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“You can fool some of the people all of the time”
Senator Everett Dirksen, the highly regarded former Republican senator from Illinois, is supposed to have said during a speech arguing for restraints in spending: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money”. If Dirksen were alive today he would say the same thing but it would no longer be talk of billions as much as trillions. We have a budget that is out of control – just about everyone agrees on this – but that is where the agreement ceases. How to fix the problem is one that neither party can find common ground. Yesterday, I heard former Senator Alan Simpson – a Republican…
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Concierge Medicine – a passing fad or a growing trend?
There is a fascinating trend developing in the US – still in its infancy – but one that could see rapid growth. It has been labeled “concierge medicine” and is the result of a variety of factors: consumer demand, consumer frustration, financial incentives for physicians, the impact of managed care, reduced reimbursement and the shortage of good primary care physicians. Basically, the way it works is for patients interested in such an arrangement to pay their physician a retainer of say $1500 annually – in return for which, they get priority in being able to see their doctor usually the same day, ready phone access to the doctor directly and…