We are beginning to see the end of the beginning in health news. People are starting to realize that the system is broken. But we are in the cusp period and the news reminds me of watching a tide change right as you go from the ebb to the flood. The following articles caught my eye in this regard.
Best new post I’ve seen this year is about how we can really lower costs.If you read nothing else, read this please.
In their tirades against Obama’s attempts to fix a tragically broken health care system, the Wall Street Journal has descended to the ludicrous. See their article on Big Pharma gets played. They are shocked, shocked that US citizens may actually have the legal right to pay less for drugs by buying them from Canada. The WSJ concludes by saying dramatically, that “the real victims of government health care will be American patients”. Because we pay less for drugs? When did the WSJ decide that price competition was bad for the consumer?
The WSJ editorials have consistantly ignored the elephant in the room, namely that US citizens are significantly sicker than most other civilized countries (we tend to rank between 25th and 37th) despite the US spending almost twice as much per capita asthose countries and that our costs of health care – $2.5 Trillion on track to reach $4 Trillion within a decade as the baby boomers age – are unsupportable anyway. Something has to change. Also, consider that as the babyboomers age, the health care costs will be mainly in Medicare.
Strange things happen in Texas. Imagine if your broker was mismanaging your money and people in the organization spoke up and warned the SEC that this was happening. You might not know because you’re no expert on investing. Heck you might like the broker. But the people in the organization would know. They are the experts. What should happen? You would hope that the broker would be disciplined. But in Texas, when it is the vastly more important area of your health without which no real happiness is possible, if people speak up, they are indicted and threatened with 10 years in jail. Here’s hoping that the health care providers in Texas speak up loudly against this abuse of power.
A lot of doctors express skepticism out there about online support for health on the part of the doctors. A common comment is that my patients are older and aren’t on the net or aren’t willing to use the net to manage their health. Doctors should learn from Kaiser who reports that 87% of their Medicare patients are happy users of Kaiser’s My Health Manager.
It is interesting to watch some health care providers start to scream as it dawns on them that the meaningful use bill might actually require them to have proof that they are improving their patients health in some basic measurable ways in two and a half years. Incredibly, they claim that that isn’t enough time. In the world of online computing it’s an eternity.
Adam Bosworth's Weblog 
What we have here is failure to communicate. Medicare Choice program in Arizona, an attempt to help seniors enroll. See link.