The woolly one works in that temple of political impartiality: Harvard university. She keeps doing "research" which leads to support for socialized medicine. Her most famous statement was that socialized medicine would REDUCE bureaucracy! -- despite the fact that, in mature examples of such systems (such as Queensland and Britain), only about 1 in 4 employees of such systems are actual medical personnel! And even the doctors and nurses spend a large part of their time on bureaucratic tasks! She does tend to "overlook" rather a lot. In this case one thing she overlooks is that many if not most men are impacted by women's medical costs -- if they are married to or otherwise in partnership with a woman. Her assumptions and omissions may tell you something about Dr. Woolhandler. Post below lifted from Taranto:
Here's an Associated Press story on a new "study" that purports to argue against free-market health-care policies:
High-deductible health insurance plans favored by many employers often wind up being an unfair burden to women, a new study says, largely because women need many routine medical exams that quickly add up. The median expense for men under 45 in these plans was less than $500, but for women it was more than $1,200, according to a study by Harvard Medical School researchers.
They also found that only a third of insured men in that age group spent more than $1,050 in annual medical costs, while 55 percent of women did. "High-deductible plans punish women for having breasts and uteruses and having babies," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, the study's lead author.
"When an employer switches all his employees into a consumer-driven health plan, it's the same as giving all the women a $1,000 pay cut, on average, because women on average have $1,000 more in health costs than men," she said. Women's costs are higher because women need mammograms, cervical cancer vaccine, Pap tests, birth control and pregnancy-related services that men do not, said Woolhandler, who also is a co-founder of a physicians' group that advocates for a single-payer national health insurance system.
Wait a minute now. Wouldn't it be just as accurate to say that traditional, low-deductible plans and socialized medicine schemes pose an unfair burden to men, punishing us for lacking breasts and uteruses and not having babies?
Actually, that would be simplistic too. Really, it's single men who bear the brunt of women's health-care costs under these systems. After all, if we were married, our wife would most likely sign up for our employer-provided health-insurance plan, and we would have an interest in its generosity vis-…-vis women's medical needs.
We're particularly amused by Dr. Woolhander's comment that women are punished for "having babies." Usually when that happens, there's a man involved too.
Your bureaucrats will protect you -- again
A PURPORTED doctor working in a Queensland regional hospital will be sacked by health authorities after investigations found she was not medically qualified. Another person from the same intake of foreign workers has already been dismissed for failing to properly understand English. The credentials and background of the two were not checked by hospital or regulatory managers before they were employed, stunning the Queensland Medical Board and senior Queensland Health officials 18 months after the devastating scandal over foreign-trained surgeon Jayant Patel.
The two wore stethoscopes, conducted physical examinations and were held out to patients as doctors. Their work was meant to have been as observers under full-time supervision, but sources say this was not always the case because of busy periods and a shortage of staff.
One of the employees, who remains suspended from Cairns Base Hospital pending the exhaustion of rights of appeal, had used a public health qualification from a Shanghai college to pass herself off as a clinically trained junior doctor in her final year of training. She was paid more than $1200 a week as a doctor intern and student observer, watching and dealing with patients over several months, until March. The woman could not demonstrate knowledge of medical or clinical care, sources told The Australian yesterday.
The other employee hired during the Beattie Government's continuing campaign to overcome a chronic medical manpower shortage is believed to have had clinical training, but could not communicate in English to an acceptable standard.
Their status was discovered after a reminder was sent to hospital bosses to ensure staff were properly vetted and registered. The hospital's deputy director of medical services, Ric Streathfield, has admitted he "dropped the ball" when he bypassed the medical board to employ the two on salaries of more than $61,000 a year.
A Queensland Health spokesman said they had performed no procedures and had limited contact with patients. "At no time were any patients in danger," he said. "Their employment is a localised human resources matter, not a clinical matter, and the fact it has been dealt with shows the processes of Queensland Health and the medical board are working."
The two, who worked for several months until it was realised they had not been vetted by the medical board, were employed along with two other foreign interns, one of whom remains on suspension pending further clarification of credentials. The fourth has been registered. "These characters were not let loose to do brain surgery, but they were medically examining people even though at least one had no medical training," a government source told The Australian yesterday. "The slippage of standards and the failure of checks and balances that allowed this to happen so soon after a major public inquiry into the health system is worrying. It amounts to a neglect of medical administrative duties and it has directly impacted on patients."
The Beattie Government promised a $9.7 billion funding boost and a new era of openness and transparency in the aftermath of the public inquiries arising from the damage wreaked by Indian- and US-trained surgeon Dr Patel. His deadly incompetence in the US had resulted in Dr Patel being barred from performing surgery, but neither the Medical Board nor Queensland Health checked his background before he became Bundaberg Hospital's director of surgery. Dr Patel is to be extradited from his US home in Portland, Oregon, to Queensland to face multiple charges of manslaughter, grievous bodily harm and fraud arising from his two years at Bundaberg Hospital.
Source
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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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