EDITORIAL; Is Your Doctor Tied to Drug Makers? – New York Times

EDITORIAL; Is Your Doctor Tied to Drug Makers? – New York Times:
“Several states have tried to rein in abuses by requiring some form of disclosure, but every state law has defects, most notably a failure to make doctor-specific data readily available to the public. Last week Senator Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat who is chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, and Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, said they would push for a national registry that would force drug and medical device companies to report their gifts and payments to physicians. Several states have tried to rein in abuses by requiring some form of disclosure, but every state law has defects, most notably a failure to make doctor-specific data readily available to the public. Last week Senator Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat who is chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, and Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, said they would push for a national registry that would force drug and medical device companies to report their gifts and payments to physicians. Several states have tried to rein in abuses by requiring some form of disclosure, but every state law has defects, most notably a failure to make doctor-specific data readily available to the public. Last week Senator Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat who is chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, and Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, said they would push for a national registry that would force drug and medical device companies to report their gifts and payments to physicians. “

Sounds like a plan.

CNN.com – Paging Dr. Gupta Blog

CNN.com – Paging Dr. Gupta Blog:
Someone responding to Dr. Gupta’s point from Larry King Live last night:
“Hello Dr. Gupta.

I watched your discussion with Micheal last night, which I thought was quite interesting as I have the good fortune to live in Canada where we do have universal health care. This is certanly an issue that needs to be discussed. I did want to comment on one of the points you brought up last night as i felt it did not seem exactly true with my experiences. I am an advanced life support paramedic in Alberta and often treat and transport patients needing urgent angiograms. Althought weight times are an issue with urgent unstable angina type patients, it seemed you were painting a picture of emergent AMI patients were waiting six days to recieve life saving angiograms.
My experiece is nothing like that. I am proud to say that our region EMS services around Calgary have developed a system in which in feild 12-lead ECG’s are read by responding paramedics and if determined that the patient is having a miocardial infarct, the 12 lead is faxed to the trauma centre and the patient is transported directly to the catheter lab, by-passing the emergency department decreasing the door to cath time.
Many incidents have seen patinets arriving for angiogram /plasty in less than an hour of onset of symptoms.
It is important to note that this service is available to everyone. As a front line health care worker paramedics experience first hand many of the delays in our healhcare system in Alberta, however, emergency situations are always dealt with in a timely manner, with no bias or discrimination based on wallet size.

humbly yours,

K. Palmer
EMT-Paramedic
Banff, Alberta Canada “

WSJ 2006 “The Doctor’s Office” on Single Payer

Government-Funded Care
Is the Best Health Solution

Multiple Insurers, Multiple Plans
Create Expensive, Draining Hassle
April 18, 2006:

“Doctors in private practice fear a loss of autonomy with a single-payer system. After being in the private practice of family medicine for 8 1/2 years, I see that autonomy is largely an illusion. Through Medicare and Medicaid, the government is already writing its own rules for 45% of the patients I see.
The rest are privately insured under 301 different insurance products (my staff and I counted). The companies set the fees and the contracts are largely non-negotiable by individual doctors.
The amount of time, staff costs and IT overhead associated with keeping track of all those plans eats up most of the money we make above Medicare rates. As it is now, I see patients and wait between 30 and 90 days to get paid. My practice requires two full-time staff members for billing. My two secretaries spend about half their time collecting insurance information. Plus, there’s $9,000 in computer expenses yearly to handle the insurance information and billing follow up. I suspect I could go from four people in the paper chase to one with a single-payer system.”

It’s so obvious that it hurts.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie: by Ian Morrison (author, consultant and futurist based in Menlo Park, Calif.)

“Somebody must be doing it right, we start to think. Well, actually, every system around the world is an ugly compromise among cost, quality, access and security of benefits, and almost all systems are in crisis according to the local news media. We in the United States have a bad bargain, maybe the worst: high costs, uneven quality, poor access and no security of benefits except for those over age 65.”

Nice overview of a system we rarely hear about in discussions of universal healthcare, Australia.
Now, let me conclude this post with a prayer: Australia, Australia, Australia, We Love You. Amen. Crack the tubes!

Sicko Spurs Audiences Into Action

Sicko Spurs Audiences Into Action:
“The talk gradually centered around a core of 10 or 12 strangers in a cluster while the rest of us stood around them listening intently to this thing that seemed to be happening out of nowhere. The black gentleman engaged by my redneck in the restroom shouted for everyone’s attention. The conversation stopped instantly as all eyes in this group of 30 or 40 people were now on him. “If we just see this and do nothing about it,” he said, “then what’s the point? Something has to change.” There was silence, then the redneck’s wife started calling for email addresses. Suddenly everyone was scribbling down everyone else’s email, promising to get together and do something… though no one seemed to know quite what. It was as if I’d just stepped into the world’s most bizarre protest rally, except instead of hippies the group was comprised of men and women of every age, skin color, income, and walk of life coming together on something that had shaken them deeply, and to the core. “

Gives you faith that America will right itself after these awful six years…

NPR : Diagnosing U.S. Health Care — and ‘Sicko,’ Too

Terrific interview with a very knowledgeable healthcare policy expert.

NPR : Diagnosing U.S. Health Care — and ‘Sicko,’ Too: “Interviews
Diagnosing U.S. Health Care — and ‘Sicko,’ Too

Fresh Air from WHYY, July 9, 2007 · Jonathan Oberlander, a political scientist with an expertise in health-care politics and policy, discusses problems with the U.S. health-care system and considers how other countries handle health care. He’ll also give us a critique of Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko. Oberlander is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.”