Author Topic: The Politics of Health Care  (Read 731841 times)

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
senate confirms election of partisan lawyer to lead HHS
« Reply #1800 on: March 18, 2021, 12:55:58 PM »
Becerra’s confirmation, which all but one Republican opposed, came as expected after Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the sole Republican yes-vote, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a moderate Democrat, came out in support of the confirmation last week.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/03/18/senate-confirms-california-attorney-general-xavier-becerra-as-health-secretary-ultrathin-margin/


ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
here we go again
« Reply #1802 on: March 26, 2021, 02:24:59 PM »
feminist liberal USA today and the usual leftist doctors:

1).  Florida spring break BAD for corona

2)  Illegals coming in by tens or thousands - IGNORE

https://www.yahoo.com/news/potential-exponentially-spread-spring-break-100055598.html

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
Fauci
« Reply #1803 on: March 29, 2021, 08:24:32 AM »
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/fauci-trump-shocked-him-093852117.html

funny
I don't think I heard Fauci speak out against all the BLM protests last summer

strangely silent about that , isn't he?

watching all the protesters was not a "punch to the gut"

and having CNN and other lib outlets and KHarris promoting them was not.a punch to the gut ?

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18129
    • View Profile
Re: Fauci
« Reply #1804 on: March 29, 2021, 09:21:12 AM »
Yes.  He's a smart guy with a strong background in the field but he's also a propagandist and a partisan loaded with bias.

He underestimated the virus.  He overestimated it.  He told us we didn't need masks, then that we need a double layer after vaccination, and still he makes the most of anyone in government and has people following his every word.  Yes he might cringe at some things Trump said, and we cringe on his words, causing schools to close for no good reason, blocking evictions, the enforcement of the most basic contract, shutting down jobs and industries, causing immeasurable damage.  Can't criticize CDC or China because we need their cooperation.  Now he needs Trump's cooperation to get people to take the vaccine but that's different.  Criticizing Trump elevates himself, and ego is science? 

Under Fauci, science has become a synonym for bullshit, and mixing truth in with it is the most dangerous type.
 
Forget masks for the virus at BLM protests, I'd like to know which 'scientist' of the Left spoke out against the air pollution from burning 1600 buildings in our town.  The silence is deafening.

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
Medicare will be in bankrupt in 2026
« Reply #1805 on: April 22, 2021, 03:00:44 PM »
At its current pace, Medicare will go bankrupt in 2026 (the same as last year's projection) and the Social Security Trust Funds for old-aged benefits and disability benefits will become exhausted by 2035.

The Democrats are here so never fear and they are to the rescue:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-look-at-lowering-medicare-eligibility-age-in-healthcare-package-11617109207

OMFG
could the Dems drive this country into the ground any faster?
« Last Edit: April 22, 2021, 03:27:54 PM by ccp »

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Re: Medicare will be in bankrupt in 2026
« Reply #1806 on: April 22, 2021, 03:02:31 PM »
They are going as fast as they can.


At its current pace, Medicare will go bankrupt in 2026 (the same as last year's projection) and the Social Security Trust Funds for old-aged benefits and disability benefits will become exhausted by 2035.

The Democrats are hear so never fear and are to the rescue:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-look-at-lowering-medicare-eligibility-age-in-healthcare-package-11617109207

OMFG
could the Dems drive this country into the ground any faster?


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69127
    • View Profile

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69127
    • View Profile
Bobby Jindal: The Texas Model for Conservative Health Care Reform
« Reply #1809 on: July 25, 2021, 02:46:49 AM »
Texas Provides a Model for Conservative Healthcare Reform
Republicans passed a package of market-friendly laws to expand access and increase competition.
By Bobby Jindal
July 23, 2021 6:02 pm ET


The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the federal government couldn’t force states to expand Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act. Ever since, Democrats and hospital lobbyists have looked for ways to push state legislators to let able-bodied adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level into Medicaid. In the last Covid relief bill, Democrats tried to give states more temporary money to expand Medicaid. Now they are considering legislation to allow Democratic cities in Republican states to expand Medicaid on their own. But Texas Republicans have modeled a better way to get Americans affordable healthcare.

Unfortunately, the Lone Star State is in the minority. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have expanded or approved expansion of their programs. Democrats complain the other 12 states are turning down billions of “free” federal dollars while leaving millions uninsured. As a candidate, Joe Biden proposed creating a government-run plan for low-income people in states that don’t expand Medicaid.

Republicans resisting expansion argue that taxpayers end up paying for “free” federal dollars. State governments receive federal funding for a portion of each dollar they spend on Medicaid, but must provide matching funds from their own coffers. Expansion costs states billions in match requirements.

Conservative Texans who oppose Medicaid expansion point to the explosion in spending in states that have expanded their programs. More than half of Texas doctors said in 2016 they wouldn’t accept all new Medicaid patients due to low reimbursement and increased paperwork.


Medicaid isn’t well run and increasing dependence on government should be avoided. Oregon expanded Medicaid in 2008 using a lottery system, allowing for randomized selection, and a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health study showed no significant improvements in physical health outcomes.

Unfortunately, some GOP states that initially held their ground against Medicaid expansion have surrendered in recent years. As recently as mid-April, Texas seemed poised to relent. Nine Republican state representatives joined Democrats to co-sponsor H.B. 3871, giving Medicaid expansion enough votes to pass the 150-member House, but conservatives acted quickly to present a bipartisan package of bills called Healthy Families, Healthy Texas. In June, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law this better, more targeted and market-friendly way to help Texans access the care they need.


The Healthy Families, Healthy Texas legislative package includes a law to expand access to telehealth services, on which regulations had been temporarily loosened during the pandemic. Telehealth especially benefits rural and medically underserved areas. The law also increases access to preventive and behavioral healthcare, reduces unnecessary emergency room use, and reduces “no-show” appointment rates.

A second new law makes it easier for doctors to work with patients across state lines and entered Texas into the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, streamlining the process for physicians to practice in multiple states. Physicians in other compact states can receive expedited licenses to practice in Texas. Increasing the supply of providers will help underserved areas.

A third law extends Medicaid coverage for pregnant women from 60 days after delivery to six months. A biennial state report indicated black women and Medicaid enrollees were more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications and that a majority of such deaths are preventable. A fourth law makes children continuously eligible for Medicaid by reducing the number of midyear reviews from four to one. Many eligible children have been losing coverage and access to primary care because of these reviews, leading to expensive—and preventable—emergency treatments.

A fifth law creates a prescription-drug program allowing a private pharmacy benefit manager to offer rebates to uninsured Texans. A sixth law builds on President Trump’s executive order requiring hospitals to provide price transparency. This is intended to encourage comparison shopping by patients and competition among providers.

A seventh law allows the Texas Mutual Insurance Co. to offer alternative healthcare-coverage products that are technically not insurance. The Texas Mutual was created by the Legislature in 1991 to provide affordable workmen’s compensation insurance, and the law will expand benefits to rural residents, small-business employees, and others. An eighth law allows the nonprofit Texas Farm Bureau, an advocacy group for the state’s agriculture interests, to offer health benefits to its members. Both the Texas Mutual and Farm Bureau plans would be exempt from many state insurance regulations. These plans won’t be the right choice for every Texan, but they will increase competition and offer lower cost options to many.


While liberals moaned about the “free” federal money Texas was missing out on, conservatives found ways to reduce the cost of prescription drugs and health plans, increase access to providers, and improve outcomes for women and children. These new laws may not all work as intended, and Democrats will keep pressing for Medicaid expansion, but the legislative fight in Texas shows Republicans can’t simply avoid the healthcare debate. They can win by offering their own ideas.

Mr. Jindal was governor of Louisiana, 2008-16, and a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.



ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
doctors as LEFTIST soldiers on climate change
« Reply #1812 on: October 11, 2021, 05:50:00 AM »
It is in American Journals too
my first thought was the same,
what does this have to do with health care
their are even lectures and classes on how doctors can be warriors for social change.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/10/11/delingpole-bmj-urges-doctors-to-cut-back-on-treatment-because-climate-change/




Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69127
    • View Profile
ET: Fed involvement drives treatment choices SERIOUS READ
« Reply #1816 on: December 21, 2021, 09:22:18 PM »
Federal Involvement in Health Care Drives Treatment Choices
'Doctors cannot question the federal government. That's how health care works in the United States right now.'

By Beth Brelje December 21, 2021 Updated: December 21, 2021 biggersmaller Print

Around the United States, in numerous cases, hospitalized COVID-19 patients have asked for Ivermectin but were denied the drug, and then sought a court order forcing the hospital to provide the requested medication. Ivermectin, which has been used safely in humans since 1985, has shown promise in treating the virus, especially when taken early. Although it is an off-label use and not guaranteed to work every time, it is legal for doctors to prescribe Ivermectin for COVID-19, and many patients, some desperate and dying, want to give it a try.

Why are so many hospitals opposed to trying safe, inexpensive Ivermectin? The answer is tied to the complicated financial house of cards covering the entire health care system.

This isn’t a story about Ivermectin; it’s about what COVID-19 exposed in America’s health care system. The federal government, pharmaceutical, and insurance companies hold the reins on what care hospital administrators can offer. They never looked at your chart, but have a say in your treatment, and doctors who stray from administrative protocol can kiss their careers goodbye.

Here is a look at the many forces driving health care decisions outside the doctor-patient relationship.

Sick People Are Profitable

Indiana-based Dr. Dan Stock is a family medicine physician connected to America’s Frontline Doctors, a medical freedom organization promoting treatments such as Ivermectin for COVID-19. He says finances guide much of today’s health care landscape.

“Almost no one pays for direct care anymore,” Stock told The Epoch Times. “You pay for your care as you give your money to the federal government through taxes, or to an insurance company through premiums.”

The insurance company or the government buys the service for you as a third party. That’s a problem, Stock says, because “The federal government never has paid its bills. Every doctor and every hospital lose money on every Medicare and Medicaid patient who comes in the door.” And to make up the loss, he says, the cost of health care is inflated for those with private insurance.

A 2017 fact sheet produced by the American Hospital Association said the annual shortfall borne by hospitals is $57.8 billion, and privately insured patients and others make up the difference.

Nonprofit hospitals are federally required to accept Medicare, Medicaid, retired military insurance, Indian Health Services, and all federal insurance programs.

This cost-shifting caused inflation of medical prices and that sparked increases in private health insurance premiums.

“Employers started screaming about it, people started dropping their private insurance because it just wasn’t worth the money anymore, so that’s why the Affordable Care Act got passed,” Stock said. “The idea was, look, market forces won’t make you join in and buy through the third-party payment scheme to keep Medicare and Medicaid afloat. Hospitals are screaming ‘we’re going to go bankrupt.’ So the Affordable Care Act comes out, which says that everybody in the country has to buy insurance, and if you’re an employer, you have to buy it for your employee. You’re not allowed to say no. If you do, we give you a great big tax.”

That kept Medicare and Medicaid funded, stock says.

“But there was a problem with the Affordable Care Act. They have this thing called Medical Loss Ratio,” Stock said. “Somebody talked to these idiots in our federal government into saying hey, if you’re a private insurance company, you have to spend 80-85 percent of the premiums you take in on medical supplies and services. Only 15-20 percent of it can be given to the stockholders or be used to pay administrative fees.”

With this rule, insurance companies are more profitable when patients stay sick.

For example, let’s say the insurance company plans to cover 100 patients with high blood pressure, and it plans to buy a certain blood pressure drug. It estimates the dose these patients will use and negotiates a price with the drug company.

“I’m not going to try and negotiate a low price. I want the price to be high because I’m going to get to keep 20 percent of whatever I buy for them,” Stock said. “The drug company is like, fine, I’ll sell you the high price. Now let’s say two of those 100 patients start eating better food and get rid of their high blood pressure. They don’t need the drug anymore.” The insurance company budgeted to earn based on everyone staying sick. With two people off the drug, the company loses 2 percent of its anticipated profit, in this example.

“The insurance company would have made more money if the population would have stayed sicker and bought more stuff. Let’s take the flip side,” Stock said. “Let’s say 100 percent of those patients see their blood pressure get worse. Now they need to take an additional medication. I’m going to lose money because let’s say 90 percent of the premium I’ve collected has to go buy drugs for high blood pressure patients. Now I’m not going to make as much profit. So, the insurance industry has become a pre-payment scheme for health care services and the way they maximize their income is, don’t buy at low prices, buy at high prices and then force everybody to stay on budget.”


Electronic records, developed around 20 years ago, helped doctors track patient data such as sodium level, blood sugar, and kidney function. About five years later the government realized hospitals and independent doctors were tracking that information but couldn’t share data with each other because of privacy rules associated with the HIPAA Law.

That is why, in 2012, Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) were formed. Doctors and hospitals that join an ACO are now working for one big employer.

Medicare and Medicaid said anybody who is not part of an ACO would have their reimbursement cut by 3 percent. It also offered a 2 percent increase to those who did join an ACO, Stock said.

“You’ve got to know that the margins in medicine are really narrow. Most hospitals have a one or two percent margin,” Stock said.

“The federal government then said, to get that 2 percent and to maintain your reimbursement, there are two other things you have to do,” Stock said.

First, ACOs became obligated to use an electronic medical record system and report data back to the feds and insurance companies.

The data doesn’t drill down to the level of “John Smith has asthma,” but it does tell what percentage of coronary artery disease patients are on a statin drug, or what percent of people with COVID-19 are being treated with respirators.

To enter the information into the computer system, doctors must link a treatment to a diagnosis. They must link a Current Procedural Terminology (CPT code) with an International Classification of Diseases (ICD diagnosis code).

“For instance,” Stock said. “I’m not allowed to just go write somebody a prescription for Losartan. I have to write a prescription for Losartan and link it to a diagnosis, in this case blood pressure, so they can tell what I did.”

If a doctor were to link a treatment like Ivermectin to an off-protocol diagnosis, such as COVID-19, the ACO will be financially punished and the doctor would face consequences, Stock said. To change the diagnosis code to a government acceptable code but use the medicine for something else would be fraud. The prescription must match the diagnosis in the protocol.

Here’s the second thing the government said you had to do to maintain your 2 percent reimbursement: the government and insurance companies came up with a Pay for Performance plan, also known as value-based programs.

“These programs reward health care providers with incentive payments for the quality of care they give to people with Medicare,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) website says. “Our value-based programs are important because they’re helping us move toward paying providers based on the quality, rather than the quantity of care they give patients.”

The CMS website lists “quality improvement organizations” that develop and implement these programs, including the National Quality Forum; the Joint Commission of the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations; the National Committee for Quality Assurance; the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality; the American Medical Association. Some of these groups are led by former insurance, pharmaceutical or CMS executives.

Now the government, advised by insurance and drug companies, defines what good medicine is, Stock says. Doctors must make a diagnosis and provide the protocol code of care.

CMS bases reimbursements on how well health care systems meet these guidelines.

Like a social credit score, individual health care providers are being scored by their performance.

“Every doctor, nurse practitioner, and physical therapist is a cost center for the hospital and the ACO knows exactly how many referrals and how many lab tests they contracted, and they know how much profit individuals are getting from the insurance company,” Stock said. “They’ll come and tell you verbally, they won’t put it down on paper, but administrators will show you exactly how much money the ACO is making on you, how much you’re doing, and if you’re not profitable they’ll get rid you.”

New doctors can come out of college with $350,000 in debt. Older doctors may have kids in college. They sign a contract with a restricted clause that says if the ACO fires them, they must move 10-15 miles away from their practice or from all properties in the ACO.

“You have to stay away for a year, sometimes two years, you’re not allowed to advertise within that exclusionary area, you’re not allowed to tell your patients where you’re going, you’re not allowed to take a copy of your charts with you. For every provider in medicine, our business is our patients’ faith in us and our advice, and now the ACO owns that, which means they own your business capital and they can bankrupt you,” Stock said. “And if they fire you because you’re not profitable, no other ACO wants you because they know you’re not profitable.”

Training the Next Generation

The federal government has a program for new doctors with college debt. Work 10 years at a non-profit ACO and your loans are forgiven. That means 10 years of following the protocols.

“If the doctors aren’t following it, the hospital and the ACO takes a financial hit. An ACO can bankrupt easily because the margins are small and so they control what the doctor can go study,” Stock said. “Now the doctor comes to work every day with a financial gun to his head. ‘If I don’t follow these protocols made by the federal government and the insurance companies, I may end up getting fired, then my family doesn’t make money. I’ve got to go study what the government and insurance company tells me to go study for continuing education. I don’t get to think on my own.’ They’re talking over the entire profession. They have been doing this for 15 years. These doctors are unable to think on their own. Doctors cannot question the federal government. That’s how health care works in the United States right now.”

Beth Brelje
Beth Brelje
REPORTER
Following
Beth Brelje is an investigative journalist covering Pennsylvania politics, courts, and the commonwealth’s most interesting and sometimes hidden news. Send her your story ideas: Beth.brelje@epochtimes.us

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
all unnecessary
« Reply #1817 on: December 24, 2021, 05:22:56 AM »
https://www.city-journal.org/mount-sinai-blueprint-for-woke-medicine

how about teaching treat all humans the same
plain and simple

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69127
    • View Profile
ET: Canada vs. US
« Reply #1818 on: January 07, 2022, 07:13:40 AM »
U.S. Is Open as Canada Shuts Down. The Difference? Their Health Care Systems
U.S. free-market system has more surge capacity than Canada’s
Omicron exposes a trade-off of government-run health care
Hospitals Jammed, But ICUs Less Crowded: Johns Hopkins
Unmute
Hospitals Jammed, But ICUs Less Crowded: Johns Hopkins
ByBrian Platt and Kevin Orland
January 6, 2022, 10:30 AM ESTUpdated onJanuary 6, 2022, 12:21 PM EST
Listen to this article
5:42
Share this article
@btaplatt
@kevinorland
+ Get alerts for Brian PlattKevin Orland
In this article
3840Z
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Private Company
1506Z
UNIVERSITY HEALTH NETWORK
Private Company
8114130Z
CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR HEALT
Private Company
2751172Z
QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY
Private Company
Open
As omicron sweeps through North America, the U.S. and Canadian responses couldn’t be more different. U.S. states are largely open for business, while Canada’s biggest provinces are shutting down.

The difference partly comes down to arithmetic: The U.S. health care system, which prioritizes free markets, provides more hospital beds per capita than the government-dominated Canadian system does.

“I’m not advocating for that American market-driven system,” said Bob Bell, a physician who ran Ontario’s health bureaucracy from 2014 to 2018 and oversaw Toronto’s University Health Network before that. “But I am saying that in Canada, we have restricted hospital capacity excessively.”

The consequences of that are being felt throughout the economy. In Ontario, restaurants, concert halls and gyms are closed while Quebec has a 10 p.m. curfew and banned in-person church services. British Columbia has suspended indoor weddings and funeral receptions.

The limits on hospital capacity include intensive care units. The U.S. has one staffed ICU bed per 4,100 people, based on data from thousands of hospitals reporting to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department. Ontario has one ICU bed for about every 6,000 residents, based on provincial government figures and the latest population estimates.

Covid Crunch
Ontario has the most residents per hospital bed of Canada's provinces


Sources: Canadian Institute for Health Information, Statistics Canada.

Of course, hospital capacity is only one way to measure the success of a health system. Overall, Canadians have better access to health care, live longer than Americans and rarely go bankrupt because of medical bills.

Canada’s mortality rate from Covid-19 is a third of the U.S. rate, a reflection of Canada’s more widespread use of health restrictions and its collectivist approach to health care.


Still, the pandemic has exposed one trade-off that Canada makes with its universal system: Its hospitals are less capable of handling a surge of patients.


By submitting my information, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service and to receive offers and promotions from Bloomberg.
The situation is especially stark in Ontario. Nationally, Canada has less hospital capacity than the U.S. has, as a proportion of the population. But even among Canadian provinces, Ontario fares the worst. It had one intensive-care or acute-care bed for every 800 residents as of April 2019, the latest period for which data is available, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. During the same period, the average ratio in the rest of Canada was about one bed for every 570 residents. (The state of New York has about one inpatient hospital bed per 420 residents.)

That leaves the province’s health care system in a precarious position whenever a new wave of Covid-19 arrives.

“The math isn’t on our side,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Monday as he announced new school and business closures this week to alleviate pressure on the province’s hospitals. The province has nearly 2,300 people hospitalized with Covid-19.

No Surge Capacity
On Wednesday, after Brampton Civic Hospital in the Toronto suburbs declared an emergency because of a shortage of beds and workers, Brampton’s mayor, Patrick Brown, tweeted: “We need a national conversation on inadequate health care capacity and staffing.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford Speaks At The Economic Club Of Canada
Ontario Premier Doug FordSource: Bloomberg
The biggest bottleneck in the system is the staffing required by acute care, particularly in the emergency departments and intensive care units, Bell said. The personnel crunch becomes extreme during Covid waves when large numbers of staff are forced to isolate at home because of infection or exposure.


More from
Bloomberg
Prognosis
Shenzhen Demands Test to Leave; Sydney Tightens Up: Virus Update
Worldwide Dementia Patients Set to Triple by 2050, Study Says
U.S. to Revise Singapore Travel Advisory After Covid Data Flap
Brazil’s Omicron Toll Begins to Show Even Amid Data Blackout
“We haven’t done an adequate job of developing capacity that will serve the needs of Ontarians,” Bell said. “There’s just no surge capacity available.”

Stephen Archer, head of the medicine department at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, about three hours east of Toronto, spent two decades working in hospitals in Minneapolis and Chicago. He said he believes strongly that the Canadian system is better and provides more equitable care.

Still, he called it “embarrassing” to see Toronto’s hospitals having to transfer virus patients to smaller hospitals around the province, as happened last year. The Kingston Health Sciences Center, where he works, took in more than 100 Covid patients from Toronto earlier in the pandemic, which was no surprise, Archer said, because Ontario’s hospitals get overwhelmed even by a busy flu season.

“I think a very fair criticism of the Canadian system and the Ontario system is we try to run our hospitals too close to capacity,” he said. “We couldn’t handle mild seasonal diseases like influenza, and therefore we were poorly positioned to handle Covid-19.”

Diverging Outcomes
The U.S. death rate from Covid-19 is three times Canada's


Source: Johns Hopkins University

Beyond hospital capacity, Archer and Bell cited other reasons for the disparity in the way that the U.S. and Canada respond to new outbreaks. Canadians put more trust in their government to act for the larger collective good, and they won’t tolerate the level of death and severe disease that America has endured from Covid, they said.


David Naylor, a physician and former University of Toronto president who led a federal review into Canada’s response to the 2003 SARS epidemic, said hospital capacity probably plays a bigger role in Canadian decision-making than in the U.S. because Canada’s universal system means “the welfare of the entire population is affected if health care capacity is destabilized.”

But he also argued that focusing only on hospital capacity could be misleading. “Both Canada and the U.S. have lower capacity than many European countries,” he wrote by email.

The major difference between the two countries’ responses to Covid outbreaks is cultural, Naylor argues. In Canada, more than the U.S., policy is guided by a “collectivist ethos” that tolerates prolonged shutdowns and other public health restrictions to keep hospitals from collapsing.

“America’s outcomes are almost inexplicable given the scientific and medical firepower of the USA,” Naylor said. “With regret, I’d have to say that America’s radical under-performance in protecting its citizens from viral disease and death is a symptom of a deeper-seated political malaise in their federation.”


ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
American Academy of Pediatrics has been conquered by LEFT
« Reply #1820 on: April 29, 2022, 07:49:28 AM »
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/04/28/american-academy-of-pediatrics-guide-teaches-kids-girl-erections/

this org used to be one of the few sane ones left...

I don't know how 7% of the population is able to FORCE their agenda on the rest of us

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18129
    • View Profile

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
Re: The Politics of Health Care
« Reply #1822 on: August 07, 2022, 06:52:39 AM »
near impossible to read a journal without there being something about racism or something woke

recent JAMA had Harvard lawyer authored article about the burden placed on doctors about the Roe/wade decision

as always IT IS NEVER ABOUT THE RIGHTS OF THE UNBORN.

if interested (I only glanced over it ):

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/03/politics/kansas-abortion-midterm-election-what-matters/index.html

Political Bottom line (in a round about way)

  Republicans bad
  Democrats good




DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18129
    • View Profile
Re: The Politics of Health Care
« Reply #1823 on: August 07, 2022, 08:26:44 AM »
And virtually nothing about making sick well, making successful remedies more available and affordable to more people, nothing about lowering the ratio of bureaucracy to care. But racial injustice, omg...

Time to break the AMA monopoly.

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
another taking point for the Dems
« Reply #1824 on: August 07, 2022, 04:57:34 PM »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69127
    • View Profile
WT: Inflation Reduction Act breaks prescription drug pipeline
« Reply #1825 on: August 16, 2022, 06:22:31 AM »
Inflation Reduction Act breaks prescription-drug pipeline

Price controls are a massive risk for little-to-no reward

By Dr. Tom Price

The pharmaceutical-innovation pipeline, which recently delivered the life-saving COVID-19 vaccines in record time, may be irrevocably broken.

The so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday, allows the government for the first time to enact price controls on some prescription drugs in Medicare. Artificially lowering prescription drug prices by government fiat will reduce the revenues needed to fund the next generation of cures.

The dynamic U.S. prescription drug industry has helped Americans live longer and healthier lives. New medications are responsible for around half the increase in U.S. life expectancy over the past 30 years.

The IRA’s price controls threaten this progress. They effectively transfer nearly $300 billion from the productive pharmaceutical industry to the unproductive green energy complex. This wealth transfer will meaningfully reduce the nearly $100 billion, or about 28% of revenues, drugmakers spend yearly on research and development.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Offi ce projects this bill will result in 15 fewer medications arriving on the market. But this is almost certainly an underestimate. “I would be shocked if the impact of this bill doesn’t result in 15 fewer medicines from Eli Lilly and Company alone,” said Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks. “Right now, 40% of our portfolio are small molecules. We’ll need to reevaluate every single one of those projects for viability.”

According to one consulting firm, the 12 drug companies responsible for the 20 medications likely to be subject to price controls will lose more than $80 billion of revenues as a result of this legislation.

Price controls, no matter the industry — from energy to real estate to prescription drugs, scare away needed investments and ultimately hurt consumers. Capital is flighty and demands a return on investment.

The kicker here is that price controls are a solution in search of a problem. For all the talk of “skyrocketing” drug prices, costs have actually fallen over the last few years when drug rebates and other concessions are considered. Yet patients often don’t see these price declines at the pharmacy counter because rebates are diverted by distortionary prescription drug middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers.

As I explained recently in The Wall Street Journal, one of the best indications of medication price deflation is the low costs at the new Cost Plus Drug Company, which obviates inflationary drug-supply-chain middlemen such as pharmacy-benefit managers.

A better way to make medications more affordable while protecting the innovation pipeline is by reforming this rebate system to direct rebate savings straight to patients. A Health and Human Services rule finalized in November of 2020 did exactly this. But in an added insult to patients, the IRA effectively scraps this rule so it can redirect the savings meant for patients to pay for climate activism. Finally, it’s not at all clear that price controls will save patients or the health care system money. To the extent medications keep patients out of expensive hospitals, they reduce rather than grow health expenditures. Medicines only account for 12% of U.S. health care spending, but they save the system far more in reduced hospitalizations.

Consider, for instance, how the recent hepatitis C cure has prevented thousands of enormously expensive liver transplants.

Or how COVID-19 vaccines prevented hundreds of thousands of extended hospitalizations. Fewer new medications, as projected by the CBO and numerous independent scholars, therefore likely mean higher costs over the long term. Drug companies will also try to recoup price controlinduced losses in Medicare by raising their prices in the commercial market. They will likely follow the same playbook as hospitals, which overcharge commercial patients to make up for artificially low Medicare prices.

Prescription drug price controls are a massive risk for little-to-no reward. They will result in fewer cures and treatments for rare diseases you’ve never heard of.

They will set back progress in the fight against Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and cancer. And they will slow vaccine development when the next pandemic comes.

Tom Price, a former secretary of Health and Human Services and a former member of Congress, is a senior health care policy fellow at the Job Creators Network

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
Re: The Politics of Health Care
« Reply #1826 on: August 16, 2022, 03:12:25 PM »
Dr Price

who was a failed HHS secretary
and did nothing to reverse Obamster care

I disagree
I do think Medicare should negotiate prices down

and I do think pharma takes advantage of prices


ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
2nd post Biden reverse Trump's making insulin cheaper
« Reply #1827 on: August 16, 2022, 03:35:20 PM »
Remember how Trump wanted to cap insulin prices which are totally outrageous

then Biden comes in day one or two and reverses :

https://www.policymed.com/2021/10/biden-administration-rescinds-trump-administration-insulin-pricing-rule.html

NO MEDIA mention how Biden took this away

NOW THE BULLSHIT ARTIST DEMS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES IN THE MEDIA
 
are tooting around they are EXPANDING HEALTH CARE BY REDUCING INSULIN PRICES

nothing political here
all the while pharm and WS backing of pharm is spreading their money around screaming how
these restrictions will restrict drug development and we will all die and NO innovation and the same bullshit every time this comes up.

« Last Edit: August 16, 2022, 03:38:20 PM by ccp »

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18129
    • View Profile
Re: The Politics of Health Care
« Reply #1829 on: August 22, 2022, 06:29:23 AM »
A young 30s man reported to us yesterday about his health checkup and minute with the doctor. Not much about health issues but definitely wanted to know his pronouns.

In a simpler world of old, a doc who has seen the patient's penis already knows (his) pronouns.

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
Re: The Politics of Health Care
« Reply #1830 on: August 22, 2022, 06:44:05 AM »
"A young 30s man reported to us yesterday about his health checkup and minute with the doctor. Not much about health issues but definitely wanted to know his pronouns."

I both laugh and cry at this.

I send people messages about their lab results
and I have always called them Mr. or Ms. (so I don't offend the women with Mrs. or Miss)

now when I do this I have to think twice and worry would Mr or Ms offend this person

totally annoying and just stupid nonsense

yet we have this construct on every chart
asking patient which pronoun do you want to be called

I am still waiting for building or ship or human being or cat etc.....



ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
HHS not doing their job in investigating hackers of med records
« Reply #1833 on: August 30, 2022, 05:52:44 AM »


ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
Dems delayed vaccine
« Reply #1835 on: September 13, 2022, 06:20:55 AM »
increased monitoring period from 42 to 60 days:

https://nypost.com/2022/09/12/it-seems-clear-dems-pressured-the-fda-to-delay-the-covid-vaccine-to-hurt-trump/

Same people who stated they would not take the vaccine before the election pushed it after the election .


G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Re: Dems delayed vaccine
« Reply #1836 on: September 13, 2022, 12:31:02 PM »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAjCeMuXR0

increased monitoring period from 42 to 60 days:

https://nypost.com/2022/09/12/it-seems-clear-dems-pressured-the-fda-to-delay-the-covid-vaccine-to-hurt-trump/

Same people who stated they would not take the vaccine before the election pushed it after the election .

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69127
    • View Profile
WSJ: Inflation Reduction Act will not reduce drug prices
« Reply #1837 on: September 15, 2022, 07:12:52 AM »
The Inflation Reduction Act has eight provisions intended to reduce future drug prices. Some observers were surely pleased that Congress gave the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services new powers to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies. They shouldn’t have been. The Inflation Reduction Act won’t noticeably reduce inflation and it will do little or nothing to lower the cost of healthcare. Forcing drug companies to charge lower prices will likely lead to fewer new drugs.

Virtually no products are more valuable than the modern medicines produced by the biopharmaceutical industry. They cure diseases and extend lives. We’ve all heard that Americans pay higher drug prices than people in other countries. That’s true, but only when comparing retail prices of brand-name drugs. Very few Americans pay retail prices; most pay a fraction—a copay dictated by their insurance plan. Most country-to-country comparisons also leave out generics. Nine of 10 prescriptions in the U.S. are filled with generic drugs priced lower than in most other countries.

In many countries, the government is the sole purchaser of pharmaceuticals. For a new drug to be used, the government must buy and distribute it. If the government declines, the drug won’t be available. These governments negotiate with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. Drug companies often take it, because once research and development costs are covered, some money is better than no money.

Except in rare cases, pharmaceutical companies develop drugs for the U.S. market. For drugs that make it in America, potential sales in Europe, Japan, Canada, China and elsewhere are gravy. Drugs that can’t make it in the U.S. are scuttled. Probable success in America is a necessary and sufficient condition for the development of new drugs. There are four main reasons for this:

First, the U.S. is a relatively large country. Second, the U.S. is a wealthy country; Americans are 46% richer than the British, 59% richer than the French, and 36% richer than the Germans as measured by per capita gross domestic product. Third, negotiating prices with government bureaucrats takes time, resulting in one to two years of lost sales. Fourth, prices in the U.S. are somewhat more influenced by market forces and, until the Inflation Reduction Act, weren’t determined by negotiations with the government.

Where CMS is concerned, “negotiations” is a “Godfather”-esque euphemism. If a drug company doesn’t accept the CMS price, it will be taxed up to 95% on its Medicare sales revenue for that drug. This penalty is so severe, Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks reports that his company treats the prospect of negotiations as a potential loss of patent protection for some products.


Drug research and development involves enormous fixed costs. As of 2013, the cost per new drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration was $2.9 billion. Historically, these fixed costs have doubled in real terms every nine years. So in 2022, the inflation-adjusted fixed cost per approved drug is close to $7 billion.

That huge cost must be spread out over a small fraction of the world’s population during a limited period of marketing exclusivity. Without wealthy American consumers and insurers who pay retail or close to it for brand-name drugs, some drugs won’t be developed at all. While it’s true that foreign governments mostly free-ride on the enormous investments in R&D made by the U.S., it’s also true that somebody has to pay. If nobody pays, many treatments that would improve and extend people’s lives won’t exist.

Research by Columbia University economist Frank Lichtenberg suggests that 73% of the increase in life expectancy that high-income countries experienced between 2006 and 2016 was due solely to the adoption of modern drugs. He also found that the pharmaceutical expenditure per life-year saved was $13,904 across 26 high-income countries and $35,817 in the U.S. Most Americans would pay $36,000 to live an extra year.

Even though the U.S. shoulders the lion’s share of global pharmaceutical R&D costs, Americans get a great deal. New drugs are a fantastic investment for humanity, and Americans benefit as much as everyone else. Whether to accept that deal and get a good outcome or reject the deal and get a worse outcome should be an easy decision. Before Congress attacks drug prices again, it should account for the tremendous value of the products that originate from this amazing yet maligned industry and consider the possibility that the U.S. will be shooting itself in the foot if it tries to imitate more-restrictive governments.

Mr. Hooper is president of Objective Insights, a life-science consultancy, and author of “Should the FDA Reject Itself?” Mr. Henderson is a research fellow with Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and was senior health economist with President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69127
    • View Profile
WSJ: Biden's Cancer Moonshot Contradiction
« Reply #1838 on: September 15, 2022, 07:14:57 AM »
second



Biden’s Cancer ‘Moonshot’ Contradiction
His new price controls might have killed Amgen’s breakthrough drug for lung cancer
By The Editorial Board
Sept. 14, 2022 6:33 pm ET


President Biden this week gave a speech promoting his Cancer Moonshot initiative and a new government health agency that he says will drive treatment breakthroughs. As usual, he gave no credit to drug makers that are producing game-changing treatments such as Amgen’s Lumakras for lung cancer.

Lung cancer kills more Americans than any other cancer. The five-year survival rate is a mere 18.6% and 5% for advanced forms. Treatments targeting particular protein or gene mutations have improved survival odds for breast, melanoma and some other cancers. But cancers driven by a mutation in the KRAS gene have eluded these breakthroughs, and lung cancer is one of them.

The KRAS gene regulates cell growth and division, and mutations are found in many tumors, including 32% of lung and 90% of pancreatic cancers. Yet the KRAS protein has long been considered “undruggable” because its small size and smooth surface are difficult for drug molecules to block. Amgen’s Lumakras pill proves it can be done.

The Food and Drug Administration last May approved Lumakras under its accelerated approval pathway for patients with advanced non-small lung cancer bearing a particular KRAS gene mutation. Results from early trials showed promise and this week were borne out by a late-stage trial that showed more than twice as many patients responded to the drug than they did to chemotherapy.

A quarter of patients receiving Lumakras lived at least a year without their cancer getting worse compared to 10% who received chemotherapy. Survival benefits were hard to assess since a third of the chemotherapy patients received Lumakras after their disease progressed. Amgen also announced results from a separate small trial this week showing Lumakras may help patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

The drug is by no means a cure, but progress occurs at the margin and some patients who had what amounted to a death sentence now have hope to live. Lumakras is also much less brutal than chemotherapy.

Yet the drug might not have been developed had the Medicare take-it-or-leave-it negotiations that Democrats recently enacted been in effect earlier. Their price controls will penalize in particular small-molecule drugs like Lumakras that have the potential to help large numbers of patients. Within six years, Lumakras could be targeted by bureaucrats for price controls and the payoff on Amgen’s investment could vanish.

Mr. Biden’s price-control policy contradicts his desire to promote faster cancer cures. The damage will come in slower therapies and patients who might have been saved


DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18129
    • View Profile
Re: was shocked by the last Journal of the American Medical Association cover
« Reply #1840 on: September 28, 2022, 06:25:49 AM »
Did they mention deaths from fentanyl coming across the open southern border up 70% * ?

*. 70% is the increase in Colorado in one year.  Here is a 40%increase in North Carolina:

https://www.ncdhhs.gov/news/press-releases/2022/03/21/north-carolina-reports-40-increase-overdose-deaths-2020-compared-2019-ncdhhs-continues-fight-against
-------
overdose deaths are seven times higher than they were in 1999.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/09/28/opioids__work_hidden_scourge_sapping_the_economy_855616.html
-------
More than 1o0,000 young Americans died from drug overdoses last year, more than have ever been killed by terrorists, with almost 70 percent of the American dead coming from fentanyl, that cheap, deadly synthetic opioid  shipped from smiling China, spruced up by the drug lords of Mexico, and delivered as poison across Biden’s wide-open border to kill American young people of all races and creeds, of all backgrounds.

Yet for the next several days, the nation’s eyes won’t be on the open air drug markets of San Francisco, the Southern border where the fentanyl and millions of illegal immigrants cross almost at will.

https://johnkassnews.com/political-lies-on-the-wide-open-southern-border-cant-cover-deadly-poisoning-of-americas-young/
« Last Edit: September 28, 2022, 06:54:09 AM by DougMacG »

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
Re: The Politics of Health Care
« Reply #1841 on: September 28, 2022, 07:11:59 AM »
".Did they mention deaths from fentanyl coming across the open southern border up 70% * ?"

excellent point!   

I have never seen the academics take a political side like they have been the past few yrs, but  when they do it is ALWAYS from the point of view of Democrats - always .

never pro life
always on side of rationing care
now all racial
wokism
and recently taking up anti sec amendment agenda

I am sick of it but this is academia today

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
Re: The Politics of Health Care
« Reply #1842 on: September 30, 2022, 03:54:22 PM »
I just tried to link to the link in my 9/28 post

and it was an image of the Journal of the American Medical Association

with an image of a 45 caliber handgun

It seems image no longer available on the Web
though I have the journal in my bathroom where I read them .

funny - did they flack back and take down the image ?

In any case 
check out the whole issue set up by the libs :

https://jamanetwork.com/collections/5650/firearms

5 in September 27,2022 and some previous ones just prior



ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
"Diversifying medical humanities: The case for Jay-Z"
« Reply #1843 on: October 03, 2022, 10:04:58 PM »
From last months Cleveland Clinic Journal:

https://www.ccjm.org/content/89/9/501

 Another journal I get for free

 :x

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Re: "Diversifying medical humanities: The case for Jay-Z"
« Reply #1844 on: October 03, 2022, 10:08:24 PM »
From last months Cleveland Clinic Journal:

https://www.ccjm.org/content/89/9/501

 Another journal I get for free

 :x

Know the difference between black drug dealers and white prison gang members in jails/prisons?

Most white prison gang members haven't killed a black person.

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
Re: The Politics of Health Care
« Reply #1845 on: October 03, 2022, 10:18:10 PM »
I cannot read that article without being totally insulted

why is it ok for Black people to insult me?

no I don't agree it was Reagan's fault blacks were killing each other with drugs in the 80s.

what bull

and to use Jay Z as some sort of example is a joke

the guy has more money than nearly everyone in the country
boy is this nation racist or what?



ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18353
    • View Profile
NJ DEms
« Reply #1848 on: October 21, 2022, 06:46:28 AM »
more training for doctors on opioid prescribing $
treatment

blah blah blah

endless going after doctors
spending more money

FOR GOD'S SAKES JUST CLOSE THE DARN BORDER
STOP THE CCP FROM SENDING AS FENTANYL
STOP THE MEXICAN CARTELS - DECLARE WAR ON THEM

WHAT THE HELL IS SO HARD ABOUT THIS

https://www.thecentersquare.com/new_jersey/new-jersey-lawmakers-opioid-bill-targets-education-training/article_572d89d0-489e-11ed-a9a1-03b69fa98cf7.html

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69127
    • View Profile
Re: The Politics of Health Care
« Reply #1849 on: October 21, 2022, 03:50:36 PM »
Amen!