Tag Archives: medicare
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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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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Some Things Speak for Themselves
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd April 2019Medicare to go broke three years earlier than expected, trustees say. Bernie Sanders Unveils ‘Medicare for All’ Bill.
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CMS – Proposed New Physician Fee Schedule
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th July 2018If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free PJ O’Rourke CMS (the federal agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid) is proposing a new physician fee schedule. The three page article that summarizes the proposed changes is hard for my ossified brain to decode, so I…
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More Good Medicine From the Government
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th December 2015A couple of items. For about 25 years I’ve been saying and writing that routine PSA screening was a bad idea. For much of this time I was the sacrificial nay sayer at meetings devoted to the subject. You can read the several posts on this issue that I have written over the past 8 years. Finally,…
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The Medical Record – Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th July 2015The medical record has been a problem ever since Hippocrates, in a moment of spite, invented it. Until the advent of the electronic record it had existed on paper and was stored in a variety of inaccessible locations by the Department of Medical Records, or by a similarly named entity. Once entombed in the medical…
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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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Social Welfare Programs and Drug Addiction
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th June 2011The current debate over how Medicare should be structured has seemed to me to be nothing more than each side declaring that their federally funded healthcare program is better than the other side’s. Paul Ryan’s plan to make Medicare (10 years hence) into a voucher system has been hailed by many as a serious and responsible modification…
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To Be or Not to Be
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 3rd April 2011To those looking to the federal government for the solutions to life’s problems, reality is is a constant lance in the side. Retirees have been told that there was no inflation in 2010 which is why there was no cost of living increase in Social Security benefits for 2011. Yet seniors have been hit with…
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Hemodialysis – 2011
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th February 2011There are two short, but informative, articles about hemodialysis in the February 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine – here and here. The first by the journal’s national correspondent, John Iglehart, outlines the various maneuvers that Medicare is performing in an attempt to reduce costs. The second by Richard Retig from RAND…
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