Word: himmelstein
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...least one doctor has been even more outspoken about the conflict between the Hippocratic oath and the cost-controlling imperatives of the HMOs. David Himmelstein, 45, an associate professor at the Harvard Medical School and a persistent critic of for-profit HMOs, signed on a year ago with U.S. Healthcare, a $2.9 billion behemoth whose 65,000 doctors and 2.3 million members make it the largest HMO on the East Coast...
Last November, at a meeting of the National Managed Health Care Congress, Himmelstein gave a presentation during which he showed slides of, among other things, what he called the "gag clause" in his U.S. Healthcare contract. Two weeks later, he took his complaints to the Donahue show and said, "one of the HMOs that I practice in tells me I can't tell my patients if there's something wrong [with what] the HMO insists...
...taking at all. According to a study of 6,000 people published in last week's Journal of the American Medical Association, 23% of Americans ages 65 and over are using medications that are notorious for triggering insomnia, fainting spells or even amnesia among the elderly. Says Dr. David Himmelstein, a physician at Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts and one of the study's co-authors: "It's a sad commentary on the prescribing practices of many doctors in this country...
Part of the problem, say Himmelstein and others, is that doctors do not get enough training in geriatrics. Over the past several years, researchers have documented that tranquilizers such as Valium and Seconal linger an exceptionally long time in older people's bodies because their kidneys and livers work slowly at eliminating the drugs. The buildup can lead to confusion and memory loss. Unfortunately, those symptoms may be dismissed as signs of aging rather than of drug...
...Instead, Himmelstein argued that the U.S. should move towards a Canada-style government-administered health care system with coverage for all necessary medical services...