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The Hidden Costs of Health Care “Coverage”

The Hidden Costs of Health Care “Coverage”

by | Nov 6, 2019 | , ,

I'm a healthy 48-year old anesthesiologist. At least I was healthy until an unintentional 20 pound weight loss over the summer, accompanied by unquenchable thirst, insatiable appetite, blurry vision, and the bathroom frequency of an elderly prostatic. My lab workup would reveal a high fasting blood sugar of 310 mg/dL, a very high hemoglobin A1C >14, positive urine ketones (showing that my body was breaking down muscle to use for energy), low levels of C-peptide (a byproduct of natural insulin production, revealing that my pancreas was making little insulin), and a glutamic acid...

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Would you like the $9,400 CT scan or the $450 CT scan?

by | Feb 12, 2017 | ,

We're not all careful. Some of us ride motorcycles on the highway,… recklessly. A nephew ended up at a Level I trauma center in Houston, Texas, in March of 2016 as a result. He was patched up and lived to ride another day. Ten months later, his dad gets the final itemized hospital bill. As doctors in the family, my wife and I opine on medical matters with some frequency. The dad texted us a picture of the bill. As you are sure to expect, the charges were for ridiculous amounts that no one really pays. Most people probably think that these matters just get handled somehow, somewhere, between...

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M. Todd Rice, MD

Dr. Todd Rice is a board-certified anesthesiologist with both private and academic medical practice experience who follows with great interest the development of the direct care and transparent-pricing models in medicine. He is treasurer of the Missouri state chapter of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a physician group that focuses on strengthening the physician-patient relationship. Dr. Rice is currently the Director of Anesthesiology at the Center for Advanced Medicine - South County in St. Louis, and an assistant professor at Washington University School of Medicine. He is an occasional blogger on topics of free markets and state interventionism at his site theindividualmind.com and can be contacted at mtoddrice@gmail.com


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Israel Winner of the 2003 Iraq Oil War

Israel Winner of the 2003 Iraq Oil War

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From the Foreword by Lawrence B. Wilkerson: “[T]he debate over whether oil was a principal reason for the 2003 invasion has waxed and waned, with one camp arguing that it absolutely was, while the other argues the precise opposite.” “Mr. Vogler, himself a former...

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