Kevin, MD has a reader take from an anonymous medical student:
One of the ideas that comes up in the search for explanations of high healthcare costs is the so-called “Moral Hazard”—the idea that insured patients are more likely to agree to unnecessary procedures because they don’t pay for them directly. Not everyone thinks it is [...]
Tue, June 30 2009 » Uncategorized » 2 Comments
Grand Rounds is up at EdwinLeap.com. Thanks to Dr. Leap for hosting this week.
Tue, June 30 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
I think themes for Grand Rounds is a bad idea, but Edwin Leap’s question – “What would you like to say to future physicians?” – is one I have thought about prior. So, imagine you are a graduating medical student, and I am your fabulously well-paid commencement speaker*:
Hello Class of [insert year]. Congratulations on this [...]
Sun, June 28 2009 » Uncategorized » 4 Comments
The health care industry is spending $1.4 million per day to lobby Congress against health reform – so says Common Cause. That’s about $2,600 per member per day. Of course, they’re not actually paying the money directly to members. Instead, they’re paying their lobbyists, and for ads, and for astro-turf organizations, and for bogus studies. [...]
Sun, June 28 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
I finally finished watching “Rx for America”, the hour-long ABC News town hall with President Obama. I am – sigh – underwhelmed. If you didn’t see it and didn’t record it, you can still watch some of the video or read the entire transcript. You might want to do that before reading what follows.
First of [...]
Fri, June 26 2009 » Uncategorized » 2 Comments
More photos and notes from the HCAN rally; this one’s for stargirl65 and Joe Wright, both of whom called me out for lumping all physicians in with the AMA. This is the banner of the National Physicians’ Alliance, a member of the HCAN coalition and a strong presence at the rally.
Obviously, NPA supports a [...]
Fri, June 26 2009 » Uncategorized » 1 Comment
A few of my more dedicated readers might have noticed that this blog was out of commission for a while this morning. I was trying to correct a bug in my Wordpress install, and I went about it entirely ass-backwards. But it worked, so no apologies.
You’ll not see any change on the front end, but [...]
Fri, June 26 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
More from the HCAN rally – this time about the prominence of labor. Honestly, I was surprised at how many of the folks there were from unions. I would say about 90% of the people were wearing t-shirts from one of the unions.
I knew HCAN was mostly organized labor, which is fine. Organized labor [...]
Fri, June 26 2009 » Uncategorized » 3 Comments
I am back from the HCAN rally in DC, where I joined thousands of people to show our support for real health care reform. I am going to split my report into three separate posts, this first one being more general, with a second post on the labor movement and a third on doctors.
But I [...]
Thu, June 25 2009 » Uncategorized » 1 Comment
NPR is posting photos of the lobbyists and spectators at the Senate’s hearings on health care reforms, and naming them and their reasons for being there. So far they only have a few people identified, but it’s worth checking out. This is just a fragment of one of the photos; at NPR’s site, you can [...]
Thu, June 25 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
A novel crime against decency by Duncan Cross
