An April Wall Street Journal editorial lauded the U.S. health-care system for giving American patients “more value—better outcomes and longer lives” than European health-care systems…(Read the rest and view comments at Scientocracy)
Thousands of children have passed through the doors of Vanderbilt’s Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital. The lobby is bright, full of natural light and decorated in bold colors and kid-friendly shapes such as stars. It hums with the quiet chaos of sick and recovering children. The building opened as Nashville’s first and only freestanding children’s…
For more than half a century now, the United States has stood out among its peers in the developed world for having the largest percent of its citizens living without health insurance. But once you turn 65-years-old in America, the government has you covered. Right? Maybe not so much. Because even after people enroll in,…
“Specialty drugs” – that’s what they’re called. Not the pills of old, these pharmaceuticals are often given intravenously or through injection. Often more biologic in their synthesis than chemical, they are expensive to produce and often target narrow disease processes, meaning the number of patients likely to benefit from them is much much smaller than,…
Two patients lie asleep on operating room tables, each with an inflamed appendix demanding to be relocated to a specimen jar. Two operations take place, each one lasting close to fifty minutes, each one performed by an experienced surgeon at a state-of-the-art U.S. hospital. One operation was priced at $1200 dollars. But the other one…
Since purchasing the Walt Disney Company six months ago, the Church of Scientologyhas been slowly remaking that venerable institution, in an effort to promote their ambitious religious mission. In the pipeline are an unprecedented number of science fiction films and John Travolta/Tom Cruise buddy movies, changes that have been surprisingly popular among movie fans.
But now the church is making a change that is not so popular. It has decided that Disney employees will no longer receive insurance coverage for psychiatric care or any medications used to treat mental illness: “Psychiatrists are the enemy of the people,” stated Church spokesperson Walter McGee. “The church opposes their brutal, inhumane treatments and refuses to pay for such services because they collide with our religious beliefs.”
Many Disney employees are up in arms over this decision. But the church is unrelenting in its position: “If people want to receive devil-care, they can either pay their own money or find a job somewhere else,” said McGee.
Critics blame the situation on a decision made by President Obama in February of 2012. Early that month, he had announced regulations that would require health insurance companies to cover contraception, with exceptions for churches that oppose birth control but not for larger church run organizations such as hospitals or universities. The Roman Catholic Church cried foul, claiming that their religious freedom was being violated. In response to pressure, the Obama administration quickly backed off on its policy, broadening the religious exception to any church owned business that was run as part of the church’s broader religious mission.
That shift in policy opened an opportunity for religious organizations to carve a broader set of services out of their health insurance plans. The Jehovah’s Witnesses had gained ownership of Wal-Mart in late 2013, and soon employees of that company (at least the ones who get health insurance) no longer received coverage for blood transfusions. An Orthodox Jewish organization became majority owners of Ace Hardware in early 2014, and now employees of that company no longer receive insurance coverage for insulin products that are derived from pork.
The Church of Scientology is undeterred by critics who claim that treatments like antipsychotic medications and antidepressants ought to be part of any basic health insurance plan. “America is the land of religious freedom,” he explains “a place where the government has no right to stand between a church and its employees.”
Who could argue with that logic?
One of my favorite radio shows, Marketplace, did a story on our recent study, in which we showed that physicians sometimes miss out on opportunities to help patients lower their out-of-pocket expenses. The piece features a medical student who’s been working with me on this project, Wynn Hunter, who is making his first national public…