http://covertrationingblog.com Healthcare rationing in America Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:41:44 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Here's a Podcast of this post: ____________ DrRich does not quite know whether to be dismayed or amused by an article appearing earlier this month in the venerable trade journal, AMANews*, decrying (their word) the recent alleged propensity of Doctors of Nursing Practice (so-called Doctor Nurses) to sow confusion about the meaning ... http://covertrationingblog.com/primary-care-in-america/on-making-the-nurses-behave Here's a Podcast of this post: ____________ Even Bob Laszewski - a strong proponent of both cost control in healthcare, and of the critical role of the private insurance industry in achieving it - is nonplussed by the insurance industry's reply when asked by Congress last week to stop retrospectively, arbitrarily, and ... http://covertrationingblog.com/gekkonian-rationing/say-hello-to-my-little-friend As he boards his flight to Berlin (where he will be spending several days attempting to indoctrinate brand new electrophysiologists with as many DrRich-isms as he can manage), DrRich urges all of his readers, whether you may be doctor, patient, or both, to read Dr. Wes' "Open Letter to Patients." This ... http://covertrationingblog.com/uncategorized/help-for-all-doctors-and-patients-from-dr-wes Here's a Podcast of this post: ____________ In Which DrRich Offers Up Yet More Gratuitous Investment Advice Thanks to Dr. Wes for pointing us to a remarkable video of a 20-year old Belgian soccer player having his life saved by an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD). DrRich hopes you will view it. As it happens, ... http://covertrationingblog.com/cardiology-topics/why-implantable-defibrillators-are-still-so-expensive Here's a Podcast of this post: ____________ If DrRich was correct in his previous post when he decreed primary care medicine to be officially dead, the death certificate having been duly executed by one of the main physician organizations charged with defending the practice of primary care medicine, then DrRich's pronouncement seemingly ... http://covertrationingblog.com/primary-care-in-america/embracing-the-death-of-primary-care-medicine Here's a Podcast of this post: ____________ DrRich was both saddened and dismayed to read Bob Doherty's recent post on the ACP Advocate Blog, entitled, "Do internists have confidence in their own training when compared to N(urse) P(ractitioner)s?" Dr. Doherty wrote this post both to defend the American College of Physician's enthusiastic ... http://covertrationingblog.com/primary-care-in-america/the-death-of-primary-care-medicine-is-official Here's a Podcast of this post: _________________ And the investment strategy it implies. Earlier this year, DrRich offered several potential strategies for doctors and patients to consider, should healthcare reformers ultimately decree it illegal for Americans to seek medical care outside the new universal system. This eventuality  (i.e., making it a crime to ... http://covertrationingblog.com/general-rationing-issues/advice-to-medical-tourists-from-the-american-college-of-surgeons Here's a Podcast of this post: ______________________ The "Obesity Paradox," and How to Manage It In Part I of this important and insightful meditation, we saw the many reasons why it is so critically important for anyone (such as DrRich) who supports the President's healthcare reform plan (whatever that plan may turn out ... http://covertrationingblog.com/cardiology-topics/in-defense-of-the-anti-obesity-movement-part-ii Here's a Podcast of this post: ____________ Because the frank, desperately needed public discussion of healthcare rationing appears to be impossible, at least until some cataclysmic event occurs to precipitate that discussion, DrRich has thrown his support behind President Obama's plan for healthcare reform. DrRich, of course, does not really know what that ... http://covertrationingblog.com/obesity-and-rationing/in-defense-of-the-anti-obesity-movement-part-1 Here's a Podcast of this post: ____________ DrRich has been around long enough to remember the sequence of events that accompanied the collapse of healthcare reform under the Clintons in 1993 - 1994.  (Heck, he has been around long enough to remember Nixon's plans for healthcare reform, which drowned in Watergate.) When ... http://covertrationingblog.com/uncategorized/this-time-theres-no-plan-b