http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/06/paging-dr-gawande-health-reform-matters.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:16:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/06/paging-dr-gawande-health-reform-matters.html/comment-page-1#comment-64242 Hola Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:10:28 +0000 http://www.concurringopinions.com/?p=17543#comment-64242 As a resident of McAllen, an attorney, and a privately-insured individual, I was intrigued by the article but found it less than reliable. It was consistently anecdotal, especially in terms of the author's efforts to explain the high-cost phenomenon, not to mention exaggerated and selective for the purpose of supporting his overall premise. (Sex for healthcare? Streets littered with healthcare providers pimping unnecessary expensive tests? Come on!) Despite running through a host of variables that might explain the higher costs (a very anecdotal exercise in the article), the author made no mention of the huge transitory population here of what is commonly referred to as "Winter Texans"---retirees from northern states who come down here from approximately October to March. Further, I am troubled by the author's reliance on the figures from Medicare and question how the figures were reached in the Medicare/Medicaid study from 2006 (e.g., do they account for the Winter Texans and the undocumented population in general, among other things). The author made no effort to explain the study's most basic methodology. The author held the figures out as completely reliable and pushed them as a representative proxy of health care expenses in this area (and the nation). Although it was an interesting article, it was more akin to an op-ed piece than neutral investigative journalism, let alone a reliable policy paper. As a resident of McAllen, an attorney, and a privately-insured individual, I was intrigued by the article but found it less than reliable. It was consistently anecdotal, especially in terms of the author’s efforts to explain the high-cost phenomenon, not to mention exaggerated and selective for the purpose of supporting his overall premise. (Sex for healthcare? Streets littered with healthcare providers pimping unnecessary expensive tests? Come on!) Despite running through a host of variables that might explain the higher costs (a very anecdotal exercise in the article), the author made no mention of the huge transitory population here of what is commonly referred to as “Winter Texans”—retirees from northern states who come down here from approximately October to March. Further, I am troubled by the author’s reliance on the figures from Medicare and question how the figures were reached in the Medicare/Medicaid study from 2006 (e.g., do they account for the Winter Texans and the undocumented population in general, among other things). The author made no effort to explain the study’s most basic methodology. The author held the figures out as completely reliable and pushed them as a representative proxy of health care expenses in this area (and the nation). Although it was an interesting article, it was more akin to an op-ed piece than neutral investigative journalism, let alone a reliable policy paper.

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