The Covert Rationing Blog

Why the Doctor-Patient Relationship Has To Go

Consider the problem faced by the CEO of an HMO, or a Medicare administrator, or any one of the other individuals we have deputized to reduce our healthcare costs.
When such an individual looks out over the landscape of medicine as it is traditionally practiced, he beholds a frightening sight: over two million times each day, […]

Posted in General Rationing Issues | 4 Comments »

How Physician Report Cards Can Enhance Covert Rationing

The state of California recently published a report showing risk-adjusted mortality rates for coronary artery bypass surgery, tabulated according to specific hospitals and specific surgeons. For instance, Dr. Charles Hoopes, a prominent and highly regarded cardiac surgeon, and director of the heart and lung transplantation program at the University of California, San Francisco Medical […]

Posted in General Rationing Issues | 2 Comments »

Former CMS Official “Admits” to Covert Rationing

In his forthcoming book, Fixing American Healthcare - Wonkonians, Gekkonians and the Grand Unification Theory of Healthcare, DrRich demonstrates how the imperative to covertly ration healthcare causes payers to bastardize evidence-based medicine. In a recent interview in Health Affairs, Sean Tunis MD, formerly Medical Director for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), […]

Posted in Wonkonian Rationing | 2 Comments »

The Regulatory Speed Trap

In their efforts to control the behavior of physicians for the purpose of covertly rationing healthcare, regulators have developed a particularly effective technique that DrRich calls the Regulatory Speed Trap. The first readily recognizable application of this technique occurred during the Reagan administration, in its crackdown on fraud in the defense industry.

When the […]

Posted in Wonkonian Rationing | 5 Comments »

Free Personal Records From Your Health Plan? Not So Free.

Personal health records are, generically speaking, a wonderful idea. It is vitally important for American patients, in the name of self-preservation, to collect all their personal health records in one place, where they can control them, access them at will, and share them with healthcare professionals of their choosing as they deem necessary. Maintaining one’s […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing | 3 Comments »