Tag Archives: Healthcare

Massachusetts ACA Enrollment Exceeds Last Year, Charles Gaba, ACA Signups Blog Massachusetts: (January 14, 2018) saw an increased 285,000 signups for healthcare for 2019 which is up 6.6% YOY and with 9 days left until the ACA signup deadline. This comes even though Republicans and Trump have been sabotaging the ACA. Even more impressive, 97.2% (90% National Average) of enrollees have paid their 1st month fees. Republicans and Trump Implement the CSR...

In a clinical trial the therapy is decided by a pseudo random number generator. How can this be ethical ? People are treated differently for no reason related to different interests different values and priorities or even different merit (assuming merit can differ). There is a utilitarian rational for clinical trials. Through such trials doctors learn, and that knowledge is useful to future patients. But this rationale is utterly rejected as ethically...

In The New York Times Abby Goodnough wrote” she got a Vivitrol (naltrexone) shot but it was so expensive — her co-payment was $600 — that she never got another” !!! This is insane. Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist. It prevents opioids from causing a high (and relieving pain and suppressing coughing and breathing). In no way is it conceivably a drug of abuse. But opioid addicts who wish to cut off all effects of opioids have to pay for their...

To add to Robert Waldman’s post on ACA enrollment, here is the chart as taken from Andrew Sprung’s Blog (Expostfactoid) on the ACA. This is data Charles Gaba had gathered and Andrew rearranged. Note non-expansion Medicaid states did better than expansion states in enrollment. Why is that true? The states marked in yellow on the left are expansion states. Without getting into the data and explaining Andrew’s findings, it is interesting the difference in...

American Journal of Public Health: “The Myth Regarding the High Cost of End-of-Life Care” December 2015, Melissa D. Aldridge, PhD, MBA and Amy S. Kelley, MD, MSHS There has been a lot of talk and presentation on End of Life care and its high costs. “The Myth Regarding the High Cost of End of Life Care” reviews those costs and expands the topic beyond End of Life to all the population with chronic conditions and functional limitations. FIGURE 1Estimated...

Last December 2017, Envision Healthcare Corporation paid an approximate $30 million to settle allegations for subsidiary EmCare doctors getting bonus payments for admitting patients to hospitals when it was not necessary. History: A subsidiary of Envision, EmCare is a provider of physician services to emergency departments, inpatient services for hospitals, acute care surgery, trauma and general surgery, women’s and children’s services, radiology /...

I get the alerts from Georgetown University Center for Children and Families weekly. The news much of the time is a reflection of the number of attacks on families and children who have lesser means to provide for healthcare themselves and depend upon Medicaid, ACA, and CHIPS for care. Since the election of Trump, McConnell and Ryan have been strutting around like the cocks on the walk demonstrating their machismo as they hold women, children and...

Nearly one year after agreeing to merge in a bid to reinvent healthcare for Americans, CVS Health and Aetna sealed the deal on Wednesday, bringing together one of the nation’s largest pharmacy chains and one of the largest health insurers. CVS Health President and CEO Larry Merlo: “Today marks the start of a new day in health care and a transformative moment for our company and our industry. By delivering the combined capabilities of our two leading...

My wife was in charge of making the salad for Thanksgiving. For her easily done as she makes her own Italian dressing. I bought enough Romaine Hearts to feed 20 people. On Wednesday, we pitched them all as CDC said not to eat any Romaine as it was contaminated with E. Coli. We moved on to Spinach and Arugula. It is not the first-time leafy vegetables have been removed from the grocery shelf and the dinner table. Indeed, if you glance at the attached...

Via Naked Capitalism and Lambert Strether: And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. –Corinthians 13:13 I posted this letter in Links, but I found I could expand on it. Spectrum Health Care’s letter to Hedda Martin speaks for itself, and for what our health care system has become under neoliberalism: View image on Twitter Dan Radzikowski@DanRadzikowski (The provenance: I started with AOC, who...