Category Archives: Health Care

Health Care

A Three Digit Midget

When I was in the army many of my fellow enlisted men kept “short-timer calendars.”  When you went under 100 days until you got out of the army (or Vietnam) you could call yourself a “two digit midget.”  Well time have changed and the much anticipated event now is getting to the Medicare Buffet.  Today I broke the thousand day barrier.  In 999 days I will be eligible for the National Health plan.  I am a “three digit midget.”

On the day my friend Peter turned 65 he had knee replacement surgery.  I’m already starting a list of my own.  In 1993 P. J. O’Rourke said “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.” He was right.

The countdown timer on the upper right of my blog should be a warning to all of the people who are trying to finance more free health-care.  We can’t afford free.  Peter’s knee and my allergies and 30 million more maladies are coming at you.

Health Care, Politics

Health Rationing

One of the arguments about health care reform is that if the government pays they will ration what is available.  This is certainly the case in the UK as this story in the October 8th Daily Mail shows:

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The NHS is the UK’s National Health Service and they are not going to allow doctors to prescribe a new drug for Rheumatoid Arthritis because it is to expensive.  Will that happen here?  It already does to some extent.  But the bigger problem is that if drug developers can’t make money investment will dry up and development will stop.  On the other hand if we don’t change the way we are paying for health care now we will go bankrupt.  My post about Medicare finances.

Health Care, Ideas

MyDoctorIsInIndia.com

7 Comments

These days we are all worrying about the skyrocketing cost of healthcare.  I had this idea while I was thinking about the cost in our current system of having the doctor inserted in the process for a personal connection with the patient at the beginning and the end.   We have built into the system and the payment structure an almost mystical reliance on the doctor seeing and touching the patient.  It used to make sense.  Before there were reliable diagnostic tests an experienced expert was the only reliable way to diagnose problems.  Now that is no longer the case but the system has not changed.  So to try it a new way I have invented:

MyDoctorIsInIndia.com

The Snail Medicine System:

If you get sick in the USA and you don’t have insurance.  The process goes like this:

Call Doctors office for an appointment

Doctor visit for an examination

Order tests

Revisit Doctor for test results, diagnosis and treatment recommendations

Get prescriptions

Total elapsed time two to five days depending on urgency

Total cost without the prescriptions in the range of $250.00

The I-Medicine System

If you get sick in America and you go to MyDoctorIsInIndia.com the process will go like this:
Mail in test kit

Get email from your doctor in India for consultation

Answer email inquiries and receive diagnosis and treatment recommendation

Get prescriptions filled and mailed to you by a pharmacy in Canada.

Total elapsed time two to five days

Total cost without the prescriptions in the range of $75.00

Continue reading MyDoctorIsInIndia.com →

DECLINE, Health Care, Politics

The Medicare Buffet

4 Comments

Matt G my brilliant blog dude has added a counter to this blog that reminds me, and you, how many days it is until I’m eligible for the Medicare Buffet.   I’m already putting off some medical treatment.  I have written before about the unsustainable cost of the baby-boomers on the Medicare system.  To continue the buffet metaphor; fortunately for me I’m at the front of the line and so I’ll be able to get a full plate.  For those arriving a decade or so down the line the pickings might be pretty slim.

President Obama, to his credit, is trying to do something about Medicare costs.  His plan is a combination of new health benefits to younger, healthier and poorer people as a way to placate the left while cutting benefits or at least the cost of benefits to medicare recipients.  It may or may not work because old people pay attention and vote.  In my opinion Medicare like prescription drug benefits needs to be means tested and the co-pays need to be high enough to effect behavior.

In 1993 P. J. O’Rourke said “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”  He was right.   For old people Medicare makes health care free and now we know that the cost will bankrupt the country.

Health Care

Scary Medicare Math

4 Comments

It is costing the Medicare system about $500,000 to take care of my Father-in-Laws heart-hip-infection problems and they aren’t finished yet.
My friend Wally and I took that number as a starting point and did some extrapolative math.  Which is at best scary.  The executive summary is that every working person in America will have to pay $5000 per year for 20 years for the baby boomers end of life experience.  Read the details here.
And then please tell me why I’m wrong. Continue reading Scary Medicare Math →