Thanks to Mark Levin for his plain-language critique last week of the proposed CMS payment codes for (endless) end-of-life conversations. Levin speaks for many elderly, sick and vulnerable patients and their families who are being pressured into “letting go,” and this even without government-paid end-of-life talks.
Thanks, also, to Right Scoop for posting the audio, so that it gets the attention it deserves. Continue reading
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
Just a quick nota bene that the current edition of Generations — the journal for the American Society on Aging (ASA) — is posted on ASA’s blog courtesy of funding from Compassion & Choices (the present incarnation of the old Hemlock Society) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
One of the articles is by AARP veteran and Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC) co-founder Bill Novelli (“Advanced Illness Care: We Can Do Better“). Continue reading
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
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