Bargain Basement Medicine in Massachusetts

Bargain Basement Medicine in Massachusetts

Patient: ”Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” Doctor: ”Well, don’t do that!” (old medicine, simplified)

Patient: “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” Doctor: “Well, if you do that, I can’t do much for you since you’ve already cost too much this month. Maybe come back next month and I’ll see what I can do. And, if you must be hospitalized, I know this nice, cheap hospital I can send you to.” (new Massachusetts medicine, simplified)

Fear not, though, it’s all good in the Bay State: “Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts says its new system of paying doctors a fixed amount per patient improved care during the first year, contrary to critics’ fears that patients would be harmed.”

Its “new system” is saving BC/BS of MA a ton of money but that fact has absolutely no bearing on the results of its 2009 new system evaluation. The aim of the pilot program was to cut the annual rate of medical cost increases from 10-12% to 5-6% and, Eureka, it’s working!

The proof is in the paying: “Doctors at Signature Healthcare in Brockton reduced avoidable emergency room visits 25 percent, from 2,249 in 2008 to 1,685 in 2009, saving $300,000 in payments to hospitals. . . Doctors in the alternative contract also reduced hospital readmissions, saving $1.8 million, while readmissions among patients of other doctors grew,” according to Blue Cross calculations.

That’s the good news, good news for BC/BS of MA. The bad news is reserved for doctors and patients: “Doctors who have agreed to the ‘alternative quality contract’ are paid a set monthly fee per patient, adjusted for how healthy the patient is, regardless of how many tests, appointments, and procedures the patient gets.” In other words, physicians are compensated with that set fee for the care they render no matter how much care is necessary or rendered. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3480)

A Mishmash of Quotable Quickies

A Mishmash of Quotable Quickies

Eight Stories to Mull Over on a Dreary Day:

Innercity School Sends 100% of Its Graduates on to College. Chicago’s Urban Prep Academy for Young Men not only graduated every young man in their school but every one of them is going to college next semester. All 107 seniors in Urban Prep will be attending one of 72 American colleges. Kudos to the grads and to their excellent school! (http://bit.ly/bJrKDO)

People Who Tempt Mother Nature Should Pay the Piper: Hamptonites who built homes on the Atlantic are all in a tizzy after being flooded out by last weekend’s nor’easter which brought 17 foot waves and 70 mph winds to their front doors: http://bit.ly/d3VOhr. Taxpayer-subsidized flood insurance will help them rebuild but won’t do much for their eroded private beaches.

A Kiss Is But a Kiss, Except in Dubai: An amorous British couple in Dubai faces a month in jail . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1566)

President Obamabortion

President Obamabortion: Turn in Your Consciences!

America’s president breaks new ground virtually every day. Now, his shovel is digging away, chipping away in the ground of that quality which distinguishes people from all other species on the planet, humankind’s sense of conscience.

Many beasts of the Earth are more powerful than humans, many are faster, more ravenous. To PETA people, denizens of the animal world are better than we and maybe more attractive and intelligent than we are. However, as far as I know, even PETA does not attribute to animals the element of conscience.

Merriam-Webster defines the word as “the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one’s own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good.”

In his effort to abort as many pre-born babies as possible, the most avidly pro-abortion president in America’s history is in process of amending that definition. In effect, he is adding to that sense of “moral goodness” and “obligation to do right or be good” the limitation, “except when Mr. Obamabortion dictates otherwise.

Personally, I don’t like “holier than thou” types, professional do-gooders who seek self-agrandizement more than true goodness and I certainly don’t hold myself out as an exemplar of a perfect morality. However, what I truly detest is anyone who seeks to impose no options but evil options on decent people.

Such is the aim of the abortion lobby, Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, and President Obamabortion.

As with most political activists and politicians, they try to cloak their actual intent with ambiguity and obfuscate that intent with misleading rhetoric and false promises.

Thus, when Sec. Sebelius says that the president “supports existing federal laws that prevent federally funded health care providers from forcing doctors and pharmacists who morally oppose abortion from either performing the procedure or providing abortion-inducing medication,” she is out and out lying. . . .

(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com)