Waking Up Costs

Patients pay only 14% of health care costs? Wow.

Clark Venable — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 20:55:06 GMT

Free the market; Government interference hampers healthcare reform

"In a system in which medical care seems free or is artificially inexpensive, with someone else paying for one's healthcare, medical costs spiral out of control because we are encouraged to demand medical services without having to consider their real price. For every dollar's worth of hospital care a patient consumes, that patient pays only about 3 cents out of pocket; the rest is paid by third-party coverage. And for the healthcare system as a whole, patients pay only about 14%."

This article has several nice pieces of data.

Dark Chocolate Proven Healthy, Again

Clark Venable — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 11:29:18 GMT

JAMA: Effects of Low Habitual Cocoa Intake on Blood Pressure and Bioactive Nitric Oxide

"Results: From baseline to 18 weeks, dark chocolate intake reduced mean (SD) systolic BP by –2.9 (1.6) mm Hg (P < .001) and diastolic BP by –1.9 (1.0) mm Hg (P < .001) without changes in body weight, plasma levels of lipids, glucose, and 8-isoprostane. Hypertension prevalence declined from 86% to 68%. The BP decrease was accompanied by a sustained increase of S-nitrosoglutathione by 0.23 (0.12) nmol/L (P < .001), and a dark chocolate dose resulted in the appearance of cocoa phenols in plasma. White chocolate intake caused no changes in BP or plasma biomarkers.

Conclusions: Data in this relatively small sample of otherwise healthy individuals with above-optimal BP indicate that inclusion of small amounts of polyphenol-rich dark chocolate as part of a usual diet efficiently reduced BP and improved formation of vasodilative nitric oxide."

With a change of roughly 3 systolic points and 2 diastolic points I'm not going to stop taking my Prinivil just yet.....

PA Ranks Second in Total Dollars Paid in Malpractice Claims

Clark Venable — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:33:19 GMT

At the same website mentioned in the preceding post one can find information on total dollars paid in malpractice cases in 2006. Pennsylvania ranked second with $308,781,000 paid (second only to New York). See for yourself.

Vermont looks pretty good to me right now...

PA Ranks Third in Paid Malpractice Claims

Clark Venable — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:21:49 GMT

The Kaiser Family Foundation maintains StateHealthFacts.org, a site "designed to provide free, up-to-date, and easy-to-use health data on all 50 states". The site just published Number of Paid Medical Malpractice Claims, 2006. Pennsylvania ranks third among all states in number of malpractice claims paid per thousand physicians. See for yourself.

Resolved: C. diff enterocolitis should be a reportable disease

Clark Venable — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:40:14 GMT

The CDC just published their Summary of Notifiable Diseases --- United States, 2005

I wonder why C. diff enterocolitis isn't on the list? I've seen this illness cause more morbidity and mortality in the United States than the big long list they do track...

MMWR: Percentage of Children with Selected Allergies

Clark Venable — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:29:30 GMT

"During 2003--2005, the percentage of children with hay fever increased with age; children aged 10--17 years were nearly three times as likely to have hay fever than children aged 0--4 years. In contrast, the percentage of children with skin allergies decreased with age, and the percentage of children with food allergies did not vary with age."

New Study on Malpractice Costs

Clark Venable — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Pacific Research Institute:

JACKPOT JUSTICE: The True Cost of America's Tort System

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