The brutal data slip in and out of the headlines. But the terrible toll of the coronavirus on the aged, injured, and sick in institutions is increasing in unceasing and unacceptable fashion. Not long ago, HIV-AIDS activists crusaded against the public’s ignoring a lethal infection with the stark saying: Silence=Death. Is it becoming necessary to….
Continue ReadingArchives for January 2021
Rich investors buy up MD practices and seek to strip patient safeguards
Wealthy investors want to enrich themselves yet more, partly by pushing doctors to oust patients from their practices unless they sign away invaluable constitutional rights. These rights can protect them if they are harmed while receiving medical services. Patients’ safeguards, however, too often vanish when businesses compel customers to sign on to “forced arbitration,” Bloomberg….
Continue ReadingU.S. must take more honest shot at battling this pandemic
As the nation recoils from the deadly insurrectionist attack on Congress and the United States Capitol, a direct line also must be drawn to the huge health harms that President Trump and his administration incited with a flood of falsehoods, relentless attacks on science and expertise, and the reckless politicization of public health. This administration….
Continue ReadingWith driving and wrecks still virus limited, do insurers owe customers more?
Auto insurance companies and agents may have sent customers cards, fridge magnets, or calendars as part of their holiday cheer. But tens of millions of motorists may wish to demand more — both much more, and less. Consumer advocates say the coronavirus pandemic has curtailed driving and claims for wrecks enough still that auto insurers….
Continue ReadingHospitals start to roll out newly required data on prices and confidential deals
A lot of people in health care across the country are firing up their computers to dig into long-sought, confidential information from hospitals about their prices and deals they cut on them with an array of parties. As the Wall Street Journal reported, the Trump Administration successfully battled with hospitals to get them to disclose….
Continue ReadingU.S. rejects expert advice, keeps its diet-nutrition guidelines mostly the same
In yet another instance of disregarding fact-based advice, the Trump Administration, after hearing public comments and assembling a panel of diet and nutrition experts, has rejected their recommendations on how the federal government should update its counsel to Americans about optimizing their eating. The federal advisories, refreshed every five years by the U.S. Department of….
Continue ReadingPandemic exposes how push for profits can imperil nursing home residents
Nursing home owners and operators have pleaded “poor us” through a lethal 2020. But profit-seeking players in the industry clearly still see rapacious opportunity in long-term care facilities — with residents suffering the consequences. NPR and the Washington Post both have dug into the results when investment groups or chains acquire and operate nursing homes,….
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