You know the one: “How Drug-Industry Lobbyists Got Their Way On Health Care“, by Karen Tumulty and Michael Scherer. It’s worth reading if you’re not familiar with the issue, but there are a couple of aspects important to patients that the authors don’t quite spell out. First, this bit: But there’s a dilemma: policymakers want [...]
Thu, October 22 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
NPR ran a useful story on malpractice this morning. Here’s a snippet from the Kaiser Health News text version: Limiting lawsuits by itself won’t change a system that gives doctors a financial incentive to do more and more. But liability reform could still be useful, if it helps win doctors’ trust. The point is that [...]
Wed, September 2 2009 » Uncategorized » 1 Comment
Dr. Wes waxes optimistic on the state of American politics: With the deeply personal debate on health care and its associated reform costs, our need for honesty and successful policy to save our country is suddenly more important to us than the comfort of bedtime stories. This is political maturity. [...] We are now (as [...]
Wed, August 26 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
You should know by now that the health care bill under consideration in the House will not established “socialized” medicine in this country. There is no single-payer element (a la Canada), nor anything that would force doctors to become employees of the governmen (as in Britain). These ideas are simply not being discussed. Now I [...]
Thu, August 13 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
You may have heard about the kerfuffle over Investor’s Business Daily’s claim* that People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless. The obvious objection to this is that, of [...]
Wed, August 12 2009 » Uncategorized » 2 Comments
It’s good to know that at least some people in this country approve of government-run health care: Six high-profile veterans groups are raising objections to the House healthcare reform bill, warning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that it could jeopardize the care of millions of veterans. [...] The letter notes that the Veterans Health Administration [...]
Mon, August 3 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
Slate has a fascinating article by Timothy Noah, on how anti-trust rules helped turn health care into a for-profit business. I should say, ‘fascinating to me’, since I know not everyone is enthralled by arcane Supreme Court decisions. But still, it’s an important story, and worth reading if you want to understand how we got [...]
Thu, July 30 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
One of the things you hear a lot in the health care debate is folks saying, “I just don’t trust Washington” – as if the people running this country are inherently less trustworthy than everyone else. That’s a cop-out, an easy excuse for avoiding the real problem. The real problem is structure: our government was [...]
Tue, July 28 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
Tomorrow’s the big day: they’ll be “Putting Patients First” at the National Press Club. The last panel of the event is on specialist care; it includes Dr. Rich from Covert Rationing, Dr. Wes, and Kim from Emergiblog (yay, nurses!). This, then, is my final set of questions: 1) Since I know the answer to all [...]
Thu, July 16 2009 » Uncategorized » 1 Comment
Putting Patients First doesn’t happen until Friday, but already I’m thinking about questions I could ask. The problem is, I’ll have way more questions than time to ask them – so I thought I might as well ask the questions here, first. I plan to do this again each day until Friday – one for [...]
Mon, July 13 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
A novel crime against decency by Duncan Cross
