An Unhealthy Congressional Mess0

The Los Angeles Daily Journal first published this article, An Unhealthy Congressional Mess, on July 27, 2017.

Wooden puppet with a headache
Wooden puppet with a headache

“Genius is finding the invisible link between things.” — Vladimir Nabokov

The scope of medical technology is continually evolving. In 1967, a South African surgeon removed the heart from a twenty-five-year-old female car-accident victim and placed it into the chest of a fifty-five-year-old male dying of heart disease.  The surgery was the first success of its kind, and the patient lived for an additional eighteen days. Ten years later at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, a heart transplant recipient survived fourteen months after surgery. Seven years after that, Columbia surgeons performed the first successful pediatric heart transplant. Centuries in the making, this particular miracle of modern medicine today boasts 3,500 annual heart transplants world-wide who live an average of fifteen years longer thanks to earlier trials.

The successes of modern medicine are the product of painstaking research, unprecedented and sometimes unavoidable patience, and a bit of good fortune, but the innumerable losses of the past lie in the shadows of each monumental breakthrough. The national infrastructure within which this fantasy becomes reality, however, appears to exist in stark contrast to the very reason behind its purpose.  In many ways, the chaos inherent in the current process by which Congress attempts to alter the course of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), exacerbated by any presidential “inspirations” delivered in messages of 140 characters or less, has transformed the stark reality of today’s health care structure into something far more surreal than swapping hearts, at least to those limited few who actually understand the status of the ACA as the Republican controlled Congress attempts to unravel it. … Read more →

Administrative, Clinical, Community, Health Care Law, Health Care Reform, Hospitals, News, Non Clinical, Regulatory

The Senator Will See You Now0

California Healthcare News first published this article “The Senator Will See You Now” on July 11, 2017.

The Senator Will See You Now“It occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility.”  — Joseph Conrad

On May 4, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Health Care Act of 2017 (“AHCA”) by a picayune margin of just four votes. Commonly referred to as the most recent legislation designed to “repeal and replace” the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “ACA”), the Senatorial counterpart to the ACHA, known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 (“BCRA”), today rests in the hands of 52 Republican, 46 Democratic and 2 Independent U.S. Senators, as the nation waits for word on the fate of the ACA and President Obama’s legacy in the spectrum of health care reform.

There should be no cause for alarm when it comes to the hospital institution, enveloped as it is by a veritable blanket of seasoned health care practitioners with access to a formidable armory replete with 21st century medicine that defies science fiction, including cutting-edge technology that may have finally surpassed the elusive tricorder.  As the average life expectancy in the United States hovers on the cusp of 79 years, due in part to the acceptance of mental health parity and near elimination of yellow fever, smallpox, malaria, measles and diphtheria, the nation should be proud of its health care system and supportive of the estimated 23% of the nation’s $7 trillion annual budget it consumes. … Read more →

Administrative, Clinical, Community, Health Care Law, Health Care Reform, Historical, Hospitals, News, Regulatory, Technology