Tag Archives: Healthcare

Recent New Yorker article, I read, “The Fight Within the American Medical Association“ What I found interesting is the AMA’s history in support and lack of it for better healthcare. It is going both ways while slowly advancing towards Single Payer. Out of necessity, the AMA has started to move closer to the reality of a Single Payer plan. Why now? Commercial healthcare insurance companies and Medicare Advantage are calling the shots on what...

Introduction I am fortunate to have made the acquaintance of Kip Sullivan from reading his articles and exchanging notes over the last couple of years. He is one of the more knowledgeable authorities on Single Payer as well as healthcare costs and price, commercial healthcare insurance, Traditional versus Advantage Medicare, and why today’s healthcare is not working efficiently. For example, commercial insurance administration costs are an...

The current trend in both cases and deaths in the US has me the most hopeful I have been in over 6 months. Here’s why. Nationwide, cases have declined to 150,000, only 30,000 above their level just before The Omicron wave started, and about 10,000 less than their Delta peak: The Omicron wave has been almost completely symmetrical. Cases started to rise exponentially roughly on December 15. They peaked about 4.5 weeks later. Now, about 4.5...

Coronavirus Dashboard for February 8: Omicron declines sharply; did Delta provide protection against the worst outcomes? As I mentioned yesterday, I haven’t posted a Coronavirus dashboard in awhile, and with Omicron in rapid retreat, it’s time for an update. To begin with, deaths are presently peaking at roughly 2450 a day, while nationwide cases are down almost 2/3’s: There are over a dozen States where numbers are now down close to, at, or...

Lambert at Naked Capitalism has an interesting article up as taken from KHN entitled “I Write About America’s Absurd Health Care System. Then I Got Caught Up in It” as detailed by Bram Sable-Smith. As taken from the KHN article, Bram describes the beginnings of his dilemma of getting Insulin: “I’d been waiting since September for an appointment with an endocrinologist in St. Louis; the doctor’s office couldn’t get me in until Dec. 23 and...

With seasonality over, it is clear that Omicron is responsible for increased layoffs With seasonality behind us, it is apparent that Omicron has resulted in increased layoffs. New claims declined 30,000 last week to 260,000 – still well above its pandemic low of 188,000 set early in December. The 4 week average of new claims increased 15,000 to 247,000: Continuing claims for jobless benefits rose for the second week in a row, by...

Coronavirus dashboard: Omicron has peaked; now what?, New Deal Democrat  – by New Deal democratLet’s start out with the good, or at least less catastrophic news: it’s almost certain that the Omicron wave has peaked in the US. In fact, the only Census region it is still up week over week is in the Midwest: In almost all of the areas hit hard early – Puerto Rico, and the NYC and DC metro areas – cases are down sharply since peaking....

“Biden Administration (CMS) Says No to Premiums in Medicaid,” Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, Joan Aker Georgia, Arkansas, and Montana recently had their 1115 Medicaid waiver requests denied. All three states were asking they be allowed to charge premiums to low income adults on Medicaid. A Section 1115 demonstration is intended to test new approaches promoting the objectives of Medicaid.  The Biden Administration’s painstaking...

This podcast came to me by way of Kip Sullivan, the expert on Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage. We have had a running dialogue for about a year now. Most recently, Angry Bear featured Kip’s PNHP Single Payer Healthcare Financing Series detailing why healthcare is expensive in the US. I have put up numerous posts on healthcare, Medicare, Medicare Advantage. This podcast by Kip and Ralph Nader gets into the take over of Traditional...

Today the conservative majority of Supreme Court Justices decided that federal vaccine mandates are unconstitutional, that states rights and employer rights are more important than the public’s welfare in this time of pandemic. It is likely that their decision will result in the unnecessary death of as many as 250,000 Americans. Let it be on their heads. Let history show for all times that these 250,000 unnecessary deaths are upon the heads of...