Healthcare news bytes...

I was pretty excited to see that data.gov is simplifying the data visualization of its datasets by adding a drop down feature that will allow you to integrate and interact with the data more efficiently.

Although I am not actively using plotly, it is a free online visualization tool that allows collaboration and privacy control. CartoDB is a mapping tool linked directly to data.gov that can show emerging trends in healthcare and data mapping. Although not free, there is a free trial so you can give it a test drive and see if its for you.

I explored the datasets and I did notice that the option is only available where you see an "open with" button next to a download option.

My preferred method for data analysis is Tableau Public. There is a paid option if you tend to need privacy controls when working with client data but the brilliance of the public free option will be immediately recognizable as what a lot of the online powerhouse data creation sites are using. 

If there is interest in a brief overview or a "how to" get started with Tableau  just send me a note and I can create a post or a brief document to help you get started.

If you decide to test the public beta option you just need to download the data.gov dataset of your choice as a CSV file and open it as a connection with Tableau.

It is easy to start participating in writing data informed content and accessing the dozens of healthcare-related datasets.
Interested in GIS, mapping and 

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As the stomach churns...

The House Republicans released a budget proposal with a focus on the  repeal Obamacare and the unspecified promise of saving the government a lot of money in the process. 

Beyond Obamacare, the budget also recommends that Congress develop a new health reform package that will “increase access to quality, affordable health care by expanding choices and flexibility for individuals, families, businesses and states while promoting innovation and responsiveness.” If such a bill will cost the government money, the budget doesn’t specify where that money should come from.

Republicans in Congress may want to repeal Obamacare entirely and reduce the federal deficit. But the budget highlights how repealing the health law is much more complicated than simply cutting its spending programs.

My concern is that all of this posturing and vitriol is a huge distraction from service to the electorate that put these politicians in office. It is the taxes paid by the american people that fund the healthcare in the US and to see them slash and burn services that they themselves enjoy seems unethical. 

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 Blueshield in California on the hook for taxes

Authorities have revoked the tax-exempt status of nonprofit Blue Shield of California, potentially putting it on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in state taxes each year.

The move by the California Franchise Tax Board comes as the state's third-largest health insurer faces fresh criticism over its rate hikes, executive pay and $4.2 billion in financial reserves.

The state quietly stripped the San Francisco insurer of its exemption from California income taxes in August. The company held that since its founding in 1939.

A spokeswoman for the tax agency declined to comment on the reasons for revocation. The highly unusual action comes after a lengthy state audit that looked at the justification for Blue Shield's taxpayer subsidy. The insurer has paid federal taxes for years.

Blue Shield said Tuesday that it's protesting the decision. In the meantime, state officials have ordered it to file tax returns back to 2013.--LA Times

and now something different--a donut perhaps

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What better way to end a blog entry then to share an article from my favorite unguilty pleasure, the Paris Review.

If you are in a content creator role nothing stimulates creativity like weaving your way through the stories, images, and interviews. I was fascinated reading a translated work by Damion Searls describing the thoughts on grammar and the role of the first person as written by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888–1973). As someone particularly interested in narrative voice I found this discussion and observation of particular interest. As they say, your mileage may vary...

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All our experience teaches precisely the opposite of this Greek doctrine of the primacy of the individual “I”! The child gradually defines itself as an independent being out of the thousand cares and impressions and influences that envelop it, flow around it, press in on it. The first thing it discovers is that it is not the world, not mother or father, not God, but something else. The first thing that befalls every child, every person, is that he or she is spoken to: smiled at, asked something, given something, rocked, comforted, punished, fed. The child is first a You for a powerful external being, above all its parents … Hearing that we exist for others and mean something for others, that they want something from us, thus precedes any statement that we are ourselves, or statement of what we ourselves are. Getting commands and being judged from the outside are what give us self-awareness.

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The clarification provided by Searls suggests that first person isn't actually a chronologic predicament. Your sense of "I" and your place in society is only developed once you have indeed been indoctrinated and validated within a framework of being told who "you" are and what you must do (you are tired, you are thirsty, you are smart, you are a good girl or boy...). 

How much of our perspective develops independent from all of the earlier messages and expectations? Does our "I" have a capacity to disassociate from the "you" of our formative years? 

Send a note or a comment. Thanks for reading...