The Info Revolution: 10/11/09

Microchip Implant to Link Your Heath Records, Credit History, Social Security

Jim Edwards
BNet
October 11, 2009

and Proteus Biomedical are not the only companies hoping to implant microchips into patients so that their pill-popping habits can be monitored. VeriChip of Delray Beach, Fl., has an even bolder idea: an implanted chip that links to an online database containing all your medical records, credit history and your social security ID.

As this presentation to investors makes clear, the chip and its database could form the basis of a new national identity database lined to Social Security and NationalCreditReport.com. The VeriMed Health Link homepage describes the chip:

… a tiny, passive microchip (the nation’s first and only microchip cleared for patient identification by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration) and a secure, private online database that links you to your personal health record. Your Health Link is always with you and cannot be lost or stolen.

That database can be accessed by doctors and nurses:

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The Truth on the Dollar Demise

Russia Today
October 11, 2009

According to journalist Robert Fisk, the Arabs, China, and Russia may deny it but eventually the dollar as the global reserve currency is toast.

Elderly Woman Left To Die Under Britain's Death Care System

Sarah-Kate Templeton
The Times Online
October 11, 2009

Editor’s note: Big mouth Ed Schultz and other so-called progressives say the “public option” is the only way to save health care. Some of them say the “death panels” were invented by rightwing conspiracy theorists. They often cite England’s health care system as an example of what we’ll get here in the states if Obamacare is passed.

Well, here is a story about Britain’s health care system. An elderly woman left to die because doctors determined she didn’t have long to live. Nine months later she is alive and her family is outraged.

Are we ready for this sort of death care in America?

An 80-year-old grandmother who doctors identified as terminally ill and left to starve to death has recovered after her outraged daughter intervened.

Hazel Fenton, from East Sussex, is alive nine months after medics ruled she had only days to live, withdrew her antibiotics and denied her artificial feeding. The former school matron had been placed on a controversial care plan intended to ease the last days of dying patients.

Doctors say Fenton is an example of patients who have been condemned to death on the Liverpool care pathway plan. They argue that while it is suitable for patients who do have only days to live, it is being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying.

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The Disappearing Middle Class Dream

My Budget 360
October 11, 2009

Last month the American Community Survey detailed the painful 2008 year for American households. This is a comprehensive survey looking at multiple financial, economic, and social characteristics of Americans. What we find is that the average American is having a tougher time maintaining a hold on the middle class dream. This isn’t a revelation but it does help us determine what to expect in the next few years. The American family in fact over the past decade has maintained the illusion of middle class living by going deeper into debt because of stagnant wages. The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve allowed this to occur by injecting liquidity and creating a credit market that had no brakes.