Health Wonk Review Is Up

You’ll find Health Wonk Review, a compendium of some of the best healthcare posts of the past two weeks here.

Not surprisingly, some bloggers have taken on John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, for suggesting that the Census Bureau’s report on the number of uninsured this country is wrong. Goodman claims that anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort.(Note: the National Center of Policy Analysis is a right-leaning think tank and Goodman helped craft Senator McCain’s health care policy.)

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman added: "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured.

The Health Care Blog's Matthew Holt suggests that Goodman must be joking. “Or,”Holt asks, “is he just mean?”

Over at Health Access, blogger Anthony Wright sets Goodman straight, explaining that “the law only requires emergency rooms to stabilize patients, not treat them. If you just had a car crash or heart attack, they will treat you, but if have cancer, asthma, diabetes, or any other long-term illness, there's no obligation by the hospital.c

“Even in an emergency situation, there's no prohibition on what the hospital can charge. And in fact, the uninsured is often charged 2-4 times what insurance companies and public programs pay for the exact same service.”

(If Goodman wants to know more about “Access to care” and emergency rooms, we suggest he reads Niko’s post below.)

At HealthCare Economist Jason Shafrin, reports on recent deaths at a California hospital. He wonders, based on the experience, what should be done with under-performing hospitals.

Dr. Roy Poses, the author of Health Care Renewal, calls attention to the latest health care merger to hit the news: Wolters Kluwer (a leading multi-domestic multimedia company with corporate office in Amsterdam) plans to buy electronic medical platform Up-To-Date?

Poses asks: “What will this mean for the relationship between doctors and patients?”

Meanwhile, HealthBlawg’s David Harlow  posts on how the Office of the Inspector General is dealing with a growing problem: doctors who refer patients to other doctors via a mutually profitable joint venture.

And finally, Joe Paduda takes a look at John McCain’s running mate. He's unimpressed with her take on, among other things, Certificates of Need and competition in health care.

And these are just a few highlights from this week’s review.

Comments

[runrun ukiuki]

Nice site!
Myself, I, more and more sympathetic to the people want to
go and take them to Please, please link

http://beautiful70.blogspot.com/

[Alec Drozdowski]

http://www.ourbodiesourblog.org/blog/2008/09/new-study-examines-womens-ability-to-self-screen-for-birth-control-safety#comment-652

[Alec Drozdowski]

http://www.ourbodiesourblog.org/blog/2008/09/new-study-examines-womens-ability-to-self-screen-for-birth-control-safety#comment-652

[MedInformaticsMD]

I am a writer on Medical Informatics at Healthcare Renewal, although I post on other topics as well.

[Roy M. Poses MD]

Actually, the post on Health Care Renewal you mention above, about the purchase of Up-to-Date by Wolters Kluwer:
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2008/09/he-who-controls-data-controls-playing.html

was by MedInformaticsMD, not by me, and was not the post mentioned in the Health Wonk Review.

The post mentioned in HWR was about how the vertically integrated Carilion Health System seems to have provided more benefits to its leaders than to local health care:

http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2008/08/merger-mania-redux-case-of-carilion.html