Blog: Coal Mine Health And Safety Act

I do have a ton of kid's books that make noise. I have never thought about the fact that they have a little battery in them. This story really helped open my eyes. I am going on a battery scavenger hunt this weekend!

FROM ABC: Parents of toddlers know children will put just about anything into their mouths, but when that something is a disc battery, the consequences can be deadly. An important warning tonight for parents. Amy Vasquez, Kaiden's mom: "He came to me crying and sticking his fingers down his throat and vomiting." One minute, Kaiden Vasquez was a happy and healthy 13 month old. The next...

Amy Vasquez, Kaiden's mom:"I didn't know what had happened. I was scared, so I immediately piled all the kids in the car and took him to the emergency room." And after spending the night at the hospital running tests. Amy Vasquez, Kaiden's mom "They sent him home and told me it was the stomach flu." Only, Kaiden did not have the stomach flu. He had a lithium disc battery stuck in his esophagus.

Kaiden had put a remote control in his mouth, and even though the battery compartment was screwed shut, the battery came loose and he swallowed it. Dr. Toby Litovitz, director, National Capital Poison Center: "These children are often brought to the pediatrician or emergency department and they're misdiagnosed because their symptoms are so typical of more common illnesses." Doctor Toby Litovitz is the Medical Director of the National Capital Poison Center and the author of this new study detailing the severity of battery ingestion accidents. She says children have been swallowing small batteries for decades.

So what's different? The battery size and voltage. Dr. Toby Litovitz/ Director, National Capital Poison Center "So what's happening with these batteries is because they're larger in diameter they're getting stuck in the esophagus of the child when the child swallows." Today, these tiny, flat batteries are 20 millimeters, between the size of a penny and nickel and carry as much as 3 volts. So when a lithium battery gets lodged, it creates an electrolysis reaction and results in a serious chemical burn that eats through tissue.

Dr. Toby Litovitz, Director, National Capital Poison Center: "And so it would be like little drops of something like a drain cleaner in your child's esophagus. The critical thing is you only have a two-hour window to get that battery out." But in Kaiden's case because he was misdiagnosed, he was back home. Amy Vasquez, Kaiden's mom: "Then progressively over a week he got worse and worse and worse." So Amy, who happens to be a registered nurse, took Kaiden to his pediatrician where this x-ray showed a circle in his esophagus.

Amy Vasquez, Kaiden's mom: "I was devastated. The battery was in his esophagus, lodged in his esophagus and burning a hole into us trachea for the whole week." Kaiden was hospitalized for two weeks, received food through an I.V. at home for months waiting for his esophagus to heal. But this story is not unique. About 35-hundred cases of battery ingestion are reported to U.S. Poison Centers each year. More than a dozen children have died. The majority of kids swallowing disc batteries?

Children younger than four years old. Dr. Toby Litovitz, Director, National Capital Poison Center: "Some of these children won't feed again normally, they won't talk again normally. They'll have breathing problems for the rest of their lives." Amy still has the battery that was lodged in Kaiden's esophagus. And she found lithium disk batteries all over her home. In her kids' books, that she now keeps out of reach unless she's reading to the kids. She also removes small batteries from things like her thermometer. Amy Vasquez/ Kaiden's mom: "Baby-proof everything. Always keep the batteries out of the way, duct tape things you can't get rid of." "You want to push the buttons?" As for Kaiden today...

Amy Vasquez, Kaiden's mom: "He is good today. He is wonderful today."

There is actually a 24-hour national battery ingestion hotline, just dial 202-625-3333 or you can call your poison center if you think your child has swallowed a battery. Doctors like Dr. Litovitz are working hard to bring awareness to the dangers of batteries. And they're recommending manufacturers redesign products to that it requires a screw and screwdriver to actually open battery compartments.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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One of the worst parts of the current health care system is its sheer complexity. Because most of the payments are made by third parties, the paperwork burden is enormous. Co-pays, deductibles, ever-shifting networks, and so on.

Unfortunately, that complexity is about to get a lot worse because of this year’s health care bill. Check out this flow chart of what the health care system will look like once Obamacare is implemented:

You can also download a PDF version of the chart that allows you to zoom in more closely. It’s worth taking a few minutes to look at all the agencies and bureaucracies in greater detail.

This chart was released by Rep. Kevin Brady, a partisan Republican. But whatever your politics, you should be wary of any scheme as grandiose as Obamacare. This represents a re-ordering of one sixth of the American economy.And not only is the government tasked with making this flow chart flow smoothly. It is also tasked with fighting two land wars in Asia. With delivering the mail. With developing new energy technologies. With overhauling the nation’s entire financial system. No organization can do all those things and do them well. Doesn’t matter how talented and well-meaning the people behind it are. It is beyond the limits of anyone’s ability to plan.

As Dan Mitchell points out, real health care reform would have just two parties to most transactions: buyer and seller.

There are two other things I’d like to see. One is that health insurance should not be linked to your job. Under both the current system and Obamacare, if you lose your job, you lose your insurance at exactly the time you need it most. This can be done by treating employer-provided insurance exactly the same as individual insurance in the tax code. Employer-provided insurance is currently given special treatment.

Real reform would also fundamentally change the way we use health insurance. The purpose of insurance is to insure against unexpected risks. Your annual physical does not fit that description. Having insurers pay for routine, expected expenses is like using your auto insurance to pay for a tank of gas and a car wash. No wonder premiums are so high. Health insurance isn’t really insurance. It’s pre-paying for your health care. And it also has one whopper of a principal-agent problem that explains a large portion of why health costs are so shockingly high.