Archive for the 'Healthcare economics' Category

Throwing It To The Dogs

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Robert Pear reported this week in the New York Times that, in narrowly averting the scheduled 10.6% pay cut for doctors (and in the process taking the popular Medicare Advantage program away from seniors), congresspersons of both parties have come to recognize that “the formula for paying doctors is broken.” For their insight in reaching […]

Posted in Healthcare economics, Primary Care in America | 8 Comments »

Are Doctors Garnishing Tax Payments to Recover Funds From Medicare?

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Congress is urging Medicare administrators to assist the IRS in garnishing payments to doctors (and other “contractors”) who owe federal taxes. The Government Accountability Office estimates that providers owe more than $2 billion in back taxes, and withholding Medicare payments to providers is seen as an expeditious […]

Posted in Healthcare economics | No Comments »

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 »

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 »

Should We Aim For Equality or Autonomy in Healthcare?

Monday, March 31st, 2008

In a previous post we considered the first of three questions we must resolve before we can decide on any plan to fix American healthcare, namely, the question of whether the healthcare system should be universal.
In this post we will take up the second question: Should our healthcare system be designed to enforce equality, […]

Posted in Fixing American Healthcare, Healthcare economics | 1 Comment »

Should the Healthcare System be Universal?

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

As noted in a previous post, there are three basic principles we are going to have to resolve before we can decide on any plan to fix American healthcare. The first of these is: Should the healthcare system be universal? That is, should our reformed healthcare system apply to every individual legally residing in […]

Posted in Fixing American Healthcare, Healthcare economics | 4 Comments »

Can a Voucher System Fix American Healthcare?

Friday, March 21st, 2008

A previous post considered the main problem with current healthcare financing as described by Drs. Fuchs and Emanuel, namely, that individuals are actually paying for their own healthcare today, but are led to believe that the cost is actually “shared” by businesses and government. Since they believe they are getting something for nothing, there […]

Posted in Fixing American Healthcare, Healthcare economics, New business models for healthcare | 3 Comments »

Healthcare Economics, Explained At Last

Monday, March 17th, 2008

Dr. Gaulte of Retired Doc’s Thoughts recently suggested that DrRich might want to weigh in on the Fuchs-Emanuel “Universal Health Care Voucher” proposal for financing American healthcare. Specifically, Dr.Gaulte allowed that he has trouble implementing his normally reliable “follow-the-money” rule to figure out whether this voucher system makes sense, or why neither the Republicans (who […]

Posted in Fixing American Healthcare, Healthcare economics | 2 Comments »

Wonkonians Should Read Their Own Work Product

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

According to Fortune Magazine senior editor Geoff Colvin, if you ask Alan Greenspan what the biggest threat is to the U.S. economy, he answers with one word: Medicare.
Greenspan is relatively sanguine about the sub-prime troubles, the housing crash, the falling dollar, and the trade deficit, all of which are relatively routine economic challenges which will […]

Posted in Wonkonian Rationing, Healthcare economics | 1 Comment »

Why We Can’t Do Cardiac Screening In Athletes

Friday, February 29th, 2008

DB has put up an interesting post today about the need to do cardiac screening in athletes. He points us to an article in the New York Times that describes an athletic screening program now in place at the University of Tennessee. According to the Times,
Cardiologists and other heart experts say that the […]

Posted in Healthcare economics | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries