With apologies for the rather large image size, here’s a depressing graphic from the National Geographic via Andrew Sullivan, who comments:
This National Geographic chart, which I stumbled upon while reading that magnificent magazine on the airplane, truly blew me away. If anyone can look at this and not see a simply insane way to distribute [...]
NY Times.
Children on Medicaid Found More Likely to Get Antipsychotics
New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions [...]
What Robert Reich says.
Slouching Toward Health Care Reform
… Is the effort worth still worth it? Yes, but just. Private insurers will have to take anyone, regardless of preconditions. And some 30 million people who don’t now have health insurance will get it. But because Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and the AMA will come out way [...]
Drug-Makers Paying Off Competitors To Keep Cheap Generics Off Market | TPMMuckraker
… Over the last few years, drug-makers have embraced a startlingly simple tactic for fending off competition from generic brands: paying them off. In a nutshell, the company that holds the patent on a profitable drug strikes a deal with the maker of the [...]
It’s why you come to Pragmatos, after all, and we don’t disappoint. We’re relatively ignorant on the subject, but we do know who to ask, and in case you don’t, we’re glad to be of service. Go to Breast Cancer Action, who for a variety of reasons are the go-to folks on these questions.
USPSTF Releases [...]
Or not, at any rate, liberal. Digby concludes:
…
Health care reform is extremely likely to pass in some form. But let’s not kid ourselves that it’s passing because the Democrats and the public have seen the light and understand that we need to be a more decent society. It’s passing because medical industry has been greedy [...]
From the NY Times review of Stanley Joel Reiser’s Technological Medicine. (I remember those shoe-sizing machines, so they must have been in use in the 1950s as well.)
The Tools of Doctors, and a Price for Patients
…
Technology distances doctors from patients. It creates a compelling alternative reality composed of facts that may or may not [...]
This piece by Robert Reich lays out the worst problems with the current health care legislation. He’s right, of course, but it seems to me a safe assumption that the administration will cave on whatever they need to in order to pass a bill and claim victory. I could be wrong, of course—maybe Obama’s tough [...]
A little weekend reading. Yves Smith points us to a piece by Jerome Groopman in the NYRB.
Diagnosis: What Doctors Are Missing
A fascinating and somewhat disturbing article at the New York Review of Books by Jerome Groopman looks at what counts for progress in medical diagnosis and finds it to be more of a mixed bag [...]
Kevin Drum points us to a piece by David Leonhardt. Here’s a sample:
The fear of lawsuits among doctors does seem to lead to a noticeable amount of wasteful treatment. Amitabh Chandra — a Harvard economist whose research is cited by both the American Medical Association and the trial lawyers’ association — says $60 billion a [...]
Ezra Klein. All this while leaving tens of millions uncovered. Is your boss going to shell out $30K/year for your health insurance? You sure about that?
A Number Is Worth a Thousand Words
The Kaiser Family Foundation’s latest Employer Benefits Survey is out, and they’ve got some numbers worth remembering.
The average cost of a family health insurance [...]
T.R., not Harry (and what does T. R. stand for? surprisingly hard to find out).
Reid was on KQED’s Forum yesterday, on tour for his new book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care. The book came out of his reporting for the Frontline production Sick Around the [...]
I have a small collection of pending posts that make this point: many, maybe most, Americans with health insurance have no idea how shaky their coverage will be when they really need it. This one is from Andrew Koppelman.
You have no idea
… In a characteristically smart posting at the New Republic website, William Galston observes [...]
Kaiser Health News has posted Nixon’s 1974 plan for universal health care. What a commie.
Comprehensive health insurance is an idea whose time has come in America.
There has long been a need to assure every American financial access to high quality health care. As medical costs go up, that need grows more pressing.
Now, for [...]
I was going to point to the Reid piece, but DougJ did the work for me. Reid, you may recall, reported the excellent Frontline documentary Sick Around the World, which you should watch if you have not already.
The power of myth
This piece, by T. R. Reid, does a pretty good job of dispelling right-wing myths [...]
I’ve certainly been puzzled for some weeks about all the hubbub over healthcare reform – not that it’s controversial, but that the debate and tactics have strayed so far afield. This opinion piece gives some historical perspective that helps understand, and also highlights how are much-changed media pour gasoline on the fire of the crazies [...]
Via Kevin Drum, this editorial in Investor’s Business Daily.
… People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless. …
Hawking is, of course, British. He lives and teaches in Cambridge (UK, [...]
Via Dean Baker, who had two good things to say about Washington Post articles today. Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
Doctor Self-Referrals Part of Health-Care Cost Trend
Doctors Reap Benefits By Doing Own Tests
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 31, 2009
In August 2005, doctors at Urological Associates, a medical practice on the [...]
Uwe E. Reinhardt is an economics professor at Princeton. There’s more at the link.
A ‘Common Sense’ American Health Reform Plan
The All-American Wish List for Health Reform
1. Only patients and their own doctors should decide what clinical response is appropriate for a given medical condition, even if that response involves unproven clinical procedures or technology.
2. [...]
There’s more, of course; this is the last graf.
Paul Krugman: Why markets can’t cure healthcare
… All of this doesn’t necessarily mean that socialized medicine, or even single-payer, is the only way to go. There are a number of successful health-care systems, at least as measured by pretty good care much cheaper than here, and they [...]