How Doctors Could Rescue Health Care
OCTOBER 27, 2011
Arnold Relman
The US is facing a major crisis in the cost of health care. Corrected for inflation, health expenditures in the public sector are nearly doubling each decade, and those in the private sector are increasing even more rapidly. According to virtually all economists, this financial burden, which is now consuming about 17 percent of our entire economic output (far more than in any other country), cannot be sustained much longer. The federal share, including payments for Medicare and Medicaid, was 23 percent of the national budget in 2009 and is a prime cause of the deficit.1
How Doctors Could Rescue Health Care
OCTOBER 27, 2011
Arnold Relman
The US is facing a major crisis in the cost of health care. Corrected for inflation, health expenditures in the public sector are nearly doubling each decade, and those in the private sector are increasing even more rapidly. According to virtually all economists, this financial burden, which is now consuming about 17 percent of our entire economic output (far more than in any other country), cannot be sustained much longer. The federal share, including payments for Medicare and Medicaid, was 23 percent of the national budget in 2009 and is a prime cause of the deficit.1A Nursing Home Shrinks Until It Feels Like a Home
By LAURIE TARKAN
Toni Davis spent much of her childhood roaming the corridors of a nursing home in West Orange, N.J., where her mother was the director. Even now she recalls the pleas of the residents there: “ ‘Please help me, please take me home with you,’ they’d beg,” Ms. Davis said. “I remember asking my mom, ‘Why can’t we take them home for dinner for just one night?’"
Following in her mother’s footsteps, Ms. Davis is now director of Green Hill Retirement Community, a nursing home and assisted living facility, and she is determined to make it into a place where residents feel little reason to leave. She has added fish tanks and bird cages, hung pictures on the walls carpeted the corridors, and brought in dogs for pet therapy.
Still, the nursing home looks like... a nursing home. “No matter what you do, you can’t get that homelike feeling in an institution because it’s too big,” she said.
Finding Inspiration in a Doctor’s Legacy
By BARRY MEIER
MY morning sprint through the pages of this newspaper typically goes like this: the front page, the corrections, the sports section (during baseball season) and the obituaries.
Two years ago, a photograph on the obituary page stopped me cold. It showed what looked like a display of talismans, objects that resembled “milagros,” the tiny tin replicas of legs, arms and other body parts that supplicants in Mexico and Central America pin to religious statues in the hope of curing a loved one.
These were medical tools, though, miniature plaster casts used to treat infants born with clubfoot, a crippling birth defect. The obituary, beautifully written by my colleague Douglas Martin, recounted the life of Dr. Ignacio Ponseti, a Spanish-born orthopedic expert who had created a nonsurgical cure for clubfoot.
Be careful of cuts to hospitals
Healthcare is currently one of the only job creators. Big Medicare trims by the congressional 'super committee' would also jeopardize care and affordable insurance.
By Thomas M. Priselac
October 28, 2011
latimes.com
Wal-Mart offers latest sign that employer-based health coverage is failing
The retailer's decision to reduce the number of workers who qualify for coverage further shows a need for change. The U.S. is the only developed nation in the world that offers health insurance this way.
David LazarusOctober 28, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20111028,0,4274842,print.column
How much are you worth to HMOs?
By Carol Gentry
10/28/11 © Health News Florida
10/28/11 © Health News Florida
Medicare health plan members are worth more than any other category of enrollee in a merger or acquisition deal, Wall Street analysts say. That may explain why beneficiaries' mailboxes are clogged with ads.
Self-funded health plans under attack in New Jersey
Advocates rush to defend use by small businesses
Posted On: Oct. 30, 2011 6:00 AM CST
http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20111030/NEWS05/310309989?tags=%7C74%7C305%7C339&template=printart
$6.8 Billion Spent Yearly On 12 Unnecessary Tests And Treatments
For many adults, a routine visit to a primary care physician might involve blood tests, a urinalysis, an electrocardiogram, maybe a bone density scan. Too often, however, these tests are inappropriate and they cost a bundle, according to a recent study, not only for the health care system but also for individuals, who are increasingly footing more of the bill for their care.
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Features/Insuring-Your-Health/Michelle-Andrews-On-Unneccesary-Tests-And-Treatments.aspx
Health ruling could be huge jolt | |
| If the Supreme Court next year gets rid of the health reform law’s requirement to buy insurance, Republicans could gain momentum to get rid of the rest of the law — and President Barack Obama would suffer a huge embarrassment at the height of an election year. But Democrats and supporters of the law also see a silver lining: If the least popular part of the law goes away, they think what’s left could become stronger and more popular with the public. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=816A490B-E52D-4696-A1DD-0C66A29E06A3 |
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