60 Minutes has a great story about how easy it is to commit Medicare fraud. Of course, the lack of oversight is one of the reasons why Medicare is so “efficient” compared to the private sector.

Sullivan’s “view from your sickbed” is back. And once again, it confused tragedy with analysis. The story is about a young woman who needed a liver transplant but the hospital incorrectly thought her insurance didn’t cover it. The reader claims a universal healthcare system might have saved her.

What happened was tragic, but the insurance system did not cause that young woman’s death. No system would have been able to transplant her within hours of admission and it’s highly unlikely a universal system would have transplanted her within two days. In the UK, the median wait time for a transplant is about three months. In the US, it’s almost a year. (The difference is likely due to difference in organ donation frequency).

Moreover, a bureaucracy is going to get between patient and doctor in all transplant cases. Because of the limited number of organs available, someone has to decide where they go. Healthy livers do not just grow on trees.

Had she lived more than three hours, it is likely that the insurance errors would have been discovered and she would have been put back on the list. However, it’s very likely she would have died even if she’d put on the list immediately.

This is why I hate debating healthcare with sob stories. Because sob stories don’t tell the entire truth.

I’m a little skeptical of this study that claims that restriction on the hours worked by medical students has increase medical errors. But the law of unintended consequences is merciless, so I’m willing to see if the trend is born out.

I’ve said many times that our healthcare system is far from perfect. This is a perfect example of the sort of stuff that needs to stop — insurance companies canceling a policy based on “pre-existing condition” that isn’t.

My preferred solution is to turn insurance regulation over to the Feds. It has become abundantly clear that the state insurance regulators are utterly toothless. Insurance companies do this because few people have the motivation or resources to sue. The Feds, however, have effectively infinite resources.

There is an additional problem in that many state insurance markets are effective monopolies — allowing interstate competition would solve that problem.

What we do not need is coverage mandates and rescission laws that make it easier for people to wait until they’re sick to buy insurance. That will only make the problem worse.

I usually like Shikha Dalmia. But this article, castigating the AMA — which you will remember I am not a friend of — is stunningly ignorant.

(Note: part of this is based on e-mail exchanges with my dad, who is a surgeon).

First off, the AMA represents less than 1/6 of doctors, including academics. They are hardly a cartel although I will let on that they have too much influence.

Second, she claims:

According to a 2007 study by McKinsey&Company, physician compensation bumps up health care spending in America by $58 billion annually,on average, because U.S. doctors make twice as much as their OECD peers. And even the poorest in specializations like radiology and surgery routinely rake in around $400,000 annually.

This is not even supported by the article she cites:

Surveys by medical-practice management groups show that American doctors make an average of $200,000 to $300,000 a year. Primary care doctors and pediatricians make less, between $125,000 and $200,000, but in specialties like radiology, physicians can take home $400,000 or more.

In other words, the 400 grand she cites as what the poorest doctors make is, in fact, the high end of the range. Now that’s misquoting.

That article notes that our doctors make a lot more than doctors in other countries, which is a questionable point in and of itself. Even without any corrections for different economic systems, however, $100-300 grand does not seem to me an unreasonable salary for someone who saves lives, works seven days a week and is constantly on call for the hospital.

Someone also noted in the comments that she conveniently takes the cost of physician compensation from one source, then cherry-picks a figure for defensive medicine from another. That’s Michael Moore territory.

Dalmia’s article is poorly researched bashing of a political organization she doesn’t like that, not coincidentally, manages to slag all doctors in the process. This is something I expect from Daily Kos, not Reason and not Forbes.