Healthcare – American Delusions

Medicare for All – Cheaper and Better

December 3, 2018 Comments Off

“We therefore estimate that Medicare for All could reduce U.S. Health Consumption Expenditures by about 9.6 percent while also providing decent health care coverage for all U.S. residents” The Medicare for All movement gained some new support from a study released last week. The research report, “Economic Analysis of Medicare --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Team Up to Try to Disrupt Health Care

January 31, 2018 Comments Off

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Team Up to Try to Disrupt Health Care There was quite a bit of talk over the last couple of days about CEOs Bezos, Buffet, and Dimon teaming up to take on rising healthcare costs. The NYTimes weighed in with their story, “Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway --->> read more -->>

Trump Republican Policy Crimes (some only attempted at the moment)

November 30, 2017 Comments Off

Trump – Republican Positions and Crimes (some just attempted) against the poor, working and middle class Not to be obsessive, but the current Trump Republicans effort to cram their bill to pay back their corporate and rich supporters with giant tax breaks has me frothing a bit. I wrote down --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – maternal mortality in America

August 18, 2017 Comments Off

Maternal Mortality Is Rising in the US as It Declines Everywhere Else PBS Newshour has broadcast several reports on this topic: “What’s behind America’s rising maternal mortality rate?” (May 14, 2017) and “Why are more American women dying after childbirth?” (August 17, 2017) To provide context see the chart below that displays --->> read more -->>

An American Sickness by Elisabeth Rosenthal – book review/critique

August 2, 2017 Comments Off

An American Sickness: how healthcare became big business and how you can take it back by Elisabeth Rosenthal (Penguin Press, 2017) is both important and disappointing. Part I: History of the Present Illness and Review of Systems The first 238 pages are a comprehensive review of the machinery of our --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – about healthcare

July 30, 2017 Comments Off

The New York Times has a piece this Sunday (7/30/17) by the well-known former Bush II economics advisor Greg Mankiw, “Why Healthcare Policy Is So Hard”. The article broadly acknowledges what every other developed country has recognized for decades, healthcare is not a good candidate for market control. Interesting that --->> read more -->>

Healthcare and Markets – why don’t they work together?

June 26, 2017 Comments Off

A consistent chattering point in American discussions of healthcare is the claim that if we can only bring transparency and competition to healthcare we will drive prices down and bring sanity to healthcare. The rest of the world knows that this is not the answer but we seem to remain --->> read more -->>

The Republican Party – vicious at the edges

June 23, 2017 Comments Off

A brief review of how the so-called moderates and the fundamentalist right wing of the Republican Party are reacting to the Senates healthcare bill demonstrates how fundamentally vicious and immoral the whole party is. Though facts may be out of style lets just take note that we live in one --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – about healthcare

June 21, 2017 Comments Off

from the New York Times an article that covers some earlier history of the US healthcare industry. How Did Health Care Get to Be Such a Mess? By CHRISTY FORD CHAPIN “The problem with American health care is not the care. It’s the insurance. Both parties have stumbled to enact comprehensive health --->> read more -->>

Naive Talk about Healthcare from Adam Davidson in the New Yorker

May 25, 2017 Comments Off

Adam Davidson writing today in The New Yorker offered us “A BIPARTISAN WAY TO IMPROVE MEDICAL CARE – A straightforward change would save money and improve health. So why isn’t Congress talking about it?” This is an astonishingly naive misleading bit of chatter about healthcare. Davidson summarizes William S. Jevons, --->> read more -->>

Congressman Faso and the proposed American Health Care Act

March 8, 2017 Comments Off

Today I received an email from my Congressman, John Faso, concerning the proposed American Health Care Act. It included a link to a Republican website that speaks to their proposed legislation and a link to the the actual legislation. Asking me to read the legislation is insulting because though I --->> read more -->>

The Health Care Debate Is About The Wrong Issues

September 1, 2012 Comments Off

The rhetoric about our health care system continues to center around market religions of one sort or another. For all of the blathering about “Obamacare” taking us over the edge into the territory of socialized medicine, it remains, like it’s progenitor dreamed up by Romney while governor of Massachusetts, a --->> read more -->>

healthcare

The Future of Healthcare??

May 21, 2011 Comments Off

I don’t generally pause long over the editorials in the NY Times. This morning’s caught my eye. As a recent state resident I watched the debate closely and supported the single payer approach. Since then the results have been interesting and as noted in the Time’s editorial generally good. Here --->> read more -->>