US Healthcare

The COVID pandemic has shown how much we need the private sector in healthcare. It was the free market that got us early testing, ramped up production of personal protective equipment and ventilators, and instantly developed ideas for both treatment drugs and vaccines. Meanwhile, the public sector, Washington, expends trillions of our "healthcare" dollars on federal bureaucracy, taking those dollars away from patient care. This wasted money comes from businesses like yours where health insurance premiums are taking an impossibly large bite out of the bottom line, while consuming a third of your employees' take-home pay! Just as our 1776 rebellion against an overly controlling government led to the birth of the United States, we need another American revolution, led by We the People, or We the Patients. We must reassert our FREEDOM, particularly from Washington's domination. As Americans, we need to reaffirm our right to choose our medical care and our care p...

The title question might seem silly, even ludicrous. It is anything but. In the United States today, a truck driver is free to choose which gear to use going up a hill and at what speed to go down the hill. Accountants and lawyers are free to accept or refuse specific jobs and how to do their work. Clinical physicians are not similarly free to do their work as they see fit in the best interests of the patient before them People who never went to medical school-insurance actuaries, state insurance commissioners, and federal regulators-dictate to physicians what they can do for their patients, and especially, what they cannot. Hospital lawyers require physicians to strictly follow federal guidelines as though Washington's advisories were stone tablets handed down from Mount Sinai. The one person not free to practice best medicine on you is your personal doctor. Read more... Visit  " We can Fix Healthcare "  for more information and to subscribe for free bo...

If you work in healthcare, the initials HIPAA make you gag. If you are not in healthcare, you are probably unaware of this 2000-pound hippopotamus that you are supporting. HIPAA stands for  Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act  (of 1998). In the early 1990s, there was extensive corporate downsizing, reductions in force (RIF) were common events, and people lost their insurance along with their jobs. The initiating stimulus for this legislation was to make insurance portable, hence the “P” in HIPAA: you could take your insurance with you when you left your job. Gradually, the transfer of medical information became the focus. In this time of the Patriot Act, confidentiality and security were (and remain) king. Eventually, the original problem of loss of medical insurance was “lost” and forgotten. HIPAA now sets forth guidelines about protection of personal medical data. It hints at dire consequences if medical confidentiality is broached. HIPAA produces defen...

There are several lessons we?have?learned from the CoViD-19 experience such as: the unreliability of predictive models; the danger of depending on foreign supply chains; over-reaction can be a deadly as under-reaction; and the need for better contingency planning. There is one lesson we have not absorbed: to get timely, affordable care, Americans need the private sector, the free market, not government-controlled healthcare. When the CoViD-19 crisis began, it was private companies not government agencies that quickly produced diagnostic tests, personal protective equipment, ventilators, and developed ideas for both curative medicines and vaccines. The hallmark of a free market is freedom of both buyer and seller, who interact directly. A consumer, the buyer, is free to buy or refuse, what to buy, from whom, and for what price. The seller is free to sell what he thinks consumers will want, and sets the price of products or services in competition with other sellers. Read...

Federal healthcare regulations with their attendant bureaucracies are supposed to facilitate patients getting the medical care they need when they need it. Sadly, bureaucracy does the exact opposite: it reduces access to care and can lead to needless deaths. Creating federal rules and regulations costs lots of money. The first round of instructions for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) required more than 2000 pages in the Federal Register, with more than 10,516,000 words eight times the number of words in the Bible. To implement and oversee federal mandates requires bureaucracy and bureaucrats. This too costs money, such as $1.7 trillion for the ACA. Spending by Washington on its bureaucracy is first dollar spent. Spending on care comes a distant second. Administrative jobs in healthcare have exploded while physician numbers haven't.  Read more... Visit  " We can Fix Healthcare "  for more information and to subscribe for f...

Common wisdom teaches that those who have health insurance get the care they need when they need it, and that those who don't have coverage, don't get care. This false "wisdom" is used by progressives to push for government-controlled, single payer healthcare. Evidence proves that this wisdom is not wise. In fact, it is 180 degrees wrong. Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the U.S. at 17.1 percent and a Medicaid enrollment of 16 percent. New York state has the lowest uninsured rate, 5.4 percent, and Medicaid enrollment double of Texas, 32 percent. Thus, Texas and New York are polar opposites with regard to health insurance. One-Texas- has the most uninsured and the fewest individuals with government supplied, no-charge health insurance. New York has the fewest uninsured and the most Medicaid enrollees. How successful are New York and Texas in providing care? Read more... Visit  " We can Fix Healthcare "  for more information and to subsc...