http://covertrationingblog.com Healthcare rationing in America Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:20:11 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Seeing President Obama traveling the land this week, delivering yet more speeches on the critical importance of passing THIS healthcare reform legislation NOW, makes DrRich shake his head in wonderment. For one thing, the President's rhetoric on healthcare reform is already stale. As he himself has said, the arguing has gone ... http://covertrationingblog.com/healthcare-reform/the-democrats-have-moved-beyond-trust Here's a Podcast of this post: ____________ President Obama got a pretty good report from his physical examination this week, but one result has raised a bit of controversy among some cardiologists. Since his last exam in July, 2008, the President's total cholesterol level has increased from 173 mg/dL to 209 mg/dL, and ... http://covertrationingblog.com/cardiology-topics/treating-president-obamas-cholesterol Here's a Podcast of this post: ____________ A few weeks ago, after the Miracle in Massachusetts, DrRich ruminated on the choice now facing President Obama and the other leaders of the Democratic Party. Thanks to an outmoded political system that still forces the intellectual elite to risk everything in an election, ... http://covertrationingblog.com/healthcare-reform/so-now-we-know DrRich is pleased to note that events have so quickly confirmed the explanation he gave, in his last post, regarding what the health insurance companies are up to by choosing to massively increase insurance premiums at this critical juncture.  The insurance companies, to repeat, are willfully embracing their assigned role ... http://covertrationingblog.com/healthcare-reform/why-efficiency-is-bad-for-health-insurance-companies Here's a Podcast of this post: ____________ The U.S. Congress, like DrRich, has been distracted from the vital issue of healthcare reform in recent weeks, due to the prospect of elections of one form or another. Which is to say, both of us have been pretty much ignoring the healthcare reform issue ... http://covertrationingblog.com/healthcare-reform/health-insurers-to-the-rescue DrRich wishes to congratulate Bob Doherty of the ACP Advocate Blog for his victory over the Covert Rationing Blog in the 2009 Weblog Award Competition, in the category of Best Health Policy/Ethics Blog.  As DrRich has said before, Doherty is a gentleman and a fine writer, and anyone who has ... http://covertrationingblog.com/medical-ethics/let-us-remain-philosophickal-in-defeat Over the past couple of weeks, DrRich has unabashedly used the occasion of having been named a co-finalist in the Health Policy and Ethics category of the 2009 Medical Weblog Award Competition, along with the ACP Advocate Blog, in an attempt to engage the American College of Physicians in ... http://covertrationingblog.com/general-rationing-issues/where_to_find_the_covert_rationing One of the more insightful individuals in the medical blogosphere is one Doug Perednia, MD, who is a board certified internist, dermatologist, author, professor of medical informatics, entrepreneur, founder of the Telemedicine Research Center, &c, and who most recently began writing The Road To Hellth Blog. The Road to Hellth ... http://covertrationingblog.com/medical-ethics/drrich-is-no-bully In his past few posts, DrRich has offered a substantive criticism of the new code of medical ethics which has now been formally adopted by over 120 physicians' organizations across the globe. (See here, here and here.)  Fundamentally, the New Ethics abrogates the physician's classic obligation to always place the ... http://covertrationingblog.com/wonkonian-rationing/implications-of-the-new-ethics-the-transcendent-importance-of-retainer-medicine Regular readers will know that Dr. Virginia Hood, Chair of the American College of Physician’s Center for Ethics, Professionalism and Human Rights, has responded on behalf of the ACP to DrRich's challenge to debate the New Ethics being promulgated by the ACP (and sister organizations) - and that the ACP's ... http://covertrationingblog.com/medical-ethics/on-parsimonious-care