Category: health care

UCLA Med School Linked to Wrong Crowd?

LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik’s column today highlights a connection between Herbalight – a food supplements firm – and the UCLA med school. Herbalight is in the midst of a tug-of-war between some Wall Street interests.  One side claims that the firm is a Ponzi-type scheme whose stock will eventually come crashing down.  Yes, the word “Ponzi” appears in such claims.  Check out page 177 at this link:
http://factsaboutherbalife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Who-wants-to-be-a-Millionaire.pdf

The other side argues the company is legit and a good investment.

Excerpt: Herbalife International says it’s all about helping people “pursue healthy, active lives.” UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine likes to think of itself as being in the forefront of medical research and modern healthcare. But the curious relationship between these two supposed champions of healthful living should turn your stomach. Herbalife is the Los Angeles nutritional supplement firm that has become the centerpiece of a ferocious Wall Street tug of war. The major player is hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who contends that Herbalife is a scam to sell overpriced products by fooling people into becoming Herbalife “distributors” by implying the business will make them rich. He says he’s shorted $1 billion in Herbalife shares as a bet that the company is destined to collapse. On the other side are investors who either believe Herbalife will stay a highflier, or who just want to squeeze Ackman dry. (He’s not a popular chap.)

One of Ackman’s accusations against the company is that it exaggerates the scientific research behind its powders and pills. That’s where UCLA comes in, because Herbalife has exploited its “strong affiliation” with the medical school to give its products scientific credibility. Those words were uttered by Herbalife CEO Michael Johnson during a 2007 conference call. In fact, Johnson seldom lets an investor event pass without mentioning UCLA, specifically the Mark Hughes Cellular and Molecular Nutrition Lab at the medical school’s Center for Human Nutrition. Herbalife says it has contributed $1.5 million in cash, equipment and software to the lab since 2002. (The lab is named after Herbalife’s founder, who died in 2000 after a four-day drinking binge — not the greatest advertisement for healthful, active living.) …

Full column at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20130224,0,1163343.column

A Different Kind of Grade Inflation

From the Orange County Register: When Jose Carrillo went through medical school at Dartmouth College a decade ago, students would have thick books weighing down their white coats with reference information in case they needed it while making rounds… Today, Carrillo is helping third-year medical students understand neurology at UCI Medical Center in Orange… (L)oaded on the iPads in the pockets of the medical students’ coats is every textbook, note, flash card and question from their first two years of medical school – so much information that its equal in printed copies once covered entire tables. All that information sits on the iPad, along with an app that can access the electronic medical records of patients students interact with on their rounds, as well as the entirety of Web resources…

…(T)he medical school announced a 23 percent increase in scores, on average, on the initial test for a medical license taken by the first class to get iPads…

Full article at http://www.ocregister.com/articles/ipad-496247-medical-school.html

Issue of UC Health Cap for Students Heats Up

We noted in a prior post this past weekend that there is a cap on the dollar payouts for student health insurance at UC.  Major illnesses can cause students to hit the cap. Below is an excerpt from a San Francisco Chronicle article that seems to imply – but doesn’t quite say – that UC chose self-funding of the student health plan to avoid a ban on such caps in the Obama health plan: 
Health care limits like the one imposed by UC are already illegal under the sweeping federal health-care law – dubbed Obamacare – that takes full effect next Jan. 1. But the health care act does not apply to “self-funded” college plans like UC’s, in which the university takes on the financial risk of medical claims…

UC officials say they’re weighing their options but are hesitant to voluntarily lift the caps until they know what it would cost – and how much they’d have to raise the price of student health care to pay for it.  “It’s a front-burner issue,” said Peter Taylor, UC’s chief financial officer, who became aware of the problem last summer. “We’re not making a profit on (student health care) – but I can’t afford to lose money, either.” …

UC switched to a self-funded system in 2011, not long after the federal prohibition on coverage limits took effect in September 2010. Most of UC’s 10 campuses limit coverage to $400,000. Students at UCLA pay more for a $600,000 limit, while graduate students at UC San Diego pay even more for a $750,000 cap. Far lower caps exist for subsets of coverage, including prescriptions…
UPDATE: Inside Higher Ed has a report on self-funded university plans:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/31/us-says-self-funded-student-health-plans-meet-obamacare-threshold
[There is no mention in this article that there are plans afoot in Washington to require that such plans not have benefit caps.]

UC Student Medical Insurance Limits

From the Contra Costa Times:

UC Santa Cruz graduate student Micha Rahder suffers from a rare disorder that requires her to be hooked up to an IV over two days, five to eight hours at a time, every four weeks… In November, she got a letter from the university saying she had used $378,000 of the $400,000 lifetime limit for students on the University of California student health insurance plan (also known as UC SHIP), Radner said. In early January, a little more three years after her first treatment, she received another letter. “It comes from the Office of the President of the University of California and it says, ‘You’ve reached your lifetime maximum benefit. You’re no longer covered under the student insurance plan. Please be advised that all students at the UCs are required to have health insurance in order to be enrolled.’ And that’s all it says. That’s the last line,” said Rahder, who is studying for her doctoral degree in anthropology. 

Many students on the UC student health insurance plan don’t know there is a $10,000 a year cap on annual prescriptions and a $400,000 lifetime limit on all medical benefits…

Full story at http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_22453646/health-care-limits-leave-some-students-few-options

Regents Again Approve a UCLA Building Despite Cost Concerns

Blog readers will recall that at a prior Regents meeting, UCLA produced a very sketchy and high cost plan for a new medical building, a “teaching and learning center.”  The presentation was so sketchy and the costs were so worrisome for the Regents to ask for a revised plan.  At the Jan. 16 meeting of the Grounds and Building Committee, UCLA came back with a revised plan for a $104.7 million project – said to be significantly scaled back – with more details.

As with the earlier hotel project, UCLA apparently had offline meetings with Regents after the prior meeting (such discussions are referenced in the Jan. 16 proceedings) and persuaded them of the need for the building.  There was rather perfunctory questioning on Jan. 16 until Regent William De La Peña, an ophthalmologist, began raising issues again about cost.  He suggested that UCLA was excluding dollar costs from the total in calculating the dollar/square foot ratio and exaggerating the footage.  He argued that the comparable buildings cited for costs were built in good times and that nowadays construction firms would offer lower prices.  The idea that because donor dollars would be raised, the building was somehow freed from such cost worries was also viewed as a dubious proposition.

Yet at the end, the committee decided to approve the project with some vague understanding that despite the approval, UCLA would see if it could get lower bids or somehow lower the cost and tell the Regents about what it saved.  There was no suggestion that if cost savings were not found, the project would be unapproved.  

Once again, we have an example of costly projects being approved by Regents – despite reservations – because at the end of the day they have no independent oversight capability.  That lack is a general problem that goes beyond the UCLA hotel and medical projects.  As Regent De La Peña pointed out, if donor dollars were more efficiently used, more might be accomplished with them.

The UCLA medical project proposal is at: 
http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/jan13/gb4.pdf

You can hear the meeting at which the project was approved at:
 

  

Blogging Pause

The 1955 UCLA medical school graduating class

Yours truly normally posts on this blog daily.  However, on Monday, Jan. 14, he is having some surgery at UCLA for a non-life-threatening condition.  So blogging will halt for a period to be determined.  But there will be interesting things to watch out for this week including the Regents meetings at which Gov. Brown seems likely to participate.  We will eventually receive and post the audio of those meetings.

Promises, Promises on UC Retiree Health

Jim Chalfant pointed me to the item below about retirees at one of the labs (Livermore) suing UC for not providing what they view as promised retiree health care benefits.  They were given a right to sue – which is not the same thing as obtaining a final favorable decision – on appeal.  UC has generally taken the position that while earned pension benefits are a vested right, retiree health care is essentially something nice UC does but doesn’t have to do.   
There may be special circumstances in terms of what was said specifically to this group of employees.  However, the article suggests judges leaning to a more general commitment.  Legal beagles may want to look at the decision itself for which a link is provided below.  It cites both general assurances by UC to all employees in handbooks, etc., as well as statements specific to lab employees.
Retirees can sue Livermore lab over health care

Bob Egelko, January 2, 2013, San Francisco Chronicle

A state appeals court has revived a lawsuit by retired employees of the University of California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory over UC’s decision in 2008 to switch their health insurance to a private plan that covered less and cost more. The four retirees presented evidence that the university had promised them lifetime health coverage and can try to prove that the shift to a lesser plan was a breach of contract, the First District Court of San Francisco ruled Monday. The court reversed an Alameda County judge’s decision to dismiss the suit. Although they have not filed a class-action suit on behalf of all retired lab employees, Dov Grunschlag, a lawyer for the four retirees, predicted that their case would lead to reinstatement of all Livermore retirees’ UC health coverage… The university said it remains hopeful of winning when the case goes to trial.

The plaintiffs worked at Livermore for decades and had retired before 2007, when UC transferred management of the lab to a partnership called Lawrence Livermore National Security, which includes the university and private companies.  UC then terminated the retirees’ government-sponsored health insurance and assured them that they would receive equivalent coverage from the new managers. But the court said the new plan is inferior and more expensive. Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch dismissed the suit in May 2011, saying it was unclear that the university had ever promised the employees lifetime coverage – and that even if such a promise was made, it was not legally binding. But later last year, the state Supreme Court ruled in an Orange County case that public employees could rely on a government agency’s express or implied promise of future health benefits.

In this case, the appeals court cited such statements as an assurance in a 1979 UC retirement system handbook that employees with five years of service have “a non-forfeitable (vested) right to a retirement benefit” including university contributions. A number of UC publications “contain language that could be read as implying a commitment to provide these benefits throughout retirement,” said Presiding Justice Barbara Jones in the 3-0 ruling.
The full article is at http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Retirees-can-sue-Livermore-lab-over-health-care-4162589.php
 
The case decision is at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/A132778.PDF

You can also read it at:


A case of he said, she said?  We will see:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9sp3vGTm5k?feature=player_detailpage]

 

High at UCLA in 1963

In an interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air” program with Terry Gross, Dr. Oliver Sacks notes that he started experimenting with drugs that can induce hallucinations while doing his residency at UCLA:

…GROSS: What was the first time you tried a drug that induced perceptual distortions?

SACKS: I think it was in 1963, and I was in Los Angeles, at UCLA, doing a residency in neurology, but I was also much on the beach, on Venice Beach and Muscle Beach. And there, there was quite a drug culture, as there was also in Topanga Canyon, where I lived. And one day, someone offered me some pot. And I took two puffs from it, and I’d been looking at my hand for some reason, and the hand seemed to retreat from me but at the same time getting larger and larger until it became a sort of cosmic hand across the universe. And I found that astounding…

Full transcript – scroll down when you click on the link – is at http://m.npr.org/news/Arts+%26+Life/164360724

You can hear the broadcast at http://www.npr.org/2012/11/06/164360724/oliver-sacks-exploring-how-hallucinations-happen [UCLA reference is around 6:20 minute point]

The taking of drugs was definitely in the air in the early 1960s.  We don’t know if when he appeared at UCLA in 1960, Tom Lehrer (see below) sang his well known song, “The Old Dope Peddler.” But it is possible.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNWvdtt5sxs?feature=player_detailpage]

Good News Story About the Med Center at UCLA; Not So Good at UC-Davis

The web brings Good News about the UCLA med center in the form of a new transplant procedure:
http://www.smmirror.com/articles/Health/UCLA-Performs-First-Breathing-Lung-Transplant-In-United-States/36374
On the other hand, our friends at UC-Davis are getting anything but good news from the feds in a story that might make some folks there nostalgic for the days when all they had to worry about was pepper spraying:
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/23/5072625/evaluation-of-uc-davis-medical.html

Please Sir, Can I Have My Med School?

From the Riverside Press-Enterprise:

Only hours into the 2013-2014 session, a pair of new lawmakers from Riverside introduced a pair of virtually identical measures to annually appropriate $15 million to UC Riverside’s School of Medicine.  The bills are the first of their kind so early in a legislative year. Their authors, state Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, and Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, pledged to secure money for the medical school during their campaigns this year.
…University officials have tried since 2008 to secure ongoing state money for the school amid massive budget shortfalls. In 2011, officials postponed the school’s first freshman class because of the lack of state money, which at one point also jeopardized the medical school’s accreditation…  
UC officials are scheduled to meet with aides to Gov. Jerry Brown early next week to talk about budget issues, including the medical school, said Patrick Lenz, the university system’s vice president for budgets…
Riverside-area lawmakers, at that time Republicans, and UC officials, though, have come up empty the past two years in their attempts to get additional state money for the school. Those efforts came amid a partisan fight over Republicans’ refusal to support Brown’s proposal to put higher taxes on the ballot…
When you’re in need of your meds, it’s so hard to wait: