Insurance Nightmare: Why We Need a Better System
Late last year, I learned two things at about the same time: My cancer was coming back, and I had gotten a new insurance plan. Since then, I've learned something else: It's far easier to deal with my disease than with my new insurers. I have multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow that's incurable but treatable. I've kept it at bay by aggressively pursuing the most advanced treatments available. By the time I relapsed in December, I had multiple bone fractures, was in significant pain and trying to figure out what to do next. Insurance was the last thing on my mind. I made an ...
I Have a Wife, and He's Spectacular
Continuing our Woman UP conversation about what women want, I feel compelled to respond with a defense of men, and my man especially. In this era of bad-boy husbands, as my colleague Judy Ellis calls them, it was refreshing to hear her praise Jeff Bridges, after he paid public tribute to his wife of 30-plus years when he won a SAG award for his portrayal of an over-the-hill country singer in "Crazy Heart.'' But Christine Wicker raised questions about the sincerity of men who lavishly and publicly praise their wives, saying her mother had warned her that such men "had to be guilty of something ...
'Avatar': Count Me Among the Smitten
I never thought I would see a movie like "Avatar." Aliens and galactic wars: not my thing. But a friend asked me to go with her, just for the "novelty," and I thought, why not? I hadn't seen a movie in 3D since "Creature from the Black Lagoon" in the 1950s. It's funny how expectations can lead you astray. What I expected, I'm not even quite sure. What I got left me nearly speechless. Quite simply, I was enthralled. Spellbound. Totally unprepared for the phantasmagoria that popped, zoomed, hovered, drifted and waved across the screen and right into my face, illuminating my brain before my ...
Terror, Watch Lists and Rights: What Do We Want?
Ten days ago, airline officials let a Nigerian man who paid cash for his ticket sail through security at Amsterdam airport and board a flight for Detroit that he attempted to blow up with explosives hidden in his underwear. The reaction to that Christmas Day breach was outrage. Today, airline officials are being asked to pat down travelers en route to the United States from 14 countries, including Nigeria, Pakistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and the reaction is: outrage, at least from civil rights groups. "I understand there needs to be additional security in light of what was attempted on ...
Restylane? It's a Fine Line, But No Thank You
These days, it's my mother I see when I look in the mirror. It's not that we resemble each other so much, although we do share some features. It's the telltale lines in my face. Little lines around my mouth, around my nose, around my chin. Just like hers, when she was my age. Back in those days (decades ago), there wasn't anything much you could do about that, except smile them away, which is what my mother did. She had an infectious smile, so genuine and unbeguiling. Nevertheless, it used to make me sad to see her face aging before me. She was always so young, so full of life, so gay (a word ...
Health Care and Cancer: Reforming the Odds in a Costly System
The government body that recently advised women in their 40s that they needn't bother with mammogram screenings now says its message was misunderstood. The task force "did not say what the task force meant to say,'' its vice chairman told Congress last week. Actually the Task Force on Preventive Services said exactly what it meant to – and what needs to be said: that scientific measurement of medical procedures to determine outcomes is valuable and important. But women, and many health professionals, didn't like the message. So the administration and its appointed panel scrambled like ...
Fast Food: Can Our Health Care System Survive It?
Delia, in response to your question, how much can Americans stomach? The answer is, a LOT! Way too much, in fact. Like you, I am chagrined by the dominance of the fast-food industry in America, and not just because its ubiquitous presence every few feet along urban highways is an architectural eyesore. Like you, I happily eat some of it, and for cost, consistency and speed (in this era where a wait of five minutes seems a gross imposition), it can hardly be beat. But when I really look at what I'm eating, I know it's wrong. And when I look at this country of capacious consumers, it ...
Hillary Clinton Erupts: What's Bill Got to Do With It?
She hardly ever lost her cool on the presidential campaign trail, no matter how inane or insulting the question. But when somebody pushed a hot button on the international trail, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton erupted. In Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she was participating in a young people's forum as part of a lengthy tour of Africa, Clinton was asked by a university student what Bill Clinton thought of the World Bank's concerns about a multi-billion dollar loan to the Congo by China. In reply, she nearly spat out the words. "What, you want me to tell ...
Sotomayor Tougher on Crime Than Any of Her Colleagues
Conservative critics of Judge Sonia Sotomayor have had plenty to say about what they consider her liberal judicial record. But would it make any difference if they knew that as a New York trial judge, she was tougher on crime -- handing down more and longer sentences -- than any of her colleagues in the same district?RELATED: Sotomayor Could Save Obama's Summer ...
Reading Sotomayor: Latina Life of "Aspiration to Impartiality"
She tells of a childhood she cherished, growing up in the "cocoon" of her Puerto Rican family in the Bronx, playing bingo with chick-pea markers and eating pig intestines at holiday dinners. She talks about her lonely days at Princeton, "an alien land," where the chasm between her and its well-heeled students felt enormous. She revels in the magic of her Latina soul but questions the "pathology" that makes successful Latinos, no matter how accomplished, continue to wonder if they're measuring up. ...
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