By Jane M. Orient, M.D. Bernie Sanders is strongly promoting “Medicare for All,” and claims to be its father (“I wrote the damn bill,” he proclaimed to the nation during the second round of Democratic Presidential debates). His plan does not look like Medicare at all. It appears that he hardly knows anything about Medicare. […]
August 21, 2019 The Honorable Nancy VanderMeerWisconsin State AssemblyPO Box 8953Madison, WI 53708-8952 Dear Representative VanderMeer, Thank you for your service to the citizens of District 70 and the State of Wisconsin. We are writing today to suggest an amendment to your bill (AB 70) seeking to extend Wisconsin’s participation in the Interstate Medical Licensure […]
Generic medications are supposed to save money. And drug plans offered to Medicare patients are also supposed to help seniors afford their medications. But the secret that the insurance industry doesn’t want seniors to know is that Medicare patients and taxpayers are leaving $19 billion dollars, or more, on the table by trusting insurance and […]
After Blue Cross of California indicated that it would cover needed care for a patient enrolled in a plan it administered, the insurer refused to pay the patient’s neurosurgeon. This case is now on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and on August 18, 2019, AAPS submitted an amicus brief […]
By Marilyn M. Singleton, M.D., J.D. In an effort to cut carbon emissions from burials and cremations, the state of Washington, led by staunch environmentalist Governor Jay Inslee, became the first U.S. state to legalize human composting. To think, people can be criminally prosecuted for disrespecting a human corpse, a symbol of a once-living person. […]
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is asking for feedbackon solutions for “Reducing Administrative Burden to Put Patients Over Paperwork.” AAPS will be submitting ideas to CMS, but your help is needed to help make the most of this opportunity. Here’s how you can help: 1) Copy the below template comments. Secretary Azar and […]
Politicians who are reluctant to immediately go all the way to a complete government takeover of medicine propose the incremental strategy of a “buy-in” to a “public option.” Public programs predictably crowd out private ones. It is easy for government to drive out competition by imposing a regulatory load too costly for would-be market participants […]
By Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD For the next one and a half years we will have to endure the hyperbole, apocalyptic predictions, fake outrage, half-truths, and frank lies of politicians. Some kind soul should take pity on us and pass out beans to put in our ears. Of course, we should expose ourselves to […]
By Jane M. Orient, M.D. The truth has been acknowledged by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s own chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti: The Green New Deal is not primarily about greening the planet or controlling the climate. It’s about socialism, as the people from whom she plagiarized it have said all along. It’s a fundamental transformation of […]
Congress is back from its Independence Day recess for a few weeks before it goes on an extended break for much of August. Marilyn Singleton, MD, JD takes a look at the health policy debates heating up on Capitol hill during the brief Summer session: Big Negatives in the Lowering Health Care Costs Act of […]