All “insurance” is based upon population statistics. These statistics are used to calculate the cost of caring for “The Herd”. Whether it’s for health, life, auto, home, property, or quarterbacks’ arms, all insurance is just a big bet. It’s a wager by the private or government insurer… . For the private insurer (Aetna, Blue, United, etc.) their ability to stay in business (profitability and stock value) depends upon consistently winning the wager.
Healthcare
Is the United Federation Health Starship Crashing?
“Chief Engineering Officer T. Price Scott reports that central core of the health starship’s engine room has been taken over by a giant bloated creature. It’s bad news…. The di-lithium crystals are burning out.(This is far worse than the Tribble infestation).
Preliminary tri-corder analysis by Chief Science Officer Commander Ryan-Spock indicates that the creature is of the dreaded species “Octobamagon”.
What Is More Byzantine Than Government Regulation?
One memorable surge of the Byzantine invasion, was a benevolent-sounding legislative attempt to improve the quality and standards of medical laboratories. It was called, euphemistically, the “Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act” of 1988, or, CLIA.
How’s that ObamaCare thing workin’ out for ya?
The HIPAA, The Unicorn, and Other Mythological Creatures
Word Picture: Is There Any Such Thing as Mental Illness?
The more you drive down that road the same way, the deeper the ruts get. Sometimes those ruts get so deep and ingrained, no amount of turning the wheel will get you out of the rut. That’s when a motor-grader machine comes in. It plows up and smooths out the ruts so you can get control of your car again.
But if you keep going down that road the same way all the time because you choose to steer along the same path, the ruts will return.
Part IV: Is There Any Such Thing As “Mental Illness”?
I can treat this patient with an anti-depressant plus an anti-anxiety drug to treat the chemistry of his or her brain. This person will likely feel and function better. But if they don’t start to learn new patterns of thinking (that is a spiritual process), and continue to dwell on old hurts, losses, suffering, fears, the anxiety and depression will persist, or return. No amount of medication will cure a person who willfully refuses to seek change.
Part II: Is There Any Such Thing as “Mental Illness?”
What I’m trying to say about “the mind” is that the strict “naturalist” (look that up, too) is correct in saying that every thought we think, emotion we feel, motivation we experience, is accompanied by a an electro-chemical, neurological, biophysical phenomenon somewhere in the physical “brain”…. But we cannot by this conclude that the mind is just a physical phenomenon. There is so much more..
What made this doctor? Part V
So, for two or three hours I sat with him in his motel room. We talked. Played cards. Passed what seemed to be an eternity of time for me. I knew it was the right thing to do. I hated it. He was so frail. So skeletal. He reeked of the chemotherapy that coursed through his veins. I think my nose and eyes burned from the fumes of it.
Who is Responsible for Your Health?
The Apostle Paul wisely observed that our bodies are the “Temple of the Holy Spirit”. He goes on to say that to abuse or destroy that temple leads to a more drastic form of destruction (of the soul).
What are Two Good Things About Obamacare?
Well, I knew, as did just about anyone who knows that “Managed Care” as a model just doesn’t work (I’ll have much more to say in a series of future blogs). Obamacare simply doubles down on a medical-administrative model that was already failing… and puts the crack administrators of the IRS in charge of it to boot!
Healthcare Insanity: “Why Are Widget Charges So Dang High?”
What determines why widget charges are so dang high? Right. Supply and demand. But let’s leave medicine for a minute and talk about the historical price of widgets.
“Healthcare Insanity”: What is an “EOB”?
EOB – That relentless, hounding, health insurance company document that hits your mailbox with implacable repetition. Its message? “We, the benevolent Health Insurance Company, are looking out for you, the helpless patient and victim of the price-gouging of the ravenous and greedy healthcare providers.”