Your Health ; In the News
; What an Outrage
Doctor Cranks Out the Prescriptions
A comic book may be just what the doctor ordered for making health care reform comprehensible to the
masses. ; Hill and Wang—a division of Farrar, Straus and
Giroux—releases Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s
Necessary, How It Works on Jan. 3. The text was written by
Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics professor Jonathan Gruber, who
prefers to call the 160-page project a “graphic novel.” ; Gruber, who played key roles
in creating Massachusetts’ health care reform effort and the federal Affordable Care
Act, was initially skeptical when asked to do the book. ; “I didn’t think of a graphic
novel as sort of a serious medium,” Gruber observes. But his misgivings evaporated
after speaking with his wife and a teenage son. ; Illustrated by Nathan Schreiber,
Health Care Reform opens by contrasting the financial ramifications experienced by
four characters who suffer heart attacks and possess varying levels of health insurance. ; “I published this book for anybody who says, ‘I don’t really understand and I
hear a whole lot of passionate opinions’” about federal health care reform, says Hill
and Wang publisher Thomas LeBien. —Blair S. Walker
Health Care
Reform, the
Comic Book
Paper Savings Bonds Go Extinct
As of Jan. 1, the Treasury Department is no longer issuing pa- per savings bonds, such as the Series EE, at banks. Rather, the
patriotic gift of choice is now available online exclusively. ; The
reason for the switch: cost. “It’s been coming
for a very long time,” says Mckayla Braden,
spokeswoman for the Bureau of the Public
Debt at the Treasury Department. “Savings
bonds are, in their paper form, an expensive
program.” ; By eliminating paper, the federal
government expects to save $70 million in
the first five years. ; For consumers, going digital will have at least
one benefit—no more worries about misplacing the certificates.
; To purchase electronic savings bonds, individuals must create an
account at TreasuryDirect.gov. —Michelle Diament
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For years, psychiatrist Huberto Merayo prescribed powerful drugs to thousands of
patients at his Coral Gables, Fla., practice. In 2009
alone, he doled out more than 7,500 prescriptions
to some 1,600 patients. And that cost taxpayers
big-time. ; That
year, Medicaid
paid more than
$1.9 million to
fill scripts for
antipsychotics
written by Merayo.
Over the last
three years, he
was earning more
than $100,000
in consulting and
speaking fees
from makers of
the drugs he was
prescribing, ac-
cording to a data-
base maintained
by the news orga-
nization ProPublica. ; But there’s little evidence
that all those prescriptions were needed. A review
conducted by Florida health officials last year
found cases where Merayo failed to document the
reasons he prescribed drugs to patients and indi-
cated that “90% of all recipients interviewed could
not produce their antipsychotic medications.” The
state terminated Merayo’s Medicaid license in June
2011. ; He could not be reached for comment.
; The situation is not unique, and it has legislators
concerned. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is considering “legislative proposals that would address
the inappropriate and excessive administration
of these dangerous [mental health] drugs,” says
spokeswoman Jill Kozeny. ; Meanwhile, Florida
officials caution that large volume does not always
suggest a problem. “Although a provider’s number
of prescriptions may be higher than other Medicaid
prescribers, that does not necessarily mean there
is anything improper regarding their prescribing,”
says Shelisha Coleman, a spokeswoman for the
Florida Medicaid program. —Michelle Diament
