Word: testing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Supreme Judicial Court will now have to develop a balancing test to determine when the individual's right to privacy outweighs the state's interest in preserving the sanctity of human life. And the court must once again address the prickly question, who should pull the plug? Should the court provide doctors a guideline for dealing with patients who refuse treatment, or should it require adjudication of all right-to-die cases? The court's answer could lead to another stormy chapter in the effort to resolve the dilemma that Karen Ann Quinlan first triggered...
...there is not much saving radiance in the sky. Instead, the air is alive with the sound of lamentation. At various times from various quarters, TV has been accused of raising the crime rate, dropping students' test scores, crippling the imagination, undermining national literacy, and layering American homes with an attention-numbing narcotic. The charges go way back. They were first raised by long-suffering parents and teachers who simply watched the TV viewing of children under their care and came to what they felt were grim, self-evident conclusions. Then the argument shifted a bit to the amount...
Doctors, too, tend to order every test that a patient could conceivably need. In part, that is done to reassure patients or to protect themselves against malpractice suits. Says Dr. E. Kash Rose, senior radiologist at Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa, Calif.: "One study showed that 80% of skull X rays were unnecessary for care and treatment of patients. Rib X rays are done purely for the mental relief of the patient rather than for medical reasons. The treatment is exactly the same" whether the X ray discloses a fracture...
...while it passed the Senate last year, the hospitals applied enough local pressure to get it killed in the House Commerce Committee by one vote. This time the President, Califano and Administration aides are lobbying intensively, something they failed to do in 1978, calling the bill "the litmus test" of whether a legislator is really serious about fighting inflation. The bill, Carter insists, would save the country "some $53 billion" over the next five years the amount by which he estimates medical costs would increase if no limits were enacted. The Congressional Budget Office is less optimistic; it pegs...
...first essential is to reform insurance practices. Some beginnings have been made: Blue Cross-Blue Shield will no longer automatically pay for a battery of tests administered to every patient who enters a hospital unless each test is specifically ordered by the attending physician. Insurance policies should be rewritten to pay for lab tests and other care administered in a doctor's office rather than a hospital. If Congress will not push the Blue plans and private insurers in this direction, corporations could and should. Exxon, General Motors and AT&T have the bargaining power that individual patients lack...