Why Your Doctor Doesn’t Look at You Anymore Should you treat the chart, or the patient? Increasingly over the past decades healthworkers of all stripes – doctors and nurses, therapists and technicians – buff the chart first. Legal, insurance and regulatory requirements have burgeoned to overcome the concerns of health. Checklists work very well in military and […]
Civilizational Obesity (1/20/14)
The Weight of Progress Life has improved for lots of people. Economic development and globalization has brought many out of poverty. Kenyan farmers shop and bank with their cell phones. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have moved from the impoverishment of the Cultural Revolution to high levels of education and ambitious middle class lives. As […]
Smoking Is My Retirement Plan (8/8/12)
Better Living Through Denial? Smokers, one fifth of American adults, often tell me they’re not worried about the future. Why? Because, as my webmaster and other smokers tell me, they don’t foresee a long term future. Retirement? Long term care insurance? Pointless. As many explain, “Smoking is my retirement plan.” Sorry, guys. It doesn’t work […]
“This is ridiculous” – hospital costs and you (4/30/12)
The Surreal Becomes Real When it comes to American health care, the impossible often transforms into the routine. Add another feature to the list —hospital costs.As I write in my new book “Healthy Without Health Insurance,” people look at their medical/hospital bills and notice “an extra zero. Make that two zeroes.”Consider appendectomies. As reported by […]
You think you’re covered? The health insurance pre-authorization con (12/21/10)
Pre-Authorize Your Life Over many years the health insurance industry has labored to perfect methods that obstruct sensible use of medical services. As their abilities improve we should expect worsening care, higher prices, and a poorly served, frustrated population – including you. Here’s just one very small but instructive example of how insurance obstruction works […]