Tag Archives: Health Insurance
The Vanishing Patients
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 8th June 2020Medical facilities are bemoaning the loss of revenue that has followed the COVID-19 epidemic. The conventional explanation is that patients are staying away from hospitals and clinics because they think them unsafe and fear contracting the virus should they go. Hospitals say they’re losing $50 billion dollars a month. Extrapolated to a whole year that…
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The ESRD Program and Single Payer Medicine
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st July 2019In 1972 the nephrology community convinced congress to pay for the treatment of patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD). Thus, the federal government assumed fiscal responsibility for chronic dialysis and kidney transplantation. We sold the program by telling congress that it would save lives (true) and that it would not be very expensive (decidedly…
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Thoughts on The Affordable Care Act
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th January 2017As everybody above ambient temperature knows, the US Congress is about to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The repeal part is easy. What to replace it with is much harder. As someone who’s spent more than half a century taking care of patients and teaching others how to do the same, I’d like…
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British National Health Service Faces Financial Crisis
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th January 2016NHS faces biggest financial crisis ‘in a generation’ is the headline of an article published in The Telegraph. The NHS has a deficit of about £1 billion in just the first three months of its fiscal year. You can read the linked article to see the usual excuses offered when a government health program exceeds its…
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Substandard Medical Care, Etc
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th October 2015An article in The Guardian says that two-thirds of hospitals in the UK give substandard medical care. Furthermore 75% of hospitals have levels of safety that “are not good enough.” These hospitals are said to be understaffed and underfunded. These problems are expected to worsen as the government phases in cuts to the National Health Service….
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Emergency Room Visits Rise
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th May 2015Three-quarters of emergency physicians say they’ve seen ER patient visits surge since Obamacare took effect — just the opposite of what many Americans expected would happen. A poll released today by the American College of Emergency Physicians shows that 28% of 2,099 doctors surveyed nationally saw large increases in volume, while 47% saw slight increases….
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More About the High Cost of Medical Care
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th July 2014I recently wrote about the reasons for the extraordinary high cost of medical care in the US – Why is Medical Care So Expensive?. That post is a PowerPoint presentation of a talk I recently gave. The slide below lists the causes that I think are responsible for the extraordinary rise in medical costs over the…
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Why is Medical Care So Expensive?
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th June 2014The PowerPoint presentation below contains the slides I used today to accompany a presentation on the above subject to the Lubbock Roundtable. It is just an outline to my remarks. The quotation below belongs to slide #36. Its from The Obamacare Crisis by Thomas B Edsall in the New York Times November 19, 2013. The…
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Specialization
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th June 2011These article is adapted from a talk given at the graduation dinner for the residents of the Department of Internal Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock on May 27, 2011 Specialization is when people concentrate on one thing or another at which they are good. I will limit my remarks to…
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Unreasonable Health Insurance Premiums
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 7th August 2010New York Times columnist and Nobel prize winner in economics Paul Krugman is famous for his dedication to fiscal stimulus as an escape from our current economic woes. No matter how much money the government pumps into the economy he wants more if the result is not what is desired. Thus he is indulging in…
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