Health and Sanity category archive
Ryan’s Derp, If You Do Get Sick, Die Quickly Dept. 0
TPM tries to figure out how many persons will lose health coverage under Paul Ryan’s plan to repeal the ACA. It’s not pretty.
The Republican Party: The Party of Mean for the Sake of Mean.
MIA 0
Remember all those teabaggers who demonstrated against the Affordable Care Act carrying signs that said, “Hands off my Medicare”?
Ryan’s Derp, Hands Off My Medicare Dept. 0
Nothing says “America” like making health care more expensive or, ideally, unobtainable.
I wonder what all the old white men who voted for Trump will think of this.
Aside:
There was a pickup truck festooned with flags and Trump signs on a major local street for several weeks. I passed it on election day. Seated beside it were two old white men. All I have to say to them is “Get a brain, morans.”
By the by, I’m an old white man, but I already have a brain, thank you.
Only In It for the Money 0
Wendell Potter doesn’t try to hide his disgust at Aetna’s antics.
If that means making it more difficult for low- and middle-income Americans to get the medical care they need, so be it. “Too bad, so sad,” to use a phrase one of my former colleagues used to say when people complained about the way health insurers routinely screw their customers.
(snip)
In fact, it is Aetna’s government business (Medicare and Medicaid–ed.) that is the only segment that is growing. Aetna and most of the other for-profit insurers have been losing private-paying customers on a regular basis for some time. But not to worry. As long as Uncle Sam has the Medicare and Medicaid faucets wide open and flowing straight into the insurers’ bank accounts, they couldn’t care less.
Read the rest.
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
Welcome to the “health care marketplace”:
Federal prosecutors said Tuesday it was all part of an illegal effort by Olympus Corp. of the Americas, based in Center Valley, Pa., near Allentown, to induce doctors and hospitals to buy its products: the pricey medical devices called endoscopes.
My ex is a nurse (and a damned good one, at that).
When I first met her, she was an OR nurse. The OR staff, including the doctors, at the little hospital where she worked at the time always looked forward to visits from pharma reps, because those visits meant free hoagies courtesy of Big Pharma.
This is called “unbiased evaluation of medical technology in the marketplace.”
Follow the link for the gruesome details.
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
In the Austin Statesman, Tara Trower Doolittle exposes the con inheret in the term, “health care marketplace.”
Read the rest.
