Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns to Drug Therapy
By GARDINER HARRIS
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — Alone with his psychiatrist, the patient confided that his newborn had serious health problems, his distraught wife was screaming at him and he had started drinking again. With his life and second marriage falling apart, the man said he needed help.
But the psychiatrist, Dr. Donald Levin, stopped him and said: “Hold it. I’m not your therapist. I could adjust your medications, but I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/health/policy/06doctors.html?_r=1&ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=print
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
Single-payer health legislation on the move in Vermont
N.H. hospital watches Vt. single-payer debate
Created Friday, March 4, 2011
Adam Sullivan
WCAX News, Lebanon, New Hampshire - March 2, 2011
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center's Frank McDougall knows a lot of people who impact the health care industry in New Hampshire and Vermont, and all the way to the White House.
"We can't go on the way we are going," said McDougall, the VP of government relations at DHMC. "The system is significantly broken, the financing system. The percentage of our Gross National Product is getting to the point where we can't afford this, can't sustain it."
Dartmouth-Hitchcock is located in New Hampshire, but Vermont is a big player.
"About 40 percent of everything that happens at our Lebanon campus, for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center is Vermont," McDougall said.
Over 300,000 Vermont patients visited the facility last year alone. And 2,300 Vermonters work at the medical center, which has an annual payroll-- solely to Vermonters-- upwards of $160 million.
"The fact is the Green Mountains pretty much divide the market," McDougall said.
So as the Shumlin administration moves forward drafting a single-payer health plan for Vermont, DHMC has a keen interest.
KEVIN CULLEN
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