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Doctoring Health Care Health Care Reform

VA hospitals do not deliver inferior care

Bernie Sanders has intensified the debate about US healthcare. Specifically, he has people talking about a single-payer government-controlled system. Critics, uninformed as they are, point to the VA system as an example of inferior care. A well-conducted study refutes such misthink. Yale researchers performed a massive cross-sectional study to compare outcomes among older men in […]

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Doctoring Health Care Health Care Reform

Another VA lesson — Healthcare needs to stop being like flying business class

The VA healthcare story has me thinking about the good aspects of delays in medical therapy. Typical American intuitive thinking holds that healthcare waiting lists are a bad thing. The two central tenets of this mindset are that healthcare brings health, and most of medicine is as time sensitive as cardiac arrest or heart attack. […]

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Doctoring Health Care Health Care Reform

The VA healthcare system — Can we handle the truth?

Memorial Day weekend is an apt time to consider the recent accusations of wrongdoing in the VA healthcare system. It’s an opportunity to face the truth. As a free American, I am connected to veterans. It has always been remarkable that young people give their life or health for their country, but now, in this […]

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General Medicine Health Care Health Care Reform

A Tale of Two Systems…

I am close with this doctor who works in the government health care system.  She is a palliative care/hospice doctor.  We live together and as such discuss clinical cases frequently.  This evening’s discussion sheds much light on the many differences in the systems in which we practice medicine. A vignette… But first a disclaimer:  The […]