It's We, the Public, Who Are "Flip Floppers"
The failure of health care reform does not rest solely at the president’s feet. Instead, we, the general public, are also to blame…(Read the rest and view comments at Scientocracy)
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Should Chemotherapy Cost More on Hot Days?
ByadminIt was 93 degrees and humid. Jimmy Lawrence put his first five quarters into the vending machine and selected a Coke. The machine refused to give him his beverage. Because the temperature was more than 90 degrees, the computer program within the vending machine had raised the price to $1.50. Is that fair pricing? …(Read…
An Unhealthily Frightening Fiscal Future
ByadminA recent article in the New York Times, projects increasing problems with federal budget deficits over the next several decades, problems caused in no small part by the likelihood of increased health expenditures. More evidence of the importance of overcoming partisanship. Whether you are a liberal or conservative, you have to recognize that Medicare and…
A Tiny Fraction of People, a Huge Chunk of Medical Spending
ByadminAny effort to rein in health care costs needs to account for this graph, showing what percent of medical expenses attributed which group of patients. (Martin Gaynor posted this picture in a recent blog.) I use another version of this in my teaching: Either way, what we have here is an AMAZING concentration of spending….
Malpractice Claims Feel Endless Because…They Are!
ByadminI am very fortunate to have never been sued. That is not necessarily because of my amazing ability as a physician. I always practiced in Veterans Affairs medical centers, where my status as a federal employee meant I would not get sued by my patients. I also had an incredibly appreciative patient population. But I…
The Ulysses Strategy
ByadminAs the University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler tells the story, a group of fellow-graduate students in economics were at his house one night in the late nineteen-seventies, socializing before the dinner hour. Thaler saw how much they were snacking, and decided to remove the nut bowls from the living room. His colleagues—almost all of whom…
Big Data: Will It Work in Healthcare?
ByadminI was recently struck by two news headlines that hit my email inbox on the same day: “Most Doctors Don’t Meet U.S. Push for Electronic Records” and “Sebelius touts new emphasis on healthcare data“. Do you see the problem here? If we really want to leverage “big data” to improve health care, we need physicians…