Articles of Interest

By Jessica Schorr Saxe, M.D. | The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer
On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law, making 19 million Americans aged 65 and over eligible for health care coverage.

By David Ball, RN, MHA | The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)
Today is Medicare's 49th anniversary, having become law in 1965 under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Before 1965, as many elderly became sick but too old to work, they simply became impoverished and died.

By Aaron E. Carroll, M.D. | The New York Times
“Pay for performance” is one of those slogans that seem to upset no one. To most people it’s a no-brainer that we should pay for quality and not quantity. We all know that paying doctors based on the amount of care they provide, as we do with a traditional fee-for-service setup, creates incentives for them to give more care. It leads to increased health care spending. Changing the payment structure to pay them for achieving goals instead should reduce wasteful spending.

By Richard Propp, M.D. | Times Union (Albany, N.Y.)
Happy 49th birthday, Medicare. What a bargain — what simplicity — and what a benefit, when compared to the cost and availability of health care to those under 65.

By David Lotto, Ph.D., and Michael Kaplan, M.D. | The Berkshire Eagle (Mass.)
On July 10, Mr. Jim Balfanz wrote a letter to the editor titled: "Dangers of single-payer on display" in which he makes two claims. The first is that what he calls the "Veterans Administration health care corruption scandal" happened because the VA is a government-run single-payer program. The second claim he makes is that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare or the ACA) is on the road to creating a single-payer system for everyone in the country.

By A.W. Gaffney, M.D. | New Politics
The Affordable Care Act commentariat—including those confidently awaiting the day when all its promises are vindicated, those rooting for its ignominious demise, and those of us in a separate camp—have been kept occupied in recent months. Between autumn’s website drama and winter’s enrollment saga, the news cycle has been full of stories of IT dysfunctions tackled, right-wing challenges thwarted, enrollment goals met, electoral prospects threatened, and individuals newly insured (or variously dissatisfied).

By Philip Caper, M.D. | Bangor (Maine) Daily News
The U.S. healthcare system costs each of us about twice as much as those in other wealthy countries. Are we getting our money’s worth? Not by a long shot.

By David U. Himmelstein, M.D. | The New York Times
The best way to shorten waits to see a doctor (editorial, July 8) is to reduce physicians’ crushing paperwork burden. The average American doctor spends almost nine hours each week on billing and bureaucratic tasks, twice the time spent by physicians in Canada.

By Stephen Kemble, M.D. | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Hawaii physicians are being offered contracts to join a “clinically integrated physician network” (CIPN) with Queen’s Medical Center through one of the local physician organizations. This is the next phase in implementation of health care payment and delivery system reforms envisioned under the Affordable Care Act.