“Accountable Care Organizations” vs. private practice medicine
From physician Scott Gottlieb on HR 3590‘s “Accountable Care Organizations”: The health legislation doesn’t call on government tribunals to euthanize seniors, as some fanciful critics claim, but the bill does kill off private-practice medicine. ObamaCare envisions that doctors will fold their private offices to become salaried hospital employees, making it easier for the federal government […]
Health care “reform” undermines doctor-patient relationship
Beth Haynes writes: The new healthcare law has multiple provisions which disrupt individualized decision-making between the physician and patient. This is no accident. It is by concerted design. She provides a few examples and concludes: These health care policy makers believe the source of our health care problems stem from the autonomous decisions made by […]
9 of 10 companies anticipate their insurance will be banned
From MarketWatch: a new survey by Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting and outsourcing company, shows that almost all now believe they will not. Ninety percent of companies said they anticipate losing grandfathered status by 2014, with the majority expecting to do so in the next two years. Under the “grandfather” provision of the […]
EMTALA’s perverse incentives
“911Doc” at DocsOntheWeb describes the harms of EMTALA: If you are unfamiliar with EMTALA or our take on it you can read about it here, but to be brief, EMTALA is an unfunded federal mandate passed in 1986, which, de facto, has made it a crime to tell anyone ‘no’ in the ER. Because of […]
Health care innovation: good and bad
John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis has an excellent column abut health care innovation. He summarizes: Wherever there is third-party payment [insurance, a health plan, Medicare, Medicaid], the goal of innovation is to produce more products that qualify for reimbursement, even if the effects on patient outcomes are only marginal. Wherever there […]
The American Medical Association as part of America’s ruling class
In “America’s Ruling Class” published in the American Spectator, Angelo M. Codevilla writes:
To the extent party leaders do not have to worry about voters, they can choose privileged interlocutors, representing those in society whom they find most amenable. In America ever more since the 1930s — elsewhere in the world this practice is ubiquitous and […]
Pay your doctor cash, get better treatment
Jay Parkinson, M.D. writes:
If we really want to find out how to damn near perfectly manage any medical problem as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, we should be studying how doctors manage the medical problems of the cash-paying doctors they see in their own practice.
Dr. Parkinson relates his experience […]
“Medical homes”: good idea, or politicized boondoggle?
David Hogberg at Investor’s Business Daily has written a nice critique of the so-called “medical homes” pushed by ObamaCare (HR 3590). A “medical home” sounds comforting, but if politicians are forcing you, or nudging you, into one with legislation, then you should be wary. A few excerpts from the article, Medical-Homes Model Pushed By Health […]
