stress tests

It was a fun morning on the Times site.  Let's do a round up of the latest craziness:

NYT Online, front page, top left column: "US Planning to Reveal Data on Health of Top Banks" -- the story is all about federally-sponsored "stress tests" designed to protect most big banks from toxic assets (created by the banks' own products divisions).  

And in the meantime, what is the "stress test" offered to the average person coping with illness in this country?  Nada.

Today's NYT Well features a parent who took his family in exile into Mongolia in order to provide his autistic son with access to nature-based therapy and shamanic healing.  Whether the healing is placebo-based or not, it seems to have worked well for the boy.  Next time you have an intractable mental disorder: M-O-N-G-O-L-I-A: it spells relief!

And we also learn today that if Americans have something more serious than chronic disease, say, cancer, insurance companies are happy to pay for chemo, but not the more expensive and more effective pill-based therapies.  Cost of a cancer patient's pill treatment: over $5k for the first month and roughly $2k per month thereafter.  No stress test for those patients either...

My motto for 2009: a commonly-used "stress test" for people, not for banks.  Preferably one designed by a caring, listening healer.