April 2012
14 posts
5 tags
The Real Story of Health Insurance Rebates
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the Associated Press (and an apologist for the current occupant of the white house) has written an article about the health insurance rebates mandated by the Unaffordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The overall amount to be rebated may top 1 billion, Oklahoma’s share to be about 22 million. As you open your mail and find these checks try to wrap your mind around one...
6 tags
$182,000 Appendectomy!
Check this out. $182,000 for an appendectomy in California. Someone told me the other day that having received a bill for $20,000 for their hernia surgery, also done in California, they were going to use our online pricing to leverage a better deal. What is going on in California? The same thing that’s going on everywhere. That the authors of the study never mention the uncompensated...
4 tags
Join the Orient (Dr. Jane) Express!
Here is an example of brilliance. All of you beltway hucksters and charlatans that fancy yourselves health policy wonks should read this and quit your jobs. Dr. Orient’s brilliance and insight have been available and on display for decades. She almost single-handedly destroyed the Clinton health care plan. She and the organization she leads, the Association of American Physicians and...
4 tags
Mike Tyson and Obamacare
Repeal Obamacare? Don’t make me laugh. Why stop there? Tricky Dick Nixon’s 1972 HMO Act and the modification of the tax code allowing for the employer (not individual employee) to make a “pre-tax” purchase of health care represent a one-two punch for health care in the U.S. HMO’s or restrictive PPO insurance policies are not products that any individual would...
7 tags
Catch Up, California!
This article in the L.A. Times reports on the basic refusal of California hospitals and physicians to reveal their prices for common procedures in spite of a state law requiring them to. Some hospitals comply by listing their prices on a state website, but not on their own. Some simply refuse to comply.
Followers of this blog are aware that revealing prices to inquiries is a start but is...
Diagram Novice
For some reason, the “Anatomy of a Cartel” blog has reduced one of my crowning achievements, the diagram of the health insurance-big hospital cartel to a “?.” I’ll stay on this until the diagram remains on the blog. If you looked before, please look again if the diagram wasn’t there, as I believe that it describes in a nutshell and at a glance how the cartel...
10 tags
Anatomy of a Cartel
I though it might be a good time to revisit topics no one in health care management at the hospital, government or insurance level wants discussed or understood. I find it interesting that for all the talk of “health care reform” none of what I am about to outline is addressed in the Unaffordable Care Act. That the following is not addressed by this “reform” is compelling...
6 tags
"Cancel your vacation, I'm sick!"
Block grants are a hot topic these days. The Republican Study Committee has proposed legislation to effect the block granting of Medicaid to the states. While this is not an end-all solution to the bankruptcy that the entitlement programs guarantee, it is a start. Having said that, here’s a few random thoughts.
I have said before that I didn’t think that it was right or fair that...
4 tags
Medicare and Fruit Deliveries
I’ve thought for some time that no real “reform” or serious change in the Medicare system will ever occur until the elderly are visibly and palpably shut out or harmed by this very system they currently want preserved at all costs. The elderly scare the politicians to death. That’s why there’s no chance of any “top-down” change to the system. Only when...
4 tags
"But you promised me!"
Here, once again, is a link to the article that I said you should avoid reading. Having said that, another part of the article deserves addressing, now that I’ve had more time to digest it. Early in the article, the authors decry the “temporary” 5 year increase in primary care fees of 10%. According to the authors, this “temporary” boost in pay is not likely to...
10 tags
If A=B, then B=A. Really? Duh!
Don’t read this article. Seriously. If you are having trouble getting to sleep, read the whole thing. If you want to know how silly writing about health care can be, read pages 5-7.
The folks writing this stuff are believers in economic modeling. The flaws in their assumptions are so glaring that they have to admit to many of them on their own. The only conclusions they can draw are...
9 tags
TV story reveals hospital pricing illegitimacy
KOCO TV, here in Oklahoma City, did a story on our facility and the center’s transparent and packaged pricing recently. You can view it here. In response to the question ..”how can you be so much cheaper than the hospitals..” I said, “..we didn’t have an administrator in a $3000 suit.” While this is true, there is a better answer, I think, to this question....
7 tags
Goliath Stumbling
Lots of exciting things are happening at our facility. If you have been following this site, you have seen that we have gained national attention with our free market approach to health care, evidenced by the videos you can watch on previous blogs, here, here and here. Thanks once again to the folks at the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons for creating the opportunities for me to...
9 tags
Mises, Hayek and Friedman
I recently heard an inspirational talk about the late, great Milton Friedman. This year he would have been 100 years old. On a scale of 1-10, he was an 8.2 in my opinion on the appropriate role of government in our lives. Pretty darn good for an academic. He was a great communicator with a kind face and was, according to numerous reports a lively, but civil and kind debater. One of his claims...
