This Des Moines Register editorial spells out our problems so cleanly that I’d link to it anyway, but they also mention this bute:

Just a few weeks ago, this editorial page told the story of Jan and Gary Clausen, who didn’t have the option of buying health insurance through an employer. They went out on their own and bought AARP-endorsed plans for about $700 a month. They were left with more than $200,000 in medical bills after Gary was diagnosed with cancer.

Some insurance.

If you support the current system, you support a system that does this to people.

Or this , Shadowfax’s incredibly sad CT scan and story about a 54 year-old uninsured woman with metastatic cancer who will soon be leaving her 4 children behind.

Bravo, bravo, encore, encore!

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GoozNews covers the VA Formulary criticisms and puts them to rest.

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Just to point something out that people are confusing: Walter Reed is not a VA Facility . It is a Department of Defense Army Hospital.

And honestly, I would be incredibly surprised if private hospitals and insurers aren’t just as bad with data loss as the VA. And of the 5 hospitals I’ve rotated through, the VA has had the best security (translation: the most annoying passwords) of any place I’ve been. Is it perfect, not at all, but its rankings and quality and satisfaction scores don’t come from thin air.

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It’s really kind of sad/scary/amusing that a guy that runs a blog called “Health Care BS” and claims to have spent 20 years in health care finance doesn’t know the difference between a single-payer system and a national health service .

Boy David Catron, that’s pretty embarrassing:

For years, advocates of socialized medicine have been extolling the virtues of the VA hospital system. Ignoring the collective cri du coeur (No! Don’t do it!) from veterans who have actually been subjected to its tender mercies, the single-payer evangelists have doggedly insisted that the Veterans Administration constitutes a good model for a “universal” civilian system.

(Nice one-two with the “socialized medicine” buzzword there.) If Mr. Catron knew what single-payer is (and honestly, I think he does, but couldn’t pass up an opportunity), he would realize that single-payer advocates advocate for a private health care system, publicly funded. No single-payer advocate I know of is advocating for a “universal civilian system,” like the VA, where government owned facilities and government-employed docs and nurses provide the health care.

I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face: NHS isn’t NHI .

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We’re seeing many serious cases of engagementitis recently, with at least 5 classmates becoming fiancé-positive lately. It’s freaking me out. We should really start checking the water, cause I’m seriously missing out.

(Congrats to everyone!)

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It’s not particularly news that the lack of health insurance is affecting the middle class, but this NYT piece provides a good reminder : a women with a history of cancer, making $60,000 a year, was unable to afford health insurance. Here were her options:

1. One plan offered to insure her for $27,000 a year. After taxes, that’s easily more than half of her income.
2. Another HMO told her to go back to her old job and get insurance through them.

So there’s your options if you have a history of a serious illness and you’re trying to buy insurance (note: the “make everyone purchase insurance” option is sadly one of the leading plans to get everyone covered in the US): pay half of your salary, or go back to an old job, quit your small business, so you can afford your own medical care.

What a joke.

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A great rant by Scalpel about his new, non-user friendly EMR that was clearly designed by a software engineer, not a physician:

A simple x-ray cannot be ordered without answering multiple drop-down questions:

1) is the patient allergic to iodine? (no, but I’m not giving any iodinated contrast; it’s a foot X-ray)
2) does the patient have a working IV? (no, but he doesn’t need one; it’s only a foot X-ray, dammit!!)
3) did the patient drink contrast? (no, does any patient EVER drink contrast for an X-ray of a stubbed toe? AAARRRGH!!!)

We also get lots of WARNING ALERTS like this:

1) The pain level for this patient (1/10) is severely above normal!!!!!
2) The systolic blood pressure for this patient (139) is severely above normal!!!!!
3) Severe drug interaction!!!!!!! (insert any of several drugs which we give together all the time without any problem)

Incredible that hospitals still purchase ridiculously awful software like this in 2007.

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A call to all the ER docs out there: how do you tactfully, non-insultingly tell patients who come in with minor complaints, “You’re fine, go home, this is not an emergency, you should not come to an ER for a problem like this?” (For example, kid with a cold and low grade temp who is otherwise playful, active, eating and drinking well, with good sats, etc.)

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