I’ve heard people criticize doctors for not counseling their patients more about the benefits of diet and exercise. Yet, I’m not convinced most patients don’t already know they’re out of shape. After all, the patients in question are the ones who buy their clothing and perhaps comprehend their clothing sizes are double-digit numbers. I’ve asked a doctor I know if he ever has to just be blunt with a patient. He said yes, belatedly telling one patient, “you didn’t get this way overnight.”
Category: Public Insurance
Medical Care Credit Cards Benefit Patients and Providers
My wife’s former hair stylist was an immigrant struggling with the loss of income after the Covid lockdown. One day the stylist explained she needed eye surgery she could not afford. My wife told her about CareCredit, a company that provides consumer credit for medical care and veterinary care. The next time they met the stylist thanked her. She had scheduled her eye surgery after getting approved by CareCredit. The stylist said she would have up to a year to pay off her surgery interest free.
The anecdote may sound like a story with a happy ending but not according to Senator Elizabeth Warren and some of her Democratic colleagues.
Tuesday Links
- Gorman and Goodman: Texas was right not to expand Medicaid.
- Schaeffer Center: Medicare Advantage enrolls lower-spending people, leading to large overpayments.
- Why DC is so dangerous: “the overwhelming preponderance of lethal violence is carried out with illegal weapons” and “most gun arrests don’t lead to charges.”
- Prenatal tests: Very accurate for common genetic disorders like Down syndrome. But for rare diseases, the positive results were wrong 80 percent to 93 percent of the time
- Janitor cut the power to a lab freezer, destroying decades’ worth of research materials valued at nearly $1 million.
Wednesday Links
- Aaron Carroll: there is no scientific reason to avoid artificial sweeteners. But there are good reasons for many people to reduce your intake of sugar.
- House votes today on personal and portable health insurance (funded by an employer) – essentially codifying a Trump executive order.
- The House also will vote to codify a Trump executive order on Association Health Plans that has been stymied by the courts.
- Incentives matter: Lionel Messi could play soccer anywhere, but the lack of a state income tax helped draw him to Florida.
- Why veterans need private doctor alternatives to the VA.