bottom of these lists when it comes to healthy lifestyle, but two surveys published by east coast magazines does not convince me that we have THE worst quality of care from physicians or THE worst equity among all income and social levels.

jbrown....... I hear what you are saying, but don't you think that the healthy lifestyle is somehow connected to the health care in Okla. and vice versa??

If we had a healthier lifestyle in Okla then our doctors would look better, and if our healthcare system was better in Okla then we could lead a healthier lifestyle.


Does anyone remember just a few years ago that many of Okla top doctors were leaving the state because of the Okla legislature and tort reform?

Healthy lifestyle when it comes to how we eat and how we exercise is cultural. The knowledge and skill of local doctors to treat your cancer or your diabetes has nothing to do with that. Our medical education system is far from the worst in the country and has actually improved immensely under the watch of David Boren.

I think tort reform is just one tiny issue in all of this. Its something to work on most definitely, but the incident you're talking about was (not surprisingly) blown way out of proportion by the sensationalists at KOCO and KFOR and probably even KWTV.

Soonerdave - I salute you

Just for fun, here are the people who authored the reports cited by OKCLEE:

Best and Worst Cities for Men 2007 - Jeff O'Connell, Men's Health

Merograde: Ranking America's City - Jeff O'Connell, Men's Health

The Fast-food Capital of America - Fortune doesn't site any reports, just anecdotal evidence.

The Fattest and Fittest Cities - Jeff O'Connell, Men's Health

The Best Walking Cities - Jeff O'Connell, Editor of Prevention Magazine

This Jeff O'Connel guy seems to be very busy. Guess what Jeff's other occupation is. He sells excercise books and videos. I guess if you tell the same story over and over people will start to believe it. Not exactly an impartial researcher.

Jeff O'Connell is the chief editor of Men's Health Magazine and not the author.

Three of those sources are from Mens Health Magazine, which is considered to be reputable magazine and not just some random blog.

He is the author of these reports also. I guess "reputable" is in the eye of reader. One person does a so-called study and present his findings in 5 different places, then use those 5 references to help sell his excerise merchandise. What part is reputable? Did you notice that personal income is used in all of his calculations of health?

I would think that the fact that our state has neither a cancer center nor a diabetes center right now puts us at the bottom in health related studies.

This is the problem, the studies you cited didn't look at this knd of criteria. They focused on things like time spent commuting, how many days people went to the gym, is the scenery pleasant, and how many Sonics there are. Another problem I have is that none of these tell you how the criteria are weighted or even if having more of something is considered bad or good. In fact, we never get to see the raw data to verify anything. And I am quite sure there is no peer review (although that has problems also). Crap, I should start my own think tank and start publishing my own reports.

I guess if it is negative toward Okla or Okc the something is wrong with the study or the report.

This message board is filled with links to websites touting Okla or Okc at the top of many lists in the U.S. and nobody ever questions the criteria or the source.

It is all about if the news is good then hooray for Okla, but if the news is bad then the study is biased or there is an agenda or the facts are incomplete.

Don't shoot the messenger.

I'm not try to shoot the messenger, but I can see why it looks that way. Just for the record, I am also skeptical on the good new also. A few years ago Tulsa was ranked as one of the top 10 best place to live. However, a little investigative research revealed that Tulsa paid $20,000 to get on the list. Several years ago I believed all of the surveys also, but now I question everything. Usually it is people trying to influence personal political agendas or selling something. There are still people doing real research but they are getting few and far between.

okclee,

No offense, but you're missing the point of my (and others) criticism.

The point is that these are strawman arguments made by someone with a vested interest in the results turning out a certain way. A report by a health editor is just as non-neutral as, say, a report on how healthy hamburgers are by someone from Wendy's\. The point is that these aren't meaningful pieces of evidence to demonstrate the points they intend to demonstrate, and that's often because the base criteria you might expect/I] to be used doesn't make the point as well as you'd like.

The use of "relative" rates of something (whatever it may be) versus "absolute" rates is a classic misuse of statistics. The "fattest city" report is an inflammatory title that cites just about everything [I]except average weight statistics to support its claim - gym memberships, driving time, etc. A "fattest city" list should be just that - a list of the cities with the highest average per-capita weights for its citizens. Because the distribution of overweight people might not be as pronounced in that vein, the author added other criteria that have nothing to do with how "fat" someone is to embellish their point.

If studies and surveys have a valid point to make, they shouldn't have to rely on secondary data to prove their "point." It isn't about ignoring Oklahoma problems, it's about the reaction to incendiiary polls, studies, and surveys merely on their face rather than studying the techniques and motivations behind them - no matter how laudable they seem.

A classic adjunct to this statistics abuse issue is the way cholesterol lowering medications are sold to the public, with almost no reporting of the change in absolute risk for coronary disease for taking statin drugs. The change in absolute risk is astonishingly small, but milllions of people dutifully take their statins under the false impression that they drastically reduce their risk factor for taking them - while drug companies make billions as a result. It's a sad commentary that none of our so-called "news" organizations have investigated what I think is a monumental fraud being perpetrated on the medical consumer, but that's a different issue.

I guess, to a degree, I'm repeating myself, and I'm sorry for that. I have no problem with simple, sound surveys and research that wants an objective conclusion, whether it is positive or negative for me or you or Oklahoma City. When you say "don't shoot the messenger," you're taking precisely the path those authors want you to take - accept the results they present at face value and be "shocked" into doing what they think is right. You're too smart for that, lee.The data behind those studies that paint such a horrible picture of Oklahoma are not scientific studies; they're compilations of data based largely on what one or two people "think" is right or the way things "oughta" be. And in worse cases, they bear no resemblance to the "facts" they are trying to sell. That's intellectual dishonesty at its worst - no matter how altruistic the motivations.

Should most Oklahomans eat better and exercise more? Almost certainly. To make that point, wouldn't it be simpler just to perform a survey on national exercise averages rather than construct this strawman stuff about gyms and commuting times? I think so. If we're the "fattest" city, shouldn't that just mean we, on average, weigh more than residents of other states? Probably, but I don't think that's the core data in the "fattest city" survey.

The problem is that doing pure, "clean" surveys and studies draws a much more boring, and more general conclusion that EVERYONE should be eating better and exercising more. ut doesn't afford these dramatic, headline grabbing opportunities to humiliate one or two cities or states as some low-class, high "offenders" of some purer faith. The "health crowd" has more than a sliver of self-righteousness about itself these days, and the liberties it takes in studies like these to be condescending to those who don't live as "they" think they should is more than a little tiring.

-soonerdave

It's a darn conspiracy to make the red states look bad right?

It's a darn conspiracy to make the red states look bad right?

No, it's a conspiracy of bad research and shoddy journalism under the heading of "scientific research." Oklahoma just happens to be an unfortunate bystander.

-soonerdave

It's a darn conspiracy to make the red states look bad right?

If this comment is directed at the Commonwealth study then your answer is yes, the choosing of colors to represent good and bad was intended to make Republican leaning states look bad. You can't take the politics out of a politically motivated report written by a politically motivated organization.

Earlier in this post CuatrodeMayo made reference to the US News and World Report Best Hospitals Report 2006. This is another example of a non-scientific study being passed off as real research. The study used data from three areas to make their list; reputation, mortality, and other factors (their term not mine). The scores given for "reputation" and "other factors" come from doctor surveys.

For "reputation" only 47&#37; of the 3,200 doctors that were sent sureveys responded to them. This 3,200 was selected at random from 860,000 doctors on the AMA master file. The 1504 doctors that responded represent only 0.17% of the AMA doctors, but it accounts for 33% of the final score, and the AMA is just one of several Medical assoications.

For the "other factors" ranking, so few hospitals responded that they had to fill in the gaps with surveys from 2003. I'm not sure why they used 2003 and not 2004 or 2005. To further skew the numbers the ranking of "other factors" also came from the same doctor survey reviewed above. We already know that only 0.17% of AMA doctors were used. This now means that 67% of the score came from a handful of doctors with enough time to fill out surveys.

In my opinion the only category that even makes sense in the whole "study" is the mortality rate but it used data from 2003, 2004, and 2005. But once again the raw data had to be manipulated based on a subjective ranking criteria called "severity". The more sever a patient was ranked the less impact that patient had on the mortality rate. In other words, one death doesn't necessarly equal another death.

At the end of the day it all seems like a bunch of made-up excriment to me and since we don't get to see the whole process who knows if the rules are change midstream to get the desired outcome.

I think that it all goes hand in hand. If the people of Okla lived healthier then I think that you would see that our Health Care would be held in a higher regard, and we would not place 50th in the US with poor healthcare.

I have heard over the years that many of our top doctors have been leaving the state of Okla because of lack of tort reform. It was only a year or two ago that doctors of Okc had a stand in at the legislature trying to get help with malpractice suits and insurance. I don't know all of the facts but I don't think that anything has changed since then, at least I haven't heard.

Tort reform is a joke in my opinion. A big part of the tort reform movement is to cap "non-economic" damages at $300,000. Can you imagine going in for an operation and some doctor negligently cuts off the wrong arm or negligently treats your loved on resulting in death? I'm not saying that we should go off and reward every injured person $1 million, but let's at least let the jury decide what damage amount is appropriate and not the politicians in our state capitol.

Tort reform is a joke in my opinion. A big part of the tort reform movement is to cap "non-economic" damages at $300,000. Can you imagine going in for an operation and some doctor negligently cuts off the wrong arm or negligently treats your loved on resulting in death? I'm not saying that we should go off and reward every injured person $1 million, but let's at least let the jury decide what damage amount is appropriate and not the politicians in our state capitol.

Problem is juries many times hand out enormous awards based mainly on their dislike of our health care system...Everyone hates how expensive our coverage, copays and deductibles are and they go in looking to get some payback for us common folk

I am definitely for a cap on everything but the most aggregious acts

I think we need to live healther.
Stop blaming others when you can't say no to a double whatever this or a supersize that.
And not everything is govertment driven.
Good lord sometimes theres no devil behind it.
I think responsiblility should be the thing we need to changed, or indeed challenged ourselves.

Tort reform is a joke in my opinion. A big part of the tort reform movement is to cap "non-economic" damages at $300,000. Can you imagine going in for an operation and some doctor negligently cuts off the wrong arm or negligently treats your loved on resulting in death? I'm not saying that we should go off and reward every injured person $1 million, but let's at least let the jury decide what damage amount is appropriate and not the politicians in our state capitol.

Letting the jury decide would be a wonderful idea if you truly got a jury of your peers. First of all, for a physician, who would your peers actually be? If not other physicians, other professionals?

Have you ever sat on a jury? Or have you, like most of the people I know, figured out a way to get out of jury duty because you had to work, were too busy with children/ illness in the family etc? That leaves the people who are thrilled to get out of work, the unemployed and the few truly civic minded people around to sit on a jury. Then, how many of them have even the rudiments of knowledge necessary to understand most malpractice cases? I'm a physician, and the questions my educated friends (in fields other than medicine) ask me are frequently frightening for their lack of understanding of basic medical facts.

Trust me, there are very few cases that come before a jury that involve the lopping of the wrong limb and other very serious cases of malpractice. Most of those are settled long before they come to court and most of those physicians (our motto: first, do no harm) are happy to compensate people who have truly been the victim of malpractice.

The cases that come to court are usually those the attorneys for the defendent think are defensible, or the ones the attorneys for the plaintiffs think are good for publicity or large off the wall damages. I've been lucky enough never to have been sued, but I've sat in court on one ridiculous case that even the jury was smart enough to realize was foolish. They returned a not guilty verdict in less than 10 minutes. Do you want to know how much it cost the insurance company to "win" that case 15 years ago? Approximately $90,000. Sadly, some of the other juries on equally ridiculous suits have not returned a not guilty verdict, frequently because the jury feels "sorry" for the plaintiff, regardless of the facts of the case. And, because they know the physician isn't paying, they frequently award ridiculously high damages, not realizing that we're all paying. Higher malpractice fees result in higher costs to the rest of us when we seek medical care.

I've been in court much more frequently as an expert witness, and I've seen how often lawyers for the plaintiff and defendent (in child abuse cases) twist medical facts, seek out obscure journals with one article that vaguely supports their case and try to overwhelm the jury with facts I can guarantee you most of them don't understand. So, the winner may end up being the one with the lawyer with the best courtroom presence, rather than the best case.

The best jury I've ever seen is a military jury. There at least the defendent gets a jury of his peers. The jury can actually ask the expert witness questions if they have them, and the witness can educate the jury in layman's terms. I wish we had more like them.

Sorry for the rant, but frivolous lawsuits are hurting all of us. I would have no problem with all cases in which the lawyer for the plaintiff truly thinks his/her case should be worthy of an award greater than $300,000 being reviewed by a panel of several doctors and several lawyers, and a special exception being made in those cases. But trust me, it would be the minority of cases right now.

Okla. #47 of 50 in overall health.

I am sure that this is more biased information against our great state of Ok. Remeber you can't trust or believe any of this information.

NewsOK: We can blame food, smoking for bad rating (http://newsok.com/article/3164645/1194329654)



Tue November 6, 2007
We can blame food, smoking for bad rating

Top 5 states: 1-Vermont, 2-Minnesota, 3-Hawaii, 4-New Hampshire,
5-Connecticut

Bottom 5 states:
46-Tennessee,
47-Oklahoma,
48-Arkansas,
49-Louisiana,
50-Mississippi


Staff Writer
Oklahomans eat too much, smoke too much and too often die from heart disease, researchers say, and only three states fared worse in a United Health Foundation state-by-state study of residents' health released on Monday.

In overall health for 2007, Oklahoma ranked 47th-worst, ahead of only Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Top-ranked states were Vermont, Minnesota, Hawaii, New Hampshire and Connecticut. Oklahoma dropped from 44th in 2006.

Oklahoma improved the least since 1990, and has only raised its overall score minimally since 1990 while the other states did better, according to the foundation's report.

Oklahoma ranked worst in the nation in cardiovascular deaths and 47th worst in prevalence of smoking, according to the report, "A Call to Action for People and Their Communities.”

In specific health categories, 25 percent of Oklahomans are listed as smokers and 29 percent of residents are considered obese.

"Since 1990, the prevalence of obesity increased from 11.6 percent to 29 percent,” noted the foundation's report about Oklahomans.

Obesity is defined as "an excessive accumulation of body fat, usually caused by the consumption of more calories than the body can use. The excess calories are then stored as fat.”

"This report is very disappointing,” said Pam Troup, a member of the executive committee of Central Oklahoma Turning Point, a health improvement initiative. "Despite many education programs, we're just not seeing changes in lifestyle behaviors. The best thing that could be done in Oklahoma would be for people to stop smoking and stop using all tobacco products.”

Oklahoma also was cited for limited access to primary-care physicians. That contributed to the state's low ranking, according to the national report.

Some 19 percent of Oklahomans lack health insurance and 21 percent of children live in poverty, the report stated.


What's the reaction?
In reacting to the report, public health authorities said several factors in the report aren't within their realm of control. The United Health Foundation's assessment also included measures of economic and social conditions that can affect health outcomes.
"Certainly, we are most disappointed that our state health status ranking has dropped,” Dr. Mike Crutcher, commissioner of the Oklahoma Health Department, said Monday.

"In the past year, Oklahoma has experienced some noteworthy achievements that we felt should have improved our state's health ranking.”

Crutcher said Oklahoma's immunization coverage for children from 19 to 35 months has improved from 44th to 25th in the nation — with 80.4 percent of these children now fully immunized against 10 diseases including polio and hepatitis B.

Other successes include a reduction in the state's infectious-disease rate, which has decreased by 60 percent since 1990.

Similarly, Oklahoma's smoking prevalence has decreased by 24 percent since 1990, although the annual rate has remained at about 25 percent since 2000, he said.

"Numerous organizations and initiatives — including the ‘Strong and Healthy Oklahoma' initiative and the Turning Point and Fit Kids coalitions — are working together throughout the state toward the common goal of achieving positive health changes,” Crutcher said.

"While we are disappointed in the new state health ranking, we are also even more determined to confront — and overcome — those challenges keeping our state from achieving significant health improvements,” Crutcher said.


How one state improved
New Mexico had a 4.5 percent increase in its health status over last year, and was ranked 38th in the report.
"We have doubled the number of school-based health centers across New Mexico, increasing students' access to free primary and behavioral health care in their schools,” said Deborah Busemeyer, spokeswoman for the New Mexico Health Department.

"We have expanded insurance coverage for business owners, workers, people with disabilities and every child up to age 12,” she said. "We have also created an ‘obesity interagency' to help state agencies collaborate.”

Officials with the Oklahoma Academy of Family Physicians said they are attempting to increase the number of general practice doctors in the state.

"Our efforts at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine campus include introducing medical students to family medicine through preceptor programs with family physicians, monthly lectures relating to primary care, and community-outreach activities including hands-on clinics for the homeless and uninsured patients,” said Sam Blackstock, academy executive vice president.

"We are also even more determined to confront — and overcome — those challenges keeping our state from achieving significant health improvements.”

Dr. Mike Crutcher, health commissioner


NewsOK: We can blame food, smoking for bad rating (http://newsok.com/article/3164645/1194329654)

It baffles me how many people of my generation smoke despite being more than well educated on the dangers of it.

It baffles me how many people of my generation smoke despite being more than well educated on the dangers of it.

It makes you look cool.



kidding :)

So, Oklahoma is #47 in overall health.

okclee, what do you want our state's health care system to do to make Oklahoma healthier?

JESUS is my health insurance.

So, Oklahoma is #47 in overall health.

okclee, what do you want our state's health care system to do to make Oklahoma healthier?

Come on okclee. Don't you know the only money well-spent by the government (at any level) is when it hands out dollars to millionaire owners of professional sports teams? Universal health care in Oklahoma? Forget about it. We have to take care of the good old boys, and they all have very good health insurance.
</sarcasm>

I agree with okclee's sentiment that too many people here put on blinders and blame the messenger, make excuses, talk around the topic, rather than DARE admit that Oklahoma has anything wrong that needs attention. The government, (the sentiment seems to be), should butt out, unless its needed to help fund arenas, practice facilities or whatever for the thuggy NBA; or government giveaway programs........ (I'm sorry --- incentives)............. to rich businessmen so they can take advantage of our underpaid/cheap workforce or build something downtown that doesn't even belong to the people, but to private individuals who pocket all the profits. Wake up, okclee! Get with the program!

LOL... never thought of it that way. Lets shell out a few hundred million for the new NBA team, but screw the people need health care... they shouldn't be so lazy.

Come on okclee. Don't you know the only money well-spent by the government (at any level) is when it hands out dollars to millionaire owners of professional sports teams? Universal health care in Oklahoma? Forget about it. We have to take care of the good old boys, and they all have very good health insurance.
</sarcasm>

I agree with okclee's sentiment that too many people here put on blinders and blame the messenger, make excuses, talk around the topic, rather than DARE admit that Oklahoma has anything wrong that needs attention. The government, (the sentiment seems to be), should butt out, unless its needed to help fund arenas, practice facilities or whatever for the thuggy NBA; or government giveaway programs........ (I'm sorry --- incentives)............. to rich businessmen so they can take advantage of our underpaid/cheap workforce or build something downtown that doesn't even belong to the people, but to private individuals who pocket all the profits. Wake up, okclee! Get with the program!

All I did was ask what our state should do to make Oklahoma healthier. I didn't say anything about the "thuggy NBA" (whatever that means). I've read all the complaints, so what are your solutions?

It's quite possible to see the need for change and still recognize that many of these studies ARE biased. The article even points out changes that have been made in the last year that for whatever reason were ignored by the study.

JESUS is my health insurance.

No wonder you're #47.

Top Five Reasons are country's health care system in crisis:

1. Too many people making babies that do not/barely have the means to support themselves.

2. Very few people know basic first aid and know how to treat minor ailments.

3. People are not as active as they used to be.

4. People eat too much crap food.

5. People consume too much alcohol and tobacco.

Take care of those problems and I guarantee you the health system will make a recovery in as little as 5-10 years.

Oneforone - if you ask me, you're on the right track.

I read an article a couple of years ago that made the argument that if people lost weight, exercised and took care of themselves, the "health crisis" in this country would rapidly become manageable. It pointed out, sensibly, to my way of thinking, how obesity, lack of exercise and poor eating habits have contributed to diabetes, hypertension, etc.

It irks me when people complain that doctors are "insensitive" when they point out that their patients are FAT. People also complain about employers who try to get their employees to lose weight. All those fat people are driving up my insurance premiums. When I see fat children, I feel so sorry for them. What are their parents thinking? Their weight is going to negatively impact them in every area of their lives. And don't talk to me about hyper or hypo glands and metabolism. Until you have tried, over a sustained time, to exercise and diet sensibly, don't bring in an underlying health condition (that plenty of lean people share) as an excuse.

All that being said, I am glad I am not raising children in this era of video games. I know it is sometimes hard to get the kids to get off their butts and go make friends. As a parent, it needs to be a priority. When I see really fat people out exercising and looking ridiculous I admire the hell out of them. I need to do the same thing but, instead, I am sitting around waiting until I am really disgusting instead of just grossly out of shape. I am as bad as everyone else.

Remember when there was only one or two fat kids in school? Remember when being fat was something we wanted to avoid? When did that change? I can understand being middle aged and hefty but kids? Poor things.