Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius will fix the health care, in our country, just like she almost fixed it in Kansas! Until she ran into political opposition!

We've been getting lots of angry e-mails from various freelancers with coverage in the Freelancers Union, which I mainly ignored until I realized it would negatively affect me, too. The oft-reported insurance provider for the creative underclass is—wtf—starting their own insurance company called the Freelancers Insurance Company. And members have no choice but to join it! The takeaway: if my shrink isn't in the new "Freelancers Insurance Company" network's koverage, no amount of generic Klonopin will be able to kwell my krazy!First of all, let's cut the bullshit with the name and starry-eyed, fake labor-organizing rhetoric of their ads—Freelancers Union—and call it what it is: a healthcare company. Freelancers aren't going on strike or picketing as part of the Freelancers Union—they're joining it for the health plan, so that their teeth won't fall out of their head—which would limit future job opportunities. And guess what: just like other healthcare companies, the Freelancers "Union" mostly sucks! Past practice indicates that the Freelancers Union has trouble simply administering enrollments for their outside plans, making this change appear even more worrisome. In fact, they pulled almost the exact same stunt last year, complete with a cutely-worded memo: ""If you want to wake up with insurance on New Year's Day, you have to let us know which of the plans from Empire or PerfectHealth you want." (This was their way of announcing that coverage under their current health plan, HIP, would end December 31 of 2007 in favor of more expensive coverage under Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield.) So they've done it again this year—and of course, the new FIC plans are even more expensive, with reduced benefits. The expense increase isn't entirely their fault—but the bait-and-switch is. Why bother joining the Freelancers Union if they're going to pull the rug out from under you every year? One freelancer complained to us, "Problem is, the new plans offer considerably fewer benefits and significantly higher costs, but were presented as a fait accompli, complete with a bunch of solidarity rhetoric. With just a few weeks to decide, many FU members feel that their safety nets have been ripped out from under them." Members are blogging angrily here and here! Wrote another tipster, "Can a PPO really be called a PPO without OON coverage?" We have no idea, but you know people are getting desperate when they start writing things like, "I'm going to check out Mediabistro's insurance plans."

At last, an end is in sight for Steve Case's misadventure in the healthcare industry. Revolution Health, his health-information website, is in merger talks with Everyday Health, a better-run, New York-based rival with more Web traffic. The combination would have more traffic than WebMD. Three's a trend, isn't it? If the deal goes through, this will be the third time Case has dumped a company he mismanaged on someone else's shareholders.

This year, healthcare costs are set to rise nearly six percent, again, and guess who will pay the expense? Employees, not employers. You will be allowed to choose between paying more to insurance companies for the same deductible or the same amount but with a higher potential emergency outlay. [AP] (Photo by Vick the Viking)

Have you heard the depressing Wal-Mart story? A 52-year-old former Wal-Mart employee named Deborah Shank was permanently brain-damaged after a collision with a semi eight years ago. She won a lawsuit against the trucking company, pocketing $417,000 for her future medical care. Then Wal-Mart sued her to recover $470,000. Then Mrs. Shank's son died in Iraq! Oh, fun. It gets better!

Legendary SciFi author Larry Niven is apparently a far-right-wing crank. A far-right-wing crank who advises the Department of Homeland Security! Niven, famous for his richly detailed stories of precisely defined aliens coexisting with humans, is now famous for trying to explain to a room full of government officials that "a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants." Also: "The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren't going to pay for anything anyway." The man wrote the Ringworld series and invented the Flash Mob so he's beloved by nerds and obviously qualified to advise important government agencies on how best to deal with the Latino menace. [Guanabee]

Robert De Niro is just like us—he has problems with his health care provider! De Niro won his case against the Fireman's Fund Insurance, which had sued the actor, alleging that he had withheld information about his medical condition. Fireman's Fund had to cover costs when a prostate cancer scare delayed filming for the De Niro vehicle Hide and Seek blah blah blah. But why is Robert De Niro, a very famous actor, having these middle class problems with his regular-people insurance company? There's no national health care. Our veterans are sleeping under bridges and our respected actors are getting turned away by insurance companies! Hillary Clinton has promised universal health care within her first term, but "Hollywood" Robert De Niro has endorsed Obama. Like so many Americans, he doesn't realize that Hillary Clinton should be on the line when terror calls to deny you coverage due to a prior existing medical condition. [Deadline Hollywood]

With the launch of Google's health data service, we're going to set aside our skepticism for a moment and think about what this could potentially mean for society. Nah, screw society — for me personally. Google cofounder Sergey Brin invested in his wife's genetics research startup. 23andMe takes cheek swabs from customers and spits out their genetic history. Board member Esther Dyson writes:

Did you know that documentarian Michael Moore's recent film SiCKO is nominated for an Oscar? As part of his effort to publicize this fact while still acting like he is attempted to do good crusade-y liberal things, he is holding a conference call this afternoon. It is about how unfair it is that his film might win an Oscar but the subjects profiled in it are still sick. Would you like to dial into this conference call and maybe ask Michael if he regrets making his film available for free on the internet, resulting in no one going to see it in theaters? Or just say something snide about Castro? Here is your opportunity! We'll leave it to you to debate the relative dickishness of crashing a phone press conference featuring an ill 9/11 rescue worker. Press release, with call-in info, after the jump.

If you were worried about your privacy when Google read your Gmail to show relevant ads, you're really going to hate Google Health. The pilot program for Google Health will store the health records of 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic, a not-for-profit medical center. Each profile will include information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories and will be accessed with a Google Account — the same login used for all of Google's services, including Gmail. There's no word on when the project will open to a wider audience, but Marissa Mayer — who replaced previous Google Health head Adam Bosworth — says the project will launch in 2008.

Glenn Beck's recent tragic ordeal—he was treated like a commoner at a hospital rich people go to!—was a stunning wake-up call for the entire nation. Beck, despite hurting a whole lot, was made to wait in the emergency room for 40 minutes. He even cried! "The video," CNN insists, "brings to mind the case of Edith Rodriguez. Last year, she was on the floor of a Los Angeles hospital emergency room vomiting blood, and witnesses say no one did anything to help her. Her boyfriend actually called 911, which refused to help since she was already in a hospital. Rodriguez died in the emergency room." Ye gods, Beck could've died in that emergency room. Died of hemorrhoids, right there on the floor. [CNN]

Glenn Beck, noted health care reform advocate, was just on CNN chatting with Wolf Blitzer about how to fix American Medicine. Beck—who became an advocate for reform after he had a shitty hospital visit where they pumped him full of an unbelievably awesome-sounding cocktail of expensive drugs—says the candidates who'll best fix the whole mess are Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. Because they'll "privatize" it. Is he still on the Percocet? The on-screen segment chyron: "WHY HEALTH CARE MATTERS." Hint: IT'S NOT LUPUS. [Previously]

"The number of employers sponsoring the [smoking cessation] programs 'is going up even while firms are cutting back on medical benefits' in general to limit costs, said Dr. Steven A. Schroeder, director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California, San Francisco, which promotes stop-smoking programs nationally." Ha ha! So your insurance won't cover that operation because you had your chance to be saved, smoky! [NYT]

Google's Marissa Mayer told the Web 2.0 Summit audience in San Francisco that the company's Google Health initiative will launch in early 2008. She said she's been in daily 90-minute meetings with developers on the project since she took over for the now-departed (and rumored to be Facebook-bound) Adam Bosworth in August. Mayer said parts of the Health system will be free, but expect subscription-based services and applications, too. We remain skeptical. Google hasn't bothered to hire a full-time replacement for Bosworth, whose assignment to healthcare was likely a hint to head for the door in the first place. Mayer's smart to only spend 90 minutes a day on the project, since a full-time health gig is deadly for anyone in tech. (Photo by AP)

Google Blogoscoped has posted tipster-supplied screenshots of a prototype of Google's upcoming health-information service. Presumably, these are screens from the demo reportedly being shopped around to health professionals and other advisors. While the amount of data Google Health plans to store is impressive, and potentially helpful, it's terrifying to contemplate the prospect of one company controlling all of your personal data — from communications and business documents to medical records. If we're lucky, Googler Adam Bosworth's make-work project will never get off the ground.

Microsoft and Google are getting into the healthcare business, according to Steve Lohr, the New York Times' most reliable transcriptionist of big tech companies' plans. Both tech giants want to put patients' health records online and help them search for medical information on the Web. But Lohr entirely misses the point. Tech and healthcare have a long, parlous history, intertwined with the industry's laborious regulations. If change in the industry comes about, it's going to emerge from hospital halls and the lobbies of Congress, not from Silicon Valley. So why are Microsoft and Google putting some of their biggest brains on the project?