Rationing

Obama's Berwick Appointment Shows Lack of Transparency

In response to today's recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Twila Brase, RN, PHN, president of Citizens' Council on Health Care, provides the following statement

CCHC Opposes Rescission of Practitioner Freedom of Conscience Clause

No patient, no government official, no policymaker should be able to require a practitioner to do what is viewed as unethical, morally objectionable or a violation of the religious beliefs of that practitioner. 

CCHF Letter to Gov. Pawlenty Opposing Government-Issued Treatment Protocols

After our delivery in May 2004, citizen petitions continued to arrive at our office. We include these because we believe they were not part of the petitions you received last year. And like those delivered last year, we have placed them in a red binder.

MN "Bureaucrats at Bedside" Plan - Q&A

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) will designate certain treatment protocols as the MN standard of care. At their own discretion, they will decide which protocols will be called “evidence-based” and approved for use. MDH will collect data on physician adherence to these government-issued protocols and publicly report compliance rates on their website. Physi- cians with low compliance rates may be financially penalized.

EBM: How Technocrats are Taking Over the Practice of Medicine

Looming on the visible horizon of American health care is  new attempt to control the practice of medicine and limit—indeed ration—patient access to health care services. While doctors often refer to it as "cookbook medicine," this quickly advancing strategy is best known by the name "evidence-based medicine" (EBM).

Oregon Prioritized Health Services List

The official Oregon Health Plan list includes conditions, treatments, ICD-9 codes (International Classification of Disease, Ninth Edition) and CPT codes (Common Procedural Terminology). For easy of comparison, only conditions and a few treatments are included on this format of the list. For recipients of the Oregon Health Plan, coverage is provided for conditions 1 through 549. Treatment for conditions 550 through 730 are not covered for some state recipients, but covered for others. CCHC has bolded some conditions on this list to enhance comparison of the state-determined priority position of various more common or interesting conditions on the list.

Oregon “Health Care Rationing” Plan: Bad Idea for Minnesota Patients

The HHS Conference Committee is discussing the Senate proposal to adopt, for state health care programs (Medicaid, MNCare, GAMC) the Oregon Heath Plan’s list of conditions (plus others) for which treatment would not be covered.

HMO Guidelines or New Mandates?

The key to cost-containment is consumer control over health care dollars. Personal financial incentives, such as medical savings accounts and federal health care tax deductions, will drive health care costs down by encouraging individual cost-consciousness. Although HMOs want their enrollees to believe treatment guidelines will provide safer and better medical care, patients should be cautious about embracing an initiative that may use words on a page to limit health care services.

Health Care Around the World

Sending American Health Care Dollars to Mexico? According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,"The United States and Mexico have reached a formal agreement to establish the U.S. - Mexico Border Health Commission (BHC)...The Commission will serve as a forum to discuss shared health concerns and find ways to improve the health status of people living along the border." Secretary Shalala signed the agreement on July 14, 2000.

WHO's Hidden Agenda

The World Health Organization (WHO) didn't blink twice before shooting down the United States' world-class health-care system. In a recently released report, "The World Health Report 2000--Health Systems: Improving Performance," the WHO ranked the overall performance of the U.S. health system at 37th out of 191 countries surveyed.