Jonathan Chait at The New Republic calls it the “The NRA Health Care Loophole.” He writes that the National Rifle Association (NRA) successfully lobbied to include a provision in the health reform law prohibiting insurance companies from raising premiums for people with guns in their homes.

From this you might suppose that insurers charge higher premiums to gun owners today. They don’t. But the left is obsessed with guns as opposed to, say, swimming pools — despite the fact that almost 6 times as many people die by accidental drowning as in firearms accidents.

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Dr. Dennis M. Dimitri, a family physician, runs a pretty unusual office. Few appointments are accepted in advance. Instead, patients call in the morning and are assigned a time slot later that day. Some patients walk in without calling ahead.

The outcome of this lack of advance planning? No one has to spend weeks trying to wrangle an appointment, and once patients arrive, they rarely wait more than a few minutes for the doctor.

Full article on Dimitri’s unusual family practice.

Exercise scientists say they have stumbled on an amazing discovery.  Athletes can improve their performance in intense bouts of exercise, lasting an hour or so, if they merely rinse their mouths with a carbohydrate solution. They don’t even have to swallow it.

And the scientists think they have figured out why it works. It appears that the brain can sense carbohydrates in the mouth, even tasteless ones. The sensors are different from the ones for sweetness, and they prompt the brain to respond, spurring on the athlete.

Full article on carb-swishing.

The Practice:

In such “tiered,” or “limited,” network setups, consumers may get lower out-of-pocket charges if they see a doctor in a preferred ranking.  Patients would typically pay more out of pocket to see doctors who are ranked lower. At the most extreme, consumers may have to pay the full cost of seeing a physician who doesn’t make the favorable list.

What Can Go Wrong:

Recent research from Rand Corp. showed that the health plan rankings are unreliable. They highlighted a study published in March in the New England Journal of Medicine that used claims data from four health plans in Massachusetts. It found that a two-tiered rating based on costs would incorrectly classify an estimated 22 percent of doctors.

Full article on insurers and preferred physicians.

An advertisement for an American medical services company is seen on the back of a Grand River Transit [Canadian] bus.

Recession? What recession? Michelle Obama has reserved about 30 rooms for herself and her daughter, their friends and bodyguards at a five-star hotel in Benahavis (Spain), near Marbella.

Top ten public health disasters of the 20th century: Includes AIDS, black lung disease, cholera, Hong Kong flu, influenza, measles, polio, and rubella.

One in six primary care doctors leave their field in midcareer. More than 20 percent cited long hours and administrative hassles as reasons.

Perhaps you saw the headline: “Most Seniors Misinformed…[About] Key Provisions of the Affordable Care Act.” Yet on closer inspection, it turns out that the seniors — who are about to get taken to the cleaners under ObamaCare — knew a lot more than the polltakers.

It reminds me of last summer’s townhall meetings, when members of Congress claimed their constituents were confused and misled. Turned out, the voters often were much better informed than their representatives.

On the answers to the polling questions, you be the judge.

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This is from Grace-Marie Turner:

• High costs: On average, health insurance now costs $14,723 for a family of four in Massachusetts, nearly 12 percent higher than the national average.
• Rising costs: John Cogan of Stanford University and colleagues found that since the state’s reform initiative passed, premiums for private employer-sponsored health insurance increased by six percent than the nation as a whole. For small-group coverage costs grew 14 percent more.
• Dropping insurance: Some small employers are dropping health insurance and sending their workers into the taxpayer-funded health insurance pool. Continue reading »

Okay, I know I’m being generous in calling it “unintended.” You really have to be dumb not to have seen this coming. But c’est la vie.

Major health insurance companies that serve Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma and other states no longer are offering plans specifically for children in response to a requirement under the new health reform law that insurers cover children regardless of pre-existing conditions, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners officials.  Under the overhaul, insurers are required to honor all applications for child-only coverage, and parents can sign up for the plans at any time, particularly when their children get sick.

Full article from California Healthline here.

After a painful and ultimately losing struggle against bipartisan opposition in Congress, it’s surprising to see that advocates of the so-called “public option” have brought that zombie back from the dead. 

Just as Congress prepares to recess for August, Representative Lynn Woolsey and 128 co-sponsors have brought back a somewhat slimmed down version. H.R. 5808 would establish a Medicare-like public option in ObamaCare’s exchanges. That is, people acquiring health insurance through the exchanges would be able to choose a government-owned plan alongside the ones offered by private insurers. The Left, which wants a single-payer, government monopoly, health plan, sees the public option as a necessary step. By crowding private insurers out of the exchanges, the public option would make more people dependent on the government and paves the way for “Medicare for all.”

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