Tag Archives: medical costs
Rights, Entitlements, and the Cost of Medical Care
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th April 2019The post previous to this one presented two links. The first was to an article that detailed the upcoming financial failure of Medicare. The second was to an article that outlined Senator Bernie Sanders plan to provide Medicare for all. The unstated implication was that if we couldn’t pay for the Medicare we have putting…
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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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The Rashomon Effect and Medical Costs
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th July 2015The Rashomon effect is contradictory interpretations of the same event by different people. The phrase derives from Akira Kurosowa’s great film Rashomon, where the accounts of the witnesses, suspects, and victims of a rape and murder are all different. This effect is so ubiquitous that objective truth seems impossible. I just came across an example of…
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Medical Costs and Wrong Assumptions
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th April 2011Bob Duffy Director of Ipsos Social Research Institute, is a true believer in governmental social planning. In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal he opines that people are now ready for the government to help us make the “right” choices that will benefit our health. He’s particularly interested in getting people to stop…
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Saving Money on Medical Care
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st August 2009Here’s an intelligent article on the realities of new health care legislation posted at a surprising sight. Well worth reading. Remember if a new program can’t reduce the ruinous cost increase of medical care it’s not worth doing. The Health Care Cost Saving Myth
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Effectiveness and Cost
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th June 2009There’s a growing sentiment that a solution to out of control medical costs might be to limit reimbursement of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures that are deemed to be of little or no effectiveness. I’ve written earlier that this is rationing of medical care in disguise. But let’s look at his issue in a little more…
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We Lose Money on Every Car We Sell But Make It Up In Volume or The Accountant Ascendant
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th April 2009I was flabbergasted when I reread the following piece originally published in 1997. It outlines our current economic plan. I had no idea that our future president read Lubbock Magazine 12 years ago. But don’t impute any bitterness to my remarks. I’m perfectly willing to let him take all the credit for the plan I…
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Cost of Medical Care in 2007
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th March 2009The aggregate cost of medical care in the US in 2007 was $2.26 trillion. That used to be a lot of money before the federal government started spending trillions like they were millions. The pie chart below shows how this cost was distributed. It also is rising faster than GDP and has been doing so…
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Medicare's Payment of Physicians
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th March 2009Every year Congress goes through a Medicare ritual. The law as written requires about a 20% reduction in payments to doctors. Medicare’s rates are already low causing many physicians to refuse new Medicare patients who don’t have supplemental insurance.These physicians usually are the best in each locale; it’s the weakest that stay in the system…
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Medicine and Inconvenient Truths
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th November 2008Victor Fuchs, a long time deep thinker (no sarcasm intended) about medical economics has a perspective piece in the October 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that presents three “inconvenient truths” about health care. His analysis is likely to represent that which will be applied to medical care over the next several…
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