Why I haven’t seen this video before, and why it has not gone viral, is beyond me. Listening to this speech, I feel as relieved as I did listening to Reagan in the late 1970s explaining calmly and clearly to the American people how we were being hoodwinked by Continue reading
Tag Archives: CMMI
Former White House health policy advisor: Get the public on board
In case you missed it, this was Chris Dawe last year, shortly after he left the Obama administration, and before he joined Evolent Health — a consulting company founded by the Advisory Board and the Univ. of Pittsburgh Health Plan “to help health systems move towards providing value-based care.” (Advisory Board, which consults for C-TAC, was founded by David Bradley, now Chairman of Atlantic Media.)
Here Dawe is addressing the Campaign to End Unwanted Medical Treatment (which is in fact a campaign to gin up the public to demand less life-saving treatment. Talk about perverse.) Continue reading
Scripting the Conversation, Part 2: The provider-patient dialogue
My last post — Scripting “the Conversation” — discussed scripted dialogue at the national level. It demonstrated how a few academics, so-called health policy experts, special interest groups, and foundations can stage a national dialogue — frame a conversation — with the help of their media allies.
The same group of academics and foundations have been at work on the micro level, generating scripts — literally word-for-word scripts — to be used by providers when they encounter difficult situations with patients and families, mostly in the context of patients and families who want life-sustaining treatment. Continue reading
Obama Administration Cuts Deal with Big Insurance (and others)
I smell quid pro quo.
Two events occurred on May 21.
The Los Angeles Times reported the fact that the Obama administration (aka, Big Government) has cut a deal with AHIP (Big Insurance). (hat tip Matt Drudge, who picked up the story.)
In exchange for holding down premium increases next year, the administration has promised the insurance industry a bailout worth billions of taxpayer dollars if the insurance companies lose money in the process. The bailout is hidden in regulations that were issued a little over a week ago. Continue reading
5 Things You Should Know About Palliative Care
On Saturday, May 17, 2014, I had the pleasure of speaking at a conference in Wooster, Ohio. The conference, titled “The Healthcare Trojan Horse,” was sponsored by the Pro-life Healthcare Alliance and Wayne/Homes Right to Life. Following is the presentation as it was written; the actual talk was abbreviated due to time constraints. —Ione Whitlock
The promise of hospice palliative care was that it would provide comfort to the dying, ease symptoms, and help grieving loved ones. Modern palliative care promises to be Continue reading