Senator's Tom A. Coburn views on bill H.R. 3200 (You know... Obama-polosi Health Care)

A few months back I wrote Senator Coburn asking him his stance on the health care reform that is working its way though our government. I do believe I posted a blog about it. Its been a while but I finally got a reply. Here is his response. Enjoy!

Thank you for taking the time to email me. I appreciate hearing from you, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to your message. I would also like to apologize for my delayed response. I have received literally thousands of letters regarding health care from Oklahomans and I personally read and respond to all of them.

President Obama's proposals-along with those in the majority of Congress-would place the government in charge of all of health care in America. According to independent analyses, as many as 115 million of Americans would be pushed into a government-run insurance plan. Medical decisions would be made by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. rather than by doctors and their patients. Americans would be left with a single-payer, government-run health care system. You can search the bill H.R. 3200 at http://www.thomas.loc.gov/">www.thomas.loc.gov. Once there, type in "HR3200" in the search box, click "Bill Number" directly beneath it, and hit "Search." Then you can click "Text of Legislation" or "CRS Summary" to read about HR3200.

I believe such a model would be disastrous for this country. Socialized systems stay afloat by rationing care, denying costly treatments, and letting people die before their time. If the United States cancer survivorship rates were as low as Great Britain's- a single-payer health system-one million more Americans could die from cancer each decade. That is unacceptable to me.

But our current health care system is clearly broken. We see signs of its failure: out of control medical costs, lack of health insurance coverage, limited choice in which doctor you can visit, and hassles in getting an insurance company to pay for medically necessary care.

Fortunately, there is a better way. I have introduced S.1099, the Patients' Choice Act, to give all Americans the ability to make their own health care decisions, see the doctor they want, and get the care they need.

The proposal includes a provision for individual health care tax credits of $2,290 for each American, and $5,710 for each American family - regardless of employment status, age, health condition, or pre-existing conditions. This means that about nine in 10 American households would see a tax cut, and for most patients and families making under $250,000 annually, their health insurance premium costs would be lower. Employers would still be able to deduct from their taxes the cost of providing health insurance to their employees, but millions of Americans who do not currently receive health insurance would have real buying power. Coupling this policy with other substantial reforms will create a market for customer-driven, portable, and universal health coverage. The Patients' Choice Act would put individuals in charge of their health care decisions and would increase access, affordability, and choice of health care plans. This proposal is a clear market-based alternative that seeks to strengthen the relationship between the patient and the doctor.

We do need health care reform in America, but we need American solutions. We do not need to follow some European countries that have a socialized mold of a single-payer system. America should achieve universal access in a way that puts individual Americans in charge of their own health care decisions. I can assure you that I will continue to persuade my colleagues to do what is best for America.

As a practicing physician and a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, Pensions committee, I am committed to major reforms. Please know that I will do everything in my power to better America's healthcare system. Thank you again for contacting me. You can read more on my website, www.coburn.senate.gov, and I sincerely appreciate your email message.

-Bastian Gatten

The first sucessful tests of a working HIV Vaccine

(Bangkok) For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible.

The World Health Organization and the U.N. agency UNAIDS said the results “instilled new hope” in the field of HIV vaccine research.

The vaccine – a combination of two previously unsuccessful vaccines – cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 percent in the world’s largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, researchers announced Thursday in Bangkok.

Even though the benefit is modest, “it’s the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine,” Col. Jerome Kim told The Associated Press. He helped lead the study for the U.S. Army, which sponsored it with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The institute’s director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned that this is “not the end of the road,” but said he was surprised and very pleased by the outcome.

“It gives me cautious optimism about the possibility of improving this result” and developing a more effective AIDS vaccine, Fauci said. “This is something that we can do.”

The Thailand Ministry of Public Health conducted the study, which used strains of HIV common in Thailand. Whether such a vaccine would work against other strains in the U.S., Africa or elsewhere in the world is unknown, scientists stressed.

Even a marginally helpful vaccine could have a big impact. Every day, 7,500 people worldwide are newly infected with HIV; 2 million died of AIDS in 2007, UNAIDS estimates.

“Today marks a historic milestone,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, an international group that has worked toward developing a vaccine.

“It will take time and resources to fully analyze and understand the data, but there is little doubt that this finding will energize and redirect the AIDS vaccine field,” he said in a statement.

The study tested the two-vaccine combination in a “prime-boost” approach, in which the first one primes the immune system to attack HIV and the second one strengthens the response.

They are ALVAC, from Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine division of French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis; and AIDSVAX, originally developed by VaxGen Inc. and now held by Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases, a nonprofit founded by some former VaxGen employees.

ALVAC uses canarypox, a bird virus altered so it can’t cause human disease, to ferry synthetic versions of three HIV genes into the body. AIDSVAX contains a genetically engineered version of a protein on HIV’s surface. The vaccines are not made from whole virus – dead or alive – and cannot cause HIV.

Neither vaccine in the study prevented HIV infection when tested individually in earlier trials, and dozens of scientists had called the new one futile when it began in 2003.

“I really didn’t have high hopes at all that we would see a positive result,” Fauci confessed.

The results proved the skeptics wrong.

“The combination is stronger than each of the individual members,” said the Army’s Kim, a physician who manages the Army’s HIV vaccine program.

The study tested the combo in HIV-negative Thai men and women aged 18 to 30 at average risk of becoming infected. Half received four “priming” doses of ALVAC and two “boost” doses of AIDSVAX over six months. The others received dummy shots. No one knew who got what until the study ended.

Thanad Yomha, a 33-year-old electrician from southeastern Thailand, said he didn’t expect anything in return for volunteering for the project.

“I did this for others,” Thanad said. “It’s for the next generation.”

All were given condoms, counseling and treatment for any sexually transmitted infections, and were tested every six months for HIV. Any who became infected were given free treatment with antiviral medicines.

Participants were followed for three years after vaccination ended.

The results: New infections occurred in 51 of the 8,197 given vaccine and in 74 of the 8,198 who received dummy shots. That worked out to a 31 percent lower risk of infection for the vaccine group. Two of the infected participants who received the placebo died.

The vaccine had no effect on levels of HIV in the blood for those who did become infected. That had been another goal of the study – seeing whether the vaccine could limit damage to the immune system and help keep infected people from developing full-blown AIDS.

That result is “one of the most important and intriguing findings of this trial,” Fauci said. It suggests that the signs scientists have been using to gauge whether a vaccine was actually giving protection may not be valid.

“It is conceivable that we haven’t even identified yet” what really shows immunity, which is both “important and humbling” after decades of vaccine research, Fauci said.

Details of the $105 million study will be given at a vaccine conference in Paris in October.

This is the third big vaccine trial since 1983, when HIV was identified as the cause of AIDS. In 2007, Merck & Co. stopped a study of its experimental vaccine after seeing it did not prevent HIV infection. Later analysis suggested the vaccine might even raise the risk of infection in certain men. The vaccine itself did not cause infection.

In 2003, AIDSVAX flunked two large trials – the first late-stage tests of any AIDS vaccine at the time.

It is unclear whether vaccine makers will seek to license the two-vaccine combo in Thailand. Before the trial began, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said other studies would be needed before the vaccine could be considered for U.S. licensing.

“This is a world first which proves that vaccine development is possible,” said Dr. Supachai Rerks-Ngarm, the Thai Health Ministry official who oversaw the trial. “But this is not to the level where we can license or manufacture the vaccine yet.”

Mass-producing the vaccine, plus how to proceed with future studies, will be discussed among the governments, study sponsors and companies involved in the trial, Kim said. Scientists want to know how long protection will last, whether booster shots will be needed, and whether the vaccine helps prevent infection in gay men and injection drug users, since it was tested mostly in heterosexuals in the Thai trial.

The study was done in Thailand because U.S. Army scientists did pivotal research in that country when the AIDS epidemic emerged there, isolating virus strains and providing genetic information on them to vaccine makers. The Thai government also strongly supported the idea of doing the study.

I have a dream Van

I got these in an email. In a way it is quite hysterical, but also sadly true. Kudos to the guy that is driving this van around. He most definately has a lot of guts.

Click on the images for a bigger picture.

Correspondence from Senator Coburn

About a month ago I sent my state senator inquiring his thoughts and details on Obama's healthcare reform bill.

Today I receive this response:

'Dear Friend: Thank you for taking the time to write me. I have received your letter and I value your input, which is why I will take the time to personally read your letter. I have a policy to read each individual letter that I receive from Oklahoma. I practiced this policy as a U.S. Representative from Oklahoma's 2nd Congressional District and intend to continue to do so as your U.S. Senator. Please allow me time to review your correspondence and make sure you receive an accurate, detailed and thoughtful response to your inquiry. I appreciate your patience as you await my response. In addition to the time it takes for me to personally review and respond to each letter, mail to the U.S. Senate is delayed more than I would like due to the new security measures. However, I look forward to reading your letter and my staff is already processing it. Sincerely, Tom Coburn, M.D. U.S. Senator P.S. For time sensitive matters, please contact my office at (202)224-5754, my staff is ready and happy to help you.'

I figured I would have got at least a generic response about the bill from him. But I got this instead. I am sure he is getting a lot of mail regarding this issue. Well maybe the next email in another month will have more details. I will post that when I get it.

-Bastian Gatten