Must Read
Boston Scientific to lay off 1,200-plus
July 29, 2011, Boston Globe
By Robert Weisman
Boston Scientific Corp. said yesterday that it plans to eliminate 1,200 to 1,400 jobs worldwide during the next 2 ½ years to free money for new investments, the Natick medical device maker’s second major round of cuts since last year.
The company would not say how many jobs will be lost in Massachusetts, where fewer than 2,000 of its 25,000 employees are based. In February 2010, Boston Scientific said it would pare 1,300 jobs worldwide, but similarly did not say where.
Continue Reading Here
Who Will Come to Own the Independent Physician Advisory Board?
July 13, 2011, Dr. Wes Blog
By Dr. Westby G. Fisher
For the first time, we can finally put some potential names and backgrounds to individuals that might actually serve on the Independent Physician Advisory Board, according to those closest to the new Affordable Care Act.
As we can see, the individual names offered so far are people care removed from the front line of today's medical care and in many cases, are wed to the powerful interests that help control healthcare.
Continue Reading Here
Highmark's hospital acquisition a lose-lose for doctors and patients
June 29, 2011, medcitynews.com
By Dr. Westby G. Fisher
It started with the Stark Law that physicians couldn’t buy hospitals to block self-referral, but we have no problem with insurers owning hospitals.
Add to this that the Accountable Care Act and its Accountable Care Organization construct virtually requires all doctors to become employees of hospitals, we see there is little chance that independent private practices can survive much longer. So doctors lose more professional independence and autonomy and have even more chance that clinical decisions will be compromised by bureaucratic dictates. Yet ask patients who they want steering the boat when they get sick: their doctor.
Continue Reading Here
The Physician's Prescription for Health Care Reform
Published by Docs 4 Patient Care
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) neither protects patients, nor does it lead to affordable care. The two fundamental problems that drive up the cost of health care in the United States are the lack of true competition in the health insurance industry and the isolation of physicians and patients from the true costs of health care. Rather than addressing these problems, ObamaCare aggravates them by limiting choices of insurance, increasing regulation, and centralizing decision making. It is the wrong prescription for health care reform in America. A majority of Americans, particularly physicians, recognize this and thus oppose the new health care law and support its repeal.
Continue Reading Here
Obamacare Makes AMA Irrelevant to DRs
June 24, 2011, Townhall.com
By Dr. Mark Neerhof
As the American Medical Association is holding its annual meeting in Chicago this week, the AMA has disclosed that it lost 12,000 members last year, reportedly due, in large part, to opposition by their members to the new healthcare law.
The main focus of debate at the annual meeting is whether the AMA will withdraw its support for the individual mandate, a key component of the law. This debate on the individual mandate highlights how misguided and irrelevant the AMA has become.
Continue Reading Here
ObamaCare: 'A Health Care Reform For All'? June 4, 2011, American Thinker
By C. Steven Tucker
On December 14, 2010 HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and U.S Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. wrote an article published in the Washington Post entitled "A Health Reform For Everyone." In response, here are the facts behind this article. In a time when our nation is polarized over the issue of Health Care it is more important than ever to step back and consider the facts instead of operating on emotions.
Continue Reading Here
Who will be in charge of your health care? May 24, 2011, Washington Times
By Dr. Mark Neerhof
In a chapter titled “Who, Whom?” from his classic book “The Road to Serfdom,” F. A. Hayek warned of the universal problem of a socialist society: “Who plans whom, who directs and dominates whom, who assigns to other people their station in life, and who is to have his due allotted by others?”
The budget battle currently under way in Washington is about much more than money and debt. It is about who we are as a people and what we are to become. This struggle is epitomized in the discussion over Medicare.
Continue Reading Here
