A few years ago, my physician retired and I had to find a new one. One seemed good until I discovered that they had this tiered pricing scheme where the more you paid in the form of an annual subscription, the more services they offered. For example, with my previous physician, if I went for …
Category Archive: Health care
Feb 25 2013
The health care rip-off
I was chatting one day with the handyman who does stuff at our house and was shocked at the prices that he and his wife (who is also self-employed) have to pay to buy health insurance. Even after paying so much, that coverage provides much less than what my wife and I have through her …
Jul 02 2012
The Roberts puzzle
Following the surprising alignment of Chief Justice John Roberts with the so-called liberal wing of the US Supreme Court to hand president Obama a victory on the Affordable Care Act, there has been much speculation as to why he ruled the way he did. Speculating on the private motives of public figures is usually a …
Jun 29 2012
Reflections on the health care ruling and the reactions
I was occupied for most of yesterday and did not have time to follow the reactions to the news that almost every aspect of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had been upheld by the US Supreme Court. When late at night I did catch up on the coverage, there seemed to be basically four groups …
Mar 26 2012
Will decline of employer-based health insurance lead to a single payer system?
Beginning today and spread over the next three days, the US Supreme Court will take the extraordinary step of scheduling six hours of oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. In my series of posts on health care, I have said that I am in favor of the single-payer system and have …
Jan 13 2012
Good news on the disease front
A report just released says that it has been one year since there was a case of polio in India. This result was obtained after India carried out a massive program to deliver vaccines, involving 2.3 million vaccinators delivering 900 million doses in the past year. India used to have more than half of the …
Dec 22 2011
Is a single payer health system on the way?
I have in the past harshly criticized president Obama and the Democratic party for the way they excluded the single payer and public options in the health care debate as a favor to the health insurance industries and foisted on us a complicated health care reform package in the Affordable Care Act that does not …
May 14 2011
Why the health care law is constitutional but may be overturned
Northwestern University professor of law Andrew Koppelman has a long article in the Yale Law Journal arguing that the constitutional objections that have been brought against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) health care reform package have little legal merit but that this does not mean that the current Supreme Court will uphold …
May 05 2011
Preventing cheaper treatments to increase profits
Reader Norm sent me this news item which alleges that sheer greed for excessive profits is causing one drug company (Genentech) to try to block a possible cure for macular degeneration (which can cause blindness) from being tested and approved, because the cost of this drug ($50 per dose) Avastin is forty times less that …
Mar 18 2011
Update on the status of single payer health plans
Despite the sabotaging of the single payer and the public option by president Obama and the Democratic Party during the health care reform debate, it is not yet dead. In an interview with OpEdNews, Dr. Margaret Flowers of that excellent group PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Program) talks about the moves currently underway in …
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