The Best of Health Care Commentary

Some of the best articles I've read lately are here for you to follow. I've pulled key snippets and linked the entire article so that you can get the bigger picture if you have the desire.

Charles Krauthammer, who used to practice medicine, discusses legal handicaps:
When a neurosurgeon pays $200,000 a year for malpractice insurance before he even turns on the light in his office or hires his first nurse, who do you think pays? Patients, in higher doctor fees to cover the insurance.
And with jackpot justice that awards one claimant zillions while others get nothing -- and one-third of everything goes to the lawyers -- where do you think that money comes from? The insurance companies, who then pass it on to you in higher premiums.
But the greatest waste is the hidden cost of defensive medicine: tests and procedures that doctors order for no good reason other than to protect themselves from lawsuit. Every doctor knows, as I did when I practiced years ago, how much unnecessary medical cost is incurred with an eye not on medicine but on the law.

Bill Maher, asking a fundamental question, says:
Because medicine is now for-profit we have things like "recision," where insurance companies hire people to figure out ways to deny you coverage when you get sick, even though you've been paying into your plan for years.
When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism? Ask not what you could do for your country, ask what's in it for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

Brian Gould, MD, discusses why doctors aren't worried about reform:
There is little for a physician not to like about universal coverage and allowing insurance exchanges to offer a greater choice of carrier. Forty-four years of experience dealing with the Medicare program has taught them that over the long run it's a good deal to accept fee limits in exchange for broader coverage - particularly when the government does such a poor job of capping volume, maintaining treatment standards, or even policing outright fraud (estimated to be running $60 B a year in the current Medicare program). From the point of view of the practitioner in the trenches, Medicare-level fees are a grind, but never having to ask a patient if they are insured is a very good thing.
But wait you say, I thought ObamaCare was also promising to "attack excessive costs?" Isn't this where the rubber hits the road? Isn't a good part of "excessive health care costs" really doctor fees? Perhaps, but doctors never think that their fees are the ones being referred to as "excessive." Moreover, they calculate that reducing health care services to control costs will never be politically acceptable in the US. We may want the UK's per capita expenditure on health care, but we're not prepared to accept what the citizens of the UK do to achieve it. On this one, doctors may know their patients better than the politicians do.