Do Not Resuscitate: How We Spend Trillions to Enrich Intermediaries Instead of Making Ourselves Healthier

Do Not Resuscitate (This System) #326 Dec 1 2023

This week's news of our dysfunctional healthcare system costing trillions: How Medicare (Dis) Advantage companies are openly defying Federal rules; why is a public health response to infectious agents now discredited? insurance abuses and the role for an activist/advocate response. 

Do Not Resuscitate (Thi System) #325

What’s in the news this week about how we spend trillions making intermediaries rich instead of making ourselves healthier. This week, there’s more on the trainwreck of Medicaid disenrollment threatening 30 million Americans; more on Medicare Disadvantage and corporate medicine, including Amazon’s incursion into direct medical services; nurses on strike, antitrust actions, elder care costs, and the spotting of a civilized country in North America.

Do Not Resuscitate (This System) #324 Nov 17 2023

This week we discuss a blockbuster report on how UnitedHealth is using robots to deny rehab care for its patients, more on the fat shots, and a sprinkling of revealing news items about the dysfunctional healthcare system that makes intermediaries rich. 

Do Not Resuscitate (This System) #323

This week we cover stories about the AMA's consideration of single-payer, how our medical data is being monetized, the incredible rush for the fat shots, and the CDC's window-dressing advisory panel telling us that all is well with Covid. Find the full digest at nypan.org under "single payer links." 

Do Not Resuscitate (This System) #322 Nov 3 2023

Another look at the week's news in the dysfunctional U.S. healthcare payment system, highlighting Medicaid disenrollment, Medicare (Dis)Advantage scams, the private equity invasion of healthcare, and why hospitals are chronically understaffed with nurses. 

Do Not Resuscitate (This System) #321 Oct 27 2023

This week, I review news about the fat shots (Ozempic, Wegovy etc.), how much loot their owner/marketers are set to make, the new target population for them (kids), and what else is happening on the nutrition front; also, what's behind the shuttering of 100s of chain pharmacy outlets; more on Medicare Dis-Advantage; and several items about the insane costs of health insurance in the U.S. and healthcare even for those insured.

Do Not Resuscitate (This System) #320

This week's "Do Not Resuscitate (This System)" covers provider burnout and strikes, new ways Medicare Disadvantage lures seniors into lousy insurance policies, and the politicization of science and public health. Find the entire weekly digest in written form at nypan.org listed as "Single Payer News." 

Do Not Resuscitate (This System)

This week, we discuss the "fat shots" and the campaign to get insurance reimbursement for them, including Medicare/Medicaid; the increasing role of Private Equity; Medicaid disenrollment; the government’s censorship apparatus honed during the Covid debates—or non-debates; and finally, the Medicare sign-up period and the campaign to get unwary seniors to go private.

Do Not Resucistate (This System!) #316

I review articles in the mainstream and specialty news media about how we' make intermediaries rich instead of making ourselves healthier.
This week we wonder about the pressure to get a new booster shot while being told Covid is over; some interesting pieces on what’s in our food and who determines it's safe; more on obesity and the fat shots; and more on healthcare consolidation and government collusion in the creeping privatization of Medicare.
 

Do Not Resuscitate (This System!)

In this weekly review of how we're being taking to the cleaners by the healthcare industry, we look at a crackdown on junk healthcare plans; a nurses’ strike in New Jersey; a creepy discovery about our environment and the dementia epidemic; the kinds of fraud government regulators do and do not care about; whether expensive cancer drugs actually work; and the conundrum of malpractice insurance.