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Why Would Health Insurers Tell Congress: Please Hurry!?

One would think American health insurance companies would be caterwauling about the provisions laid out for them in the healthcare reform legislation which Harry Reid (and a few of his elves) assembled for us Americans in their secret workshop just before Christmas.

On their face, those provisions do not appear to allow insurance companies a viable business model. Insurers under Reid’s bill would be required to accept all comers, regardless of age or underlying medical conditions. They would be required to cover all manner of healthcare services, including outpatient and inpatient services, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance abuse services, rehabilitative services, lab services, preventive and wellness services, chronic disease management, prescription drugs, dental care, and eye care. They would be limited in what they can charge in the way of insurance premiums, and their profits (if by some miracle there were any), would be strictly capped. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*

The Friday Funny: The Healthcare Reform Mess

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Will Healthcare Reform Mandates Punish The Poor?

A reader wrote;” I am getting tired of you telling me how bad the healthcare reform bill is.”

I am tired of writing about the bill. I feel compelled to try to clearly explain the harmful potential of the bill to an unsuspecting public.

Most Americans agree the country needs healthcare reform.

Many intelligent people believe President Obama is on the right track. They believe he is going to provide universal healthcare coverage, affordable healthcare cost, and improve the quality of medical care.

Few in the mainstream media are discussing the real impact of President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Plan.

President Obama cannot accomplish his goals with this bill. He is going to increase federal spending and taxes for every American’s not just the wealthy. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*

Hidden Costs In The Healthcare Reform Bills: How To Fake Budget Neutrality

President Obama said he will not sign a healthcare reform bill that was not budget neutral. You can view this statement at 3.50 minutes into this video clip.

The only way that can happen is if the healthcare expenses in both bills are hidden, unrealistic expense estimates are or expenses deflected to other areas in the budget. The Senate and House bill do both. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*

Will Quackery Be Legislated By The Senate? Better Call Your Senator

For those of you following the surprising healthcare reform bill mandate of Christian Science prayer as a medical treatment to be payed for by your taxes… I have good news. That was stricken from the merged legislation.

The bad news is that there is currently even more worrisome language in the S.3950 bill. Senator Tom Harkin has introduced language that would essentially require ineffective medical treatment systems like homeopathy to be paid for by government programs, and give people without legitimate medical training the right to become primary care physicians who would establish a “medical home” for patients. Read more »

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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