Posted in bioehtics, health care, insurance, markets, medicare, research discussion, wealth, tagged Aetna, Angioplasty, blood transfusion, bloomberg, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brazil, doctor, globalization, government, health care, Health Net, hospital, insurance companies, medical care, medical malpractice, Medical Tourism, medicare, Mexico, patient, Patients Beyond Borders, price transparency, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thomas Black, Turkey, Yosef Woodman on March 26, 2008 | 7 Comments »
Medical Tourism isn’t like regular tourism. It’s a euphemism for traveling to a foreign country for more affordable medical care. And with skyrocketing health care costs in the United States, it’s becoming a reality. Thomas Black of Bloomberg News writes that insurance companies are now offering plans that include procedures in foreign countries, in exchange [...]
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Posted in health care, insurance, markets, politics, tagged Barack Obama, cnn, cnn.com, consumer driven health care, Doctorpricing.com, economics, Fortune Magazine, free market, health care, health insurance, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, medical care, political viability, politics, presidential election, Shawn Tully on March 16, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Shawn Tully, editor-at-large of Fortune Magazine, wrote a fantastic summary of each of the presidential hopefuls’ health care plans on CNN Money. He reaches the same conclusions I have have as of late on this blog – we must get health care costs under control.
I haven’t spent a lot of time on the candidates’ plans [...]
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Posted in Communism/Socialism, health care, insurance, markets, medicare, politics, research discussion, tagged Barack Obama, black hole, Cold War, Congressional Budget Office, defense spending, Doctorpricing.com, economy, federal, free market, government, Greece, health care, Hillary Clinton, income tax, Iraq War, Medicaid, medical care, medicare, New York Times, peace dividend, preventative care, Robert Pear, Soviet Union, transparency on March 9, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Robert Pear’s New York Times article about Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s health care plans has an alarming statistic. Medicare and Medicaid, our two government-funded health programs, cost our country $627 billion last year – or 23% of all federal spending. Many people like to criticize the Iraq War for its cost – proclaiming that [...]
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Posted in Communism/Socialism, health care, insurance, tagged blood type, bureaucracy, bureaucrat, Christmas, Department of Motor Vehicles, DMV, government-based health care, health care, healthcare, Jackson County, Kansas City, loan, medical care, Missouri, single-payer, socialized medicine, taxes on February 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »
A while back I wrote a post entitled “Health Care Like the DMV” in which I chronicled my efforts to collect a tax refund from Jackson County, Missouri after they double billed me for my ‘07 property taxes and pulled the money out of my bank account.
I paid the taxes on November 21st of last [...]
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Posted in Communism/Socialism, bioehtics, health care, insurance, markets, medicare, misinformation/propaganda, politics, psychology, research discussion, wealth, tagged Andrew Sullivan, bureaucrat, cancer, chemotherapy, chronic disease, conservative, consumer, coronary artery bypass, doctor, Doctorpricing.com, Doublethink, economics, Ezra Klein, freedom, government, health care, Healthcare Economist, heart attack, heart disease, incentives, Jason Shafrin, Kant, liberal, libertarian, life and death, medical care, medicare, moral agency, patient, Peter Suderman, philosophy, preventative care, price transparency, The American Prospect, The Daily Dish, trauma, treatment, United States of America on February 20, 2008 | 9 Comments »
Journalists Ezra Klein and Peter Suderman debate the government’s role in the future of U.S. Health Care (thank you Healthcare Economist). Whose argument carries more weight?
Klein’s main argument is decidedly anti-libertarian, which makes perfect sense because I don’t think he is a Libertarian. Klein’s conclusion is that it will take substantial government resources, research and [...]
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Posted in Communism/Socialism, bioehtics, health care, insurance, medicare, politics, psychology, research discussion, wealth, tagged capitalism, coverage, Democrats, doctors, George Stephanopoulos, government, health care, health insurance, HealthPopuli Blog, Hillary Clinton, insurance, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, John McCain, Kevin Sack, mandate, medical care, medicare, NEJM, New England Journal of Medicine, New York Times, pandering, patients, physicians, political correctness, president, presidential, Republicans, Robert Laszewski, Socialism, tax system, The Health Care Blog, universal coverage on February 16, 2008 | 7 Comments »
John McCain (re: health care in the USA):
“For all the grandiose promises made in this campaign, has any candidate spoken honestly to the American people about the government’s role and failings about individual responsibilities? Has any candidate told the truth about the future of Medicare? Its costs are growing astronomically faster than its financing, and [...]
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Posted in Communism/Socialism, health care, insurance, law, markets, medicare, politics, research discussion, wealth, tagged health, doctor, hospital, nurse, government, medicare, physician, medicine, blog, market, health care, Socialism, economist, Freakonomics, GDP, compensation, primary care, specialist, socialized medicine, incentive, medical care, crisis, American Medical Association, AMA, Harvard, budget, post, PCP, primary care physician, interists, internal medicine, developed countries, med school, resident, family medicine, student, intern, RBRVS, William Hsiao, formula, preventative care, RUC on December 22, 2007 | 6 Comments »
A recent Health Care Blog Post explains the looming crisis in primary care. Some background: great health care systems are anchored by primary care physicians (PCPs), the generalist doctor whom your family depends upon for standard medical care. The PCP must have a workable basic knowledge of nearly all medical specialties and be able to [...]
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Posted in Communism/Socialism, bioehtics, health care, insurance, law, markets, medicare, politics, research discussion, tagged administrator, congress, crisis, doctor, drug, E. coli, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, Garret A. FitzGerald, government, health care, hospital, ill, inflation, levy, medical care, medicare, New York Times, NY Times, patients, political, politics, public health, reimbursement, science, sick, tax, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, University of Pennsylvania on December 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
In my last post I took a jab at Medicare for its embarrassingly compromised medical reimbursement policies. Today’s victim is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A NY Times article reports that an investigation of the FDA by its own “F.D.A. Science Board” finds it in “a crisis.”
More specifically: it’s desperately short of [...]
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