Dylan Ratigan on Greensboro's [Cone Health's?] healthcare monopoly?: "Auction 2012: Bought Health Care"

"The point of seeing a doctor -- or being one -- should be to improve health.

...what I've found,
...is that the same incentives distorting banking, energy, education, and government
are distorting our very bodies.

The American health care system has incentives
so out of alignment for everyone involved...

Newt Gingrich Ammo from the Catholic Church, or just rank hypocrisy?

"Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

"A walk through of the expanded Cone Health Cancer Center..."

"A walk through of the expanded Cone Health Cancer Center...

...From an outdoor wind chime with more than 1,500 individual butterflies attached — part of a “healing landscape” — to the latest technology (first in the state) targeting tumors deep within the body, the fruits of the $15 million expansion are notable.

...It’s a 38,000-square-foot expansion and renovation.

Yet Cone Health built it with intimacy in mind, thanks in part to $5 million from private donors.

...there’s a multi-disciplinary clinic with medical staff offices, exam rooms and waiting areas for breast cancer patients and families. The patient is visited in one place by each doctor — no longer having to make separate appointments that can delay planning treatments.

“They walk out with a summary of 'This is the plan,’” said Dr. Stacy Wentworth , a radiation oncologist. “It’s these are my doctors’ recommendations, these are my next appointments, this is when I’m going to chemotherapy class.’”

What is the average cost compared to elsewhere in the region?
.

Does Cone Health disclose how much they are charging whom for what?

Dear Cone Health, please tell the truth

"...The prices of many health-care services in the U.S. are extremely difficult for patients to obtain in advance.

For example, when the Government Accountability Office anonymously phoned doctors’ offices to inquire about the price of diabetes screening, most could not provide estimates of the associated lab fees.

And when GAO investigators called hospitals to find out the price of a knee replacement, they got similarly uninformative responses.

One of the more responsive hospitals said it would take a week to obtain an estimate; most of the rest seemed even less helpful.

When prices are revealed, typically after the fact, they often vary widely -- depending on both the provider and the patient’s insurance plan.

In 2009, for instance, the median charge for coronary-artery bypass surgery in Los Angeles County ranged from about $130,000 at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center to about $250,000 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and more than $300,000 at Garfield Medical Center, according to a California government website.

...most studies have found little, if any, connection between price and quality.

...when people bear more of the financial risk associated with their own health care, they are likely to become more responsive to information about price and quality.

...the coming years will see dramatic fights over health care.

...Providing more price transparency...should be part of the path forward."

Peter Orszag

Jim Melvin: "Cone and Alamance merger perfect match": How many jobs does Mr. Melvin want to cut?

"On Dec. 15, there was a very important marriage in our region.

Why is Jim Melvin for a healthcare merger

that could eliminate competition

and create a healthcare monopoly

that could raise prices at will?

This marriage put two great organizations together.

How many jobs will the merger eliminate?

Dear Cone Health: Free drug price comparison app debuts

"A new and free app
...lets you compare local prescription and generic drug prices.

Does Cone Health compare prices?

Dear Cone Health: "The Money Traps in U.S. Health Care"

Did the largest generation of parents in American history

promise themselves healthcare benefits

their children won’t have enough money to pay for?

"Why does an appendectomy in Germany cost roughly a quarter what it costs in the United States?

Or an M.R.I. scan cost less than a third as much, on average, in Canada?

...In 2009, we spent $7,960 per person, twice as much as France,
which is known for providing very good health services.

And for all that spending, we get very mixed results — some superb,
some average, some inferior — compared with other advanced nations.

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients

…and never do harm to anyone

In every house where I come

I will enter only for the good of my patients

keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing

Hippocratic Oath

W. E. Heasley on Don Jud in Nancy McLaughlin's Cone Health Propaganda Piece

“We know that health care is a very important industry in our country

— it’s the only industry that didn’t lose employment in this recession….”.

And that reason is professor emeritus Don Jud?

Would it happen to be that the health-care industry
is approximately 55% government third party pay?

Would it be due to the third party pay phenomena in general,
public or private?

Would it be due to an economic sector that does not post its prices?

Would one shop at Target or Wal-Mart
if no prices were posted and after you buy,
a bill comes in the mail for previous purchases
of which you had no idea of the price.

Would one shop at a store with no prices posted?

You do in health-care!

“It means that a lot of those health care dollars

that might otherwise be spent outside the community

will be spent here.”

If each community purchased locally
ala an economy based on what was a requirement in medieval times,
then ninety five percent of what you demand
could never be supplied locally
[want a car, how about a computer, I-phone, bananas anyone?].

W. E. Heasly