Archive for May, 2008

Why Big Health Insurance Supports the Democrats

Friday, May 30th, 2008

As difficult as it undoubtedly will be for most readers to believe, DrRich still hears from skeptics who ridicule his theory that a Democratic victory this fall will be the best thing that could happen to the health insurance industry. For example, consider this from Anonymous in Montana:
Democrats hate ALL corporations and want to eliminate […]

Posted in Healthcare economics, Investment "advice" | 2 Comments »

More Fun With Guidelines

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

Lately DrRich has advanced the proposition that the “Guideline Movement” (the push to reduce all of medical practice to a set of fixed rules by which physician behavior can be controlled) is leading to guideline anarchy (whereby numerous interest groups, from the government to industry to professional societies, have begun a mad dash to create […]

Posted in Guidelines, Abuse of | 1 Comment »

Attention Warren Buffet - Health Insurers Capitulate!

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

An article in the May 19 issue of American Medical News reports that America’s largest for-profit health plans will continue to rapidly increase their insurance premiums, even though doing so will continue to lose them subscribers.
In a conference call, WellPoint President and CEO Angela Braly told analysts, “We will not sacrifice profitability for membership.” Similarly, […]

Posted in Healthcare economics | No Comments »

Debating Malpractice Reform

Monday, May 19th, 2008

And now, for the main event.
DB has challenged DrRich to defend the “unusual” position on medical malpractice reform he staked out in this space a little over a week ago.
In issuing this challenge, DB made two major points. First, DB notes that the present malpractice environment is universally counteproductive. To elaborate: There can be no […]

Posted in Medical malpractice | 5 Comments »

Proof That Warren Buffet Reads This Blog

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

Yesterday, Jacob Goldstein of the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reported that Warren Buffet greatly increased his stake in big health insurers during the first quarter of 2008. Specifically, he added 300,000 shares of WellPoint and 400,000 shares of UnitedHealth to the holdings of Berkshire Hathaway. Notably, the stock prices of both of these insurers […]

Posted in General Rationing Issues | 6 Comments »

Happy Anniversary, If I Do Say So Myself

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

They said it couldn’t be done.
They said, “An entire blog devoted to covert healthcare rationing? Ha!” They said, “Perhaps you’ll come up with a posting or two, but an entire blog? Why, you’ll run out of things to say inside of a week.” They said, “Covert rationing indeed!”
So today, on the First Anniversary of the […]

Posted in General Rationing Issues | 7 Comments »

Grand Rounds at the Health Business Blog

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

David E. Williams hosts Grand Rounds this week (and for an astounding fifth time!) at the Health Business Blog.  He’s managed to find many fascinating links, including one from this site. Please check it out.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Covert Rationing Makes Malpractice Reform A Bad Idea

Friday, May 9th, 2008

Our friend Kevin Pho was undoubtedly correct when he pointed out in his recent op-ed in USA Today that arbitrary and unrestrained medical malpractice lawsuits are a blight on our healthcare system. The always-looming threat of malpractice suits elicits expensive and wasteful defensive behaviors from doctors and hospitals, and is a major source of physician […]

Posted in General Rationing Issues, Medical malpractice | 10 Comments »

More on Predatory Guidelines

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

The Wall Street Journal Health Blog informs us that on Saturday last, participants at an American Psychiatric Association symposium apparently castigated the new American Heart Association guidelines on the need to do cardiac pre-screening of children with ADHD. (See DrRich’s previous posting on predatory guidelines, and on the new AHA recommendations.)
A pediatric psychopharmacologist from […]

Posted in Guidelines, Abuse of | 1 Comment »

Is Guideline Tyranny Causing Guideline Anarchy? (Part II)

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

Part I, The Tyranny of Guidelines, can be seen here.
Part II - The Anarchy of Guidelines
Once doctors have been successfully taught that medical guidelines are not really “guidelines” at all, but rather are specific directives with which they must fully comply, it follows that if you are a healthcare group or organization with an agenda, […]

Posted in Guidelines, Abuse of | 3 Comments »