Volume 75, no. 5 May 2019 How many times have you heard, from organized medicine, that the “train has left the station,” and you need to be on board, or that the train of socialized medicine is unstoppable? Fans of old Western movies know that trains were stopped in many ways. Recently, the 2010 action/thriller […]
Volume 75, no. 4 At first, the great transition looked academic and boring. In the late 1970s, protocols for the evaluation and management of the most common presenting complaints at the Tucson Veterans Administration Medical Center’s walk-in clinic were branched-chain algorithms in little spiral-bound books, meant for nurse practitioners. Each of the 12 had its […]
Volume 75, no. 3 March 2019 Our Founders put the First Amendment first because without free speech there is no liberty. Without apparently unanimous support, tyranny is threatened. Dissent must be silenced. In medicine, informed consent is a bedrock ethical principle, reinforced by the Nuremberg Code (AAPS News, November 2012). But how can there be […]
The managed-care method for controlling the use of expensive pharmaceuticals is to insist that the patient use the formulary drug first, then ask for authorization for a different one if the first (or second or third) drug fails. Failure may involve having a seizure or asthma attack. Wisconsin is proposing standards for requiring such “step […]
Volume 75, no. 1 January 2019 That the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional is simply a fact, as AAPS argued in the lawsuit it filed days after ACA was enacted in 2010 (AAPS v. Sebelius) and in numerous amicus briefs (see archives at aapsonline.org/category/obamacare/). The newsworthy development is the decision by Judge Reed O’Connor […]
The clearest winner in the 2018 midterms was Medicaid. Voters in Idaho, Utah, and Nebraska approved ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid, making 363,000 more people eligible for the program next year. With Democrats winning the governorship in Wisconsin and Kansas, these two states, which have resisted the expansion, may become more open to it. In […]
Volume 74, no. 11 November 2018 There is no secret conspiracy to bring about a socialist revolution in the U.S. Barack Obama announced openly that we were going to see a “fundamental transformation” starting the day of his inauguration. (Arguably, it had started decades earlier.) He told small business owners that “You didn’t build that.” […]
Volume 74, no. 10 On the eve of midterm elections, America is violently divided. There are “deplorables” (Hillary Clinton’s term) or “dregs” (Joe Biden’s term), who are supposedly the enemies and “haters” of an amalgamation of “oppressed” minorities. The supposed champions of the latter are the ones wearing masks, shouting slogans and obscenities, throwing rocks, […]
Volume 74, no. 9 September 2018 A photograph of carriers of professionally made “I Am a Health Care Voter” signs heads a Forbes article about the most important mid-term elections “in our lifetime” or even “our country’s history” (https://tinyurl.com/y8xl6s75). There are also T-shirts and a Twitter hashtag. The HCVs appear to be mostly young, aggrieved, […]
LBJ and Nixon brought us the insatiable Medicare/Medicaid entitlement and the predatory managed-care monster that feeds off these cash cows (AAPS News, July 2018). They and their successor also set us up for the impending Baby Boom/Welfare State fiscal tsunami, as David Stockman describes it (tinyurl.com/yab4vh4u). Nixon’s 1972 Social Security amendments indexed earnings for wage […]