Archive for October, 2007

A Unique Way to Salvage the Doctor-Patient Relationship

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

As we have seen, covert healthcare rationing requires destruction of the classic doctor-patient relationship (since a common final pathway for covert rationing is the bedside). The government and private insurers accomplish this task by several mechanisms, but the one that has recently gotten the most attention on this blog is the gambit of severely […]

Posted in General Rationing Issues, Primary Care in America | 4 Comments »

More Reviews

Friday, October 26th, 2007

Two more reviews of Fixing American Healthcare have been published in recent days, both favorable. (DrRich is happy to continue pointing out the good ones. You’ll have to locate the bad ones yourself.)
The first comes from Dr. Richard Reece at the Medinnovations Blog.
And the next is from Jan Krouwer at the Krouwer Consulting Blog.
To completely […]

Posted in Fixing American Healthcare | No Comments »

A Modest Proposal for Controlling Drug Prices

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

Last week DrRich proved that waste and inefficiency cannot possibly account for healthcare inflation, and that instead, the unsustainable increase in our healthcare expenditures must necessarily arise, to a very large extent, from healthcare services that are actually useful to patients. This means, of course, that if we’re really going to control spiraling healthcare […]

Posted in General Rationing Issues | 1 Comment »

Why Healthcare Inflation Cannot Be Explained By Waste and Inefficiency

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Sundry proposals for healthcare reform are being advanced today by, among others, that class of Americans who would like to become Our Next President. DrRich has avoided discussing the specifics of the various proposals made by these individuals because, well, so have they.
But whatever their proposals, whether of the Wonkonian or Gekkonian variety, there is […]

Posted in Healthcare economics | 2 Comments »

Fixing American Healthcare Favorably Reviewed

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

Dr. Vijay Goel, physician, entrepreneur, and dynamic young blogographer of Consumer-Focused Healthcare, has posted a quite complimentary review of Fixing American Healthcare here. DrRich is especially gratified that Dr.Goel, who knows his consumer-focused stuff, has compared the book favorably to the works of far more famous commentators on American healthcare such as Starr, Porter, […]

Posted in Fixing American Healthcare | No Comments »

Wonkonians Send Gekkonians a Message

Friday, October 12th, 2007

Joseph Paduda of Managed Care Matters comments (here) on the recent New York Times report (here) that private health insurers are, to be technical, screwing thousands of Medicare patients. According to federal auditors, the insurers accomplish this crime by employing devious sales tactics, misrepresenting their products, improperly terminating coverage for people with expensive diseases, […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing, Wonkonian Rationing | No Comments »

Another Reason For Doctors To Avoid Primary Care Medicine

Monday, October 8th, 2007

As everyone knows, young doctors are avoiding primary care medicine in droves. And while healthcare policy experts feign great puzzlement as to why this might be, the answers seem pretty obvious. The pay (which is not determined by the market, but by Acts of Congress) is low, the hours long, the prestige diminishing. Primary care […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing, Primary Care in America | 7 Comments »

The Aetna CEO Must Have Missed This

Saturday, October 6th, 2007

The Wall Street Journal Health Blog now posts that Aetna CEO Ron Williams is “perplexed” about all the press coverage Microsoft has gotten for the launch of its on-line personal health record, while in stark contrast Aetna received almost no recognition from the press when it launched its own personal health record several months ago. […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing | No Comments »

What DrRich Means By the “Once Ethical” Medical Profession

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

Yesterday, Dr. James Gault of the Retired Doc’s Thoughts blog noted DrRich’s habitual use of the adjectivals “once proud, once ethical” to refer to the medical profession. He says:
I certainly do not WANT to believe that the modifier “once” is correct. However, there seems to be much awash in the land to push the […]

Posted in General Rationing Issues | 2 Comments »

Dr. Wes Likes It, Too

Monday, October 1st, 2007

Dr. Wes has just posted a review of Fixing American Healthcare, and DrRich sincerely hopes everyone will read it (the review, that is, as well as the book).
Fixing American Healthcare Dr. Wes

Posted in Fixing American Healthcare | No Comments »