Empathy...get some

A former co-worker, let's call her Ellen, recently friended my wife on Facebook. My wife unfriended her after a few weeks. She turned out to be one of those people.

Ellen is on a crusade against Obamacare. She posted a link to The Heritage Foundation data on insurance costs under Obamacare. My wife replied that Heritage is not a source of reliable data, given that it's headed by Jim-we'll make ACA Obama's Waterloo-DeMint. Ellen responded that back in 2009, Obama said some stuff that wasn't true, "specifically about Obamacare". Of course, Ellen didn't specifically say what she was specifically talking about.

In the comments, Ellen continued to rant about all her friends who were going to end up paying more for their insurance. She didn't specifically say what her friends' income levels are, or whether they were paying more for better insurance. Also, no mention of how she could attribute the increase specifically to Obamacare. After all, insurance costs have been going up at an alarming rate every year for decades. That's sort of the whole fucking point of health care reform.

But this is what really pisses me off. Ellen has worked at the same giant corporation for  almost 20 years. She is surely making six figures. Ellen recently went through a two year battle with cancer. She is taking care of her mother who has Alzheimer's. Ellen is scheduled for oral surgery this week. All of this was disclosed on Facebook. Clearly, Ellen has lots of experience with the health care system. Ellen's employer-provided health care is subsidized by the government. Her mother's health care is likely provided entirely by the government in the form of Medicare or Medicaid.

I could be a dick and bitch and moan about that. You know what really drives up insurance costs? Sick people! People who get cancer and Alzheimer's and need oral surgery!

Instead, I have empathy. I'm glad that I don't have cancer. I'm glad that my mother doesn't have Alzheimer's. I'm glad that I don't need a root canal. I'm glad that Ellen and her mother are getting the care they need. However, I want the same for all people and their mothers, not just those that have the luxury of a well paid job with lavish government-subsidized employer-provided health insurance. If that means Ellen and her well-off friends pay a bit more, they should be thankful to be in such a fortunate position.

Bad Journalist Feels Sympathy for Bad Doctors

This CNN Money article about doctors going broke has been making the rounds online. Even from the little snippet on Facebook, the story seemed dubious. After reading the whole thing, I'm reassured that my bullshit detector is still well calibrated. I'm not sure which is more disturbing--the shoddy journalism or the shady doctors.

The article starts out with this:

Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke. This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists.

At this point, a competent journalist would include some sort of data to back up those rather extraordinary claims. A competent editor would demand such evidence before publishing the story. Exactly how many doctors are going broke? How are you measuring this nationwide spread? Unfortunately, Parija Kavilanz is not a competent journalist, and CNN Money is lacking competent editors, so I'll have to step in.

Based on the evidence presented, the number of doctors in America who are going broke is 3. The claim that this "quiet reality" is spreading nationwide is because those 3 are comprised of 1 doctor in Pennsylvania + 1 doctor in Minnesota + 1 doctor in Nevada. The claim that this quiet reality "is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists" is because those 3 are comprised of 1 family physician + 1 cardiologist + 1 oncologist. No wonder their reality is so quiet.

The article is clearly aimed at generating sympathy for doctors whose Medicare reimbursement rates have fallen, yet CNN Money does a piss-poor job of this by their selection of doctors. Far from making me sympathetic, the thought of these so-called professionals going broke makes me rejoice.

One of the three doctors is an oncologist. His problem:

He owes drug companies $1.6 million, which he wasn't reimbursed for.

What? That seems strange. Why would the oncologist owe money to the drug companies?

Until the mid-2000's, drugs sales were big profit generators for oncologists. In oncology, doctors were allowed to profit from drug sales. So doctors would buy expensive cancer drugs at bulk prices from drugmakers and then sell them at much higher prices to their patients. In 2005, Medicare revised the reimbursement guidelines for cancer drugs, which effectively made reimbursements for many expensive cancer drugs fall to less than the actual cost of the drugs.

Oh. Who knew that oncologists were allowed to profit from the drugs they prescribed to cancer patients? No conflict of interest there. For example, surely a doctor wouldn't prescribe a Pfizer drug over a Merck drug just because he had a warehouse full of bulk-rate Pfizer drugs. After all, medicine is a noble and honorable profession.

Now, after years of gouging his cancer patients...his CANCER patients!...he's complaining because he got stuck with a warehouse full of drugs whose street value dropped.

"I grew up in that system. I was spending $1.5 million a month on buying treatment drugs."

Notice the sense of entitlement. He grew up in a corrupt system, so it's just unfair to change it now -- as if the unethical conflict of interest was forced upon him, rather than greedily embraced.

The family practice doctor from rural Nevada is nearly as bad. His solution to his financial problem, in his own words, is to intentionally compromise the level of service provided to his patients.

"I will see more patients, but I won't check all of their complaints at one time," he explained. "If I do, insurance will bundle my reimbursement into one payment." Patients will have to make repeat visits -- an arrangement that he acknowledges is "inconvenient." "This system pits doctor against patient," he said. "But it's the only way to beat the system and get paid."

He admits it's "inconvenient" for the patient, but beating the system and getting paid--that's what it's about.

These two are perfect examples of why our health care system needs massive reform. If doctors like these are going bankrupt, we just might be making progress. If we ever see drug company profits merely approaching single digits, we'll really be getting somewhere.

Analogy du Jour: The government takeover of supermarkets and restaurants

Wait until the Tea Partiers find out about this. It turns out that our government not only regulates the quality of food available in the USA through the heavy handed tactics of the FDA and USDA, but they even offer subsidies to poor people to help them buy food using something commonly referred to as "food stamps"! The sneaky bastards haven't bothered to pass a mandate requiring us to buy food because they know that we will die if we don't eat. Don't be fooled. This is a de facto mandate! The food and beverage industry, including restaurants, is nearly 10% of our GDP and it has been taken fully taken over by our socialist government (circa 1962). No word on whether Republicans will support a repeal.