Mother’s Milk California’s Big Daddy Jesse Unruh often intoned, “money is the mother’s milk of politics,” yet today we can say “money is the mother’s milk of medicine.” Any industry which takes up 17-18% of the economy leaves a lot of cash slashing around. And the latest entrant to the giant cash prize of $3.3 trillion a year […]
Survivor Bias and Health Care
Why should I pay for anyone else’s health care? is a sentiment frequently expressed. Congressmen like Mo Brooks point out that the “good, healthy” people should not be “subsidizing” the care of others. So how did we come to the point where leaders believe the risks of life, its uncertainty and luck, do not apply to […]
Dirty Secrets of American Health Care – Drug Pricing
If you need a drug to live, you will do what you need to get it. This “secret” has been exploited by drug companies for many years. Now this form of exploitation has turned particularly obscene. Hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli took over a small drug company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, because he sensed an “opportunity.” What was […]
The Medical Care Machine
Do you want to be a machine? What happens when your employer wants to treat you like one? What does this do to health care? The digital economy allows you to measure much. What gets measured gets managed. The ideas of “scientific management” achieved their first apotheosis over a century ago with Frederick Taylor. Henry Ford […]
Checklist Medicine Checks You Out
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 […]