January 2010
20 posts
Ancient Surgery →
Scientists unearthed evidence of the surgery during work on tomb discovered at Buthiers-Boulancourt, about 40 miles south of Paris.
It suggests an incredible degree of medical knowledge was available in 4900BC and the revelation could force a reassessment of the history of surgery
Hexayurt? →
Sounds weird, but apparently they’re functional. And for only about $100. Not bad.
Nullification →
The real way to resist DC is not by begging politicians and judges in Washington to allow us to exercise our rights…it’s to exercise our rights whether they want to give us “permission” to or not.
Nullification – state-level resistance to unconstitutional federal laws – is the way forward.
When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative,...
1 tag
Healthcare and Rights →
By placing the legal obligation to provide healthcare on governments, the ideologically driven expansion of the right to health risks undermining the rule of law, stifling political pluralism, reducing individual and economic freedom and options for effective policymaking. Research shows that the widespread official promulgation of the right to the highest attainable health has not made any...
Check out my post:"Evidence Central App – Evidence... →
orthoonc:
The challenge of identifying and absorbing relevant medical literature will not abate anytime soon and the proliferation of services that purport to simplify or eliminate this problem for physicians is itself now becoming a distraction. The rapid adoption of web-enabled smart phones by physicians, such as the iPhone, is driving this dilemma from the theoretical realm directly to the...
Banning conspiracy theories? →
Consider the recent revelation that the Obama administration has been making very large, undisclosed payments to MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber to provide consultation on the President’s health care plan. With this lucrative arrangement in place, Gruber spent the entire year offering public justifications for Obama’s health care plan, typically without disclosing these payments, and...
Noah's Ark
The Lord spoke to Noah and said, “In six months I am going to make it rain until the whole world is covered with water and all the evil things are destroyed. But I want to save a few good people and two of every living thing on the planet. I am ordering you to build an ark.” And, in a flash of lightning, he delivered the specifications for the ark. “OK,” Noah said,...
Choices, choices... →
White House budget director Peter Orszag has claimed that the bill’s 40% excise tax on high-cost insurance plans is key to reducing health costs. Yet the Senate Majority Leader’s new version specifically exempts “individuals whose primary work is longshore work.” That would be the longshoremen’s union, which has negotiated very costly insurance benefits. The...
Update on the Amish →
Federal health care reform will require most Northern New Yorkers — but not all, it turns out — to carry health insurance or risk a fine.
Hundreds of Amish families in the region are likely to be free from that requirement…
A professor and lawyer at Yeshiva University in New York complained last summer that exempting groups for religious reasons could run afoul of the Constitution. Marci...
Can the Government Keep Us Safe? →
At Newark Liberty Airport last Sunday, a TSA agent left his post, and a young man walked past it to kiss his girlfriend good-bye. Then the young man turned and left the secured area and left the airport. So far no harm, no foul. But because the government’s surveillance cameras in the airport didn’t work, the feds panicked and ordered over 10,000 passengers to leave the terminal, go out into the...
“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of...”
– Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)
Space Rules
(via spacerules)
What a great quote. The other day I was watching a Discovery Channel special on planets outside of our solar system and on the show, they stated that it would take someone 100,000 years to cross the Milky Way galaxy if...
AMA coding "help" website →
So if you go to the AMA CPT website, there is a section in which you can look up codes to get an idea of Relative Value Units (RVU’s) to see what something is “worth” to the system (or at least how much it reimburses- as what it’s worth has zero correlation to how much the code reimburses…for another post). Anyhow, the site has a search function in which you punch in...
Does the AMA care about doctors and patients? →
Copyright
CPT is a registered trademark of the American Medical Association. The AMA holds copyright which prevents free use and distribution of codes.[3]
Although the CPT system is mandated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and HIPAA, and the data for it appear in the Federal Register, the American Medical Association (AMA) maintains that their copyright of the CPT allows...
Some People Did See it Coming →
As proof that the Fed caused the housing bubble, I offer a commentary that I wrote in May of 2004 and which was published as an opinion piece in the Orange County Register.
You can read the entire commentary here.
However, let me reproduce some key quotes:
That so many are currently opting for ARMs reflects a level of real estate speculation unparalleled in American history. Homebuyers have...
What Will the Doctors Do? →
Without question Obamacare will surely increase the demand for medical services from millions of new patients seeking personal care for little or no cost to them. But who will supply these additional services? Virtually ignored in public debate is how government mandated free medical care will impact on the professional behavior of private medical practitioners. One of the most fundamental...