Ideally we will dissect more of these things over the coming weeks and see where that gets us. Our concerns are not political- just our means. The real issue here is not policy, or even possible fibbing, its what this all means to how we do our day jobs. Despite the anger, sadness and fear, we still have doctoring jobs that pay the bills and we still like those jobs. The question for us is how long this state of affairs can last…

A few months back, I wanted to write a letter to the President and invite him to join me and my partners in our daily goal of providing the best medical care possible. Besides shedding some light on the daily real time decisions we are making on a minute by minute basis, I wanted him to get a view of the humanity that passes throughour hands regularly. One of the objects of my invitation was to point out the utter waste in health care especially in programs run …

If you wonder why the election was really lost in one of the bluest states in the land, you have to go no further than the Left’s response to the results. Quite simply, “It’s not our fault, the Republicans did this to us.”
The Washington Post’s EJ Dionne’s lame, blame game lacks only the now tired reference to George Bush:
Republicans in Congress will be empowered to hold to their course of obstruction by Sen.-elect Scott Brown’s victory.
At some point, Obama’s ambitions were destined to collide with the views of …

An idea has taken hold in the minds of legislators, academics and many private citizens that medicine suffers from a paucity of “quality” and that this deficit underlies the often quoted statistic that the United States spends more on healthcare than any industrialized country, but by many metrics, suffers worse health than those spending far less. Few practicing doctors would disagree with the notion that medicine is rapidly changing. Although the exact nature, extent and timing of that change are topics for more thoughtful consideration elsewhere, that such change is …

A spokesperson for the National Prevention and Good Health Administration (NPGA) stated today that federal agents raided an illegal sugar refinery and confectionary in upstate New York and seized a reported 3 tons of raw materials used in the production of candy bars, sodas and other snack foods long illegal in the United States.

It is nice to find an article written by a well respected, brilliant person which literally says what is in your mind. Charles Krauthammer did just that in his most recent article. He describes the problems with both the House and Senate bills simply: they will make matters worse because they will increase the inefficiency and waste which plagues the system now. He also then goes on to outline 3 common sense approaches to reducing cost and saving enough money to insure the 30 million people …

Last weekend President Obama took exception when George Stephanopoulos claimed the individual mandate amounted to a tax on people earning less then the $250,000  limit promised during the campaign.  Stating “You can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase” when Stephanopoulos referred to the definition of a “tax” listed in Webster’s dictionary, Obama played a semantic game lacking in promised transparency.  But no matter what it is called, a required payment, mandated by the government and enforced under penalty of law by the IRS, …

If we aren’t careful, buffoons like these guys will be making the health care system decisions. Time to speak up.

We bring this up not because we think rationing is good or bad. This is irrelevant because rationing is real and common and there is nothing we can do about it. We bring it up because the public needs to understand this concept and understand it well. Under the current ObamaCare trajectory, rationing will become much more of a fixture of our daily lives

The year 2009 is shaping up to be deserving of a number of appellations, and many of these are richly deserved. In this litany of labels and catch-phrases, there is one that most doctors can readily agree is apt: ‘2009 Is The Year of Health IT’. As is our tendency in these columns, we draw attention to this description not because we wish to support or refute it, but rather to make a point about this profession of ours. Doctors and this doctoring thing that we do is, for good …

In reflecting upon our time on the TeaParty/Culpepper Society panel Friday night, we are struck with a few grand ‘themes’ that were evident. We had the good fortune to participate in a truly amazing discussion with people, people from all walks of life, from all backgrounds with an enormous diversity of opinion about many things. Truth be told, this is not terribly different from our day job as doctors: we meet people who may not speak out language, share our values, be of the same culture and even make very …

We will need to reduce, rather than expand, the role of insurance; focus the government’s role exclusively on things that only government can do (protect the poor, cover us against true catastrophe, enforce safety standards, and ensure provider competition); overcome our addiction to Ponzi-scheme financing, hidden subsidies, manipulated prices, and undisclosed results; and rely more on ourselves, the consumers, as the ultimate guarantors of good service, reasonable prices, and sensible trade-offs between health-care spending and spending on all the other good things money can buy.

It’s good enough for YOU
The  Affordable Health Choices Act, recently voted out of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee along party lines will force millions of “Americans into stingy insurance plans with tight, HMO-style controls,” the Wall Street Journal reports. However, it may come as no surprise that on page 114, line 22, the Act specifically exempts members of Congress from their own “reform”.  That’s right; ObamaCare for Thee, but NOT for me.
Currently members of Congress enjoy among the widest selection of health plans in the country …

Or maybe they can’t accept it. Blind ideology should not be driving the health care reform train.

. In 1967 House Ways and Means estimated total Medicare costs in 1990 would be $12 Billion, while the actual tab was $110 Billion, over 9 times as much.

The “R” Word
Hiding behind, the purposefully opaque, Obama health care reform package is a word no one in the administration wants mentioned. Why, because it is the acknowledged third rail of health care politics….rationing. Instead, you will see obtuse euphemisms such as: “evidenced based medicine, accountable care organizations, comparative outcome studies.” Now, I agree that there is already rationing in that not every patient has the same access to care. However, once these patients access care, whether through the ER or not they do generally …

Why did we use this video twice? Because Rep. Dennis Kucinich tries to make two points: one about wait times (which we addressed already) and the other about medical bankruptcy in this video that sorely needed to be addressed. As a politician, he is adept at spinning the facts and presenting what on the face of it appears like a reasonable argument for reform. By using medical bankruptcy, he touches on something many Americans fear: losing everything if they become critically ill. While this issue needs …

Here at TBM, we want to start to address certain talking points that are thrown around for the sake of politics. Wait times and medical bankruptcy have been well worn topics in this HCR debate. Here at TBM, we wanted to start to see if we could take a closer look at these two important issues.
In this post, we will start with wait times in Canada-a chant that has become all too familiar.

This video straight off Bob Cesca’s blog(one arguing for public health care) caught our …

Will the crisis atmosphere about health care also dissipate in the hot glare of more accurate numbers? Will we find the crisis to be rather like that southbound iceberg, or like the Admiralty’s inflated 2,500-voyage figure?

I start this post with question about the nature of safety. What is it, how does on define it, and how does one achieve it? I have been thinking and writing about this question for many years, and many more words later, it is fair to say that although we have no better definition of what safety is, it is clear that we are much more certain of what safety is not. I recently took time to reflect again on this idea of safety and this posting is intended to …

In the days since the AMA’s surprise, and quite puzzling open endorsement of HR3200, what began as a low rumble has become a roar: the mass of voices asking “Who is the AMA and do they really speak for the American Doctor?” I know at TBM we immediately asked this question, and very fortunate for all of us that others have as well. Everywhere one looks we see this question being asked and debated. On The Health Care Blog we find a great piece with some nice historical content. The …