Health and Sanity category archive
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.
The Privatization Scam 0
North Carolina has a new twist on the Privatization Scam.
I can see the outcome now: the rich will get richer and the sick will get sicker.
Eight Glasses a Day 0
Bennett Cerf told the story of an American tourist who visited a little shop in the provinces.
Eventually, he picked up a wine skin, wandered over to the clerk, and asked, “What about water?”
The clerk gasped. “Water. Non non. Water rots the insides, water erodes the brain, water destroys!”
The tourist says, “So you mean I can’t put water in the wine skin?”
“Oh, monsieur, of course you can. I thought you were going to drink it.”
Not a Leg To Stand On 0
God forbid that health insurance should pay for (gasp!) health care.
After all, paying for health care may imperil country-club memberships for insurance CEOs.
Sticker Schlock 2
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tries to make sense of consumer health care prices and finds out that it can’t.
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
The right likes to fulminate about market forces and health care costs, as if someone whose doctor has admitting privileges at only one hospital, who is experiencing sudden chest pains, or who just fell of a ladder is in a position to stroll through the “health care marketplace” inspecting the wares.
Furthermore, comparison shopping for health care may indeed be contraindicated.