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Update: Mayo Clinic Reacts To House Health Care Bill
Filed Under: Politics
Update
Tonight during President Obama’s press conference the president fielded a question about the Mayo Clinic’s reaction to the House health care bill. Over the past two days Mayo Clinic has posted two updates to their previous statement regarding the house health care bill. It will be interesting to see how this story plays out over the next few days.
From Mayo Clinic’s Health Policy Blog, 7/21/09
Late yesterday, Mayo Clinic became aware of the concept of development of an Independent Medicare Advisory Council. We applaud the direction of this proposal. We view favorably the concept of an independent body that can move Medicare to a “value- based payment” model. An independent Medicare advisory commission focused on defining value, measuring it, and finding ways to pay for value could have significant, positive impact on health care for the long term. While we think the proposal’s timeline of 2014 is too long to wait to see value-based reforms, we look forward to working with the administration on refining and strengthening their new proposal. This, and other, bold concepts have the potential to “bend the cost curve” in U.S. health spending without compromising health.
Today on Health Policy Blog, 7/22/09
What is an Independent Medicare Advisory Council? The Office of Management and Budget blog at WhiteHouse.gov referenced the Council on 7/17/09:
July 22, 2009 Leave a comment
Mayo Clinic Reacts To House Health Care Bill
The Mayo Clinic, which has been cited and touted by President Obama as an authority as he has sought to gain credibility on the issue of health care, has put forth a policy statement regarding the current Health Care bill in congress:
Although there are some positive provisions in the current House Tri-Committee bill – including insurance for all and payment reform demonstration projects – the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher-quality, more affordable health care for patients. In fact, it will do the opposite.
In general, the proposals under discussion are not patient focused or results oriented. Lawmakers have failed to use a fundamental lever – a change in Medicare payment policy – to help drive necessary improvements in American health care. Unless legislators create payment systems that pay for good patient results at reasonable costs, the promise of transformation in American health care will wither. The real losers will be the citizens of the United States.
Recently, President Obama was interviewed by Diane Sawyer on ABC and had the following to say about the Mayo Clinic:
SAWYER: …patients. It is time for Americans to recognize they’re going to get fewer scans, fewer procedures, fewer tests, because the vicious cycle has to stop?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think what’s important is to say to the American People that you should get the best possible care to make you well. And that the measure of the quality of care is not quantity, but whether or not it is making you better. Now, what we’ve seen is that there’s some communities and some health systems that do this very well. Mayo Clinic, a classic example. In Rochester, Minnesota. People go there. They…spend about 20-30 percent less than some other parts of the country, and yet have better outcomes. And in other cases, you’ve got more spending, worse outcome. So, what we’ve said is let’s put out the research. Let’s study and figure out what works and what doesn’t. And let’s encourage doctors and patients to get what works. Let’s discourage what doesn’t. Let’s make sure that our payment incentives allow doctors to do the right thing. Because sometimes our payment incentives don’t allow them to do the right things. And if we do that, then I’m confident that we can drive down costs significantly.
July 20, 2009 1 Comment
Don’t Waste Your Reading
Filed Under: Other
I have been contemplating the idea of targeted reading over the last several years. With so many topics to read about and such little time to read where does one start? What strategy does one employ? How does one take hold of the DWYR philosophy (Don’t Waste Your Reading). I recently sat down and determined personal reading goals that are in accordance with my life vision and vocation and then I determined an action-plan of attack. After contemplating different approaches to learning, I have decided to employ the classical education model to help me organize and direct my efforts. I have determined four main categories to direct my efforts. The categories are:
- Humanities
- Communication
- Christian Thought & Worldview
- Bible Study & Discipleship of the Heart
Within each category I have determined subcategories, and these subcategories produce my reading lists. Read More
June 20, 2009 Leave a comment
Who Owns the US?
Filed Under: Other
Some interesting facts to drive home the point that our country is in serious financial trouble…
For FY 2008 the US balance sheet showed 1.974 Trillion in Assets. We also had 12.178 Trillion in Liabilities. This alone is frightening but lets focus a little more on what makes up the liabilities. $5.8 Trillion is really the part that matters because this is public debt. To put this one way for every 1 dollar of public debt we have a little over 30 cents of assets to cover it. Granted the US government can’t liquidate and sell off everything but the point is we have some issues. The State of Virginia has about $2 dollars of assets for every $1 in liabilities. Canada has $1.5 worth of assets for every $1 of liabilities. Those are just two examples to show how extreme the US currently is.
Now I understand that some might read this and say this isn’t the best measurement of the financial position of a country but it does give you a rough idea that something is not right and brings me to my main point.
China owns about $740 Billion of our debt or almost 40% of our total federal assets. Japan owns $635 billion of our debt or almost 35% of our total federal assets. China and Japan basically own our country without acting on it.
Hopefully people will read this and understand that we can’t live like this forever. The day will come when the bill comes due and if we don’t take action soon the current economy will seem like a boom time in comparison.
June 12, 2009 Leave a comment
How to Block Annoying Internet Ads
Filed Under: Other
I find most advertisements on the internet to be annoying. A few tactful advertisements here or there on a website would not bother me so much. However, many advertisements are not tactful, and many websites have too many ads. Can anything be done to reduce, or even eliminate, the number of advertisements one sees when browsing the web? Yes, there is, and in this article, we will show you how to do it.
The easiest way to enjoy a mostly ad-free web browsing experience is to use a web browser that can effectively eliminate advertisements. Web browsers are the programs that one uses to access the internet. Web browsers ship with most personal computers by default. For example, Windows users are likely familiar with Internet Explorer, the web browser that ships with the Windows operating system. Programs that come with your computer by default are not necessarily the best programs available, and such is the case with Internet Explorer. We at Matters of Truth use and recommend another web browser: Mozilla Firefox.
Firefox is a very popular and free open source web browser, and one of its many features allows users to add to its default functions by installing extensions or add-ons. Enough people appear to be fed up with the overabundance of annoying web advertising that someone created a Firefox extension that will block most advertisements. Below is a step-by-step tutorial that should get you on your way to an ad-free web browsing experience. Read More
June 10, 2009 1 Comment
The Government is Inefficient…Get Used to It!
Filed Under: Politics
So NOW you are upset with government spending!? Seems like only a few years ago when people could care less that the GAO was writing “… it seems clear that our nation is on an imprudent and unsustainable long-term fiscal path that is getting worse with the passage of time.”
Ok, so now that people are starting to get upset about government spending the inevitable conservation on government efficiency comes up. You hear arguments against pork spending, wasteful spending, and excessive spending for certain projects. Arguments will call for cutting programs, cutting taxes, or raising taxes in order to make the government more efficient. I must say, all of this misses the point. Government cannot EVER be efficient.
Awhile back I read an article on “The Myth of Efficient Government Service” by Murray N. Rothbard who is a somewhat well known economist and libertarian thinker. While I’m not a huge fan of all his work this article makes a number of great points. Murray argues that efficiency only comes from a scenario where you have a risk of losing something. In government, unlike the free-market, you have no risk and almost unlimited resources. The effect of this is that the government has no rational way of allocating resources and no measure of success or failure that would create efficiency of money.
One point the article does not cover well is the fact that government has no “at risk” investors. You could argue that anyone holding a t-bill is an investor but whether or not they get paid is not dependent on the profit of the USA for that year as the US is not going out of business (yet). So when you pay taxes you basically become a customer. As such you want the most for your money. Since our system permits unlimited borrowing you can always get more for your money which keeps you electing the people giving out the services. Thus we have an inherent incentive to not be efficient in terms of dollars but rather be efficient in giving citizens anything they want.
I could go on but I want to get to my final point. Government will always be inefficient because of its inherent nature. The only way to solve this is NOT to have less inefficiency or attempts at running government like a business but to have less government in general.
June 10, 2009 Leave a comment
Matters of Truth Site Design
Filed Under: Other
We have been working hard on a new site design. We are not professional web designers, nor do we have the money to hire professional web developers. Thus, there are sure to be some bugs. Probably many bugs. We will squash them when we find them, but we are not likely to find them on our own. If you come across a bug, please let us know by filling out our contact form. We would appreciate it greatly.
As time goes by, we will be adding to and tweaking our site. For now, we’ll jump into the blogoshpere and see what happens.
June 4, 2009 Leave a comment
Piper on Twitter
Filed Under: Other
John Piper addresses whether we should use twitter, and if so, how should we use it?
I find Twitter to be a kind of taunt: “Okay, truth-lover, see what you can do with 140 characters! You say your mission is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things! Well, this is one of those ‘all things.’ Can you magnify Christ with this thimble-full of letters?”
To which I respond:
The sovereign Lord of the earth and sky
Puts camels through a needle’s eye.
And if his wisdom see it mete,
He will put worlds inside a tweet.
Follow him over at johnpiper.
June 3, 2009 Leave a comment
A Matter of Originalism: Part 2
Last month, I pointed out an interesting aspect of Judge (and soon to be Justice) Sotomayor’s defense to her statement that she “would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” She defended this statement by insisting that her words should not be interpreted literally, but should instead be understood to communicate what she intended communicate (which, of course, is not what the words actually communicated). She said:
Judge Sotomayor offered this explanation with such regularity and apparent sincerity that one would actually be led to believe that words can only mean what their author intended them to mean. A novel concept, indeed!
It seems that Originalism has found a defense from another unlikely advocate: the Obama administration. Read More »