David Blumenthal and colleagues recently wrote a wonderful piece in the New England Journal on the future of Medicare. In it, they present a powerful picture comparing how often people in 11 countries have difficulty accessing medical care because of costs. The good news? The USA came in first place. The bad news? First is…
I post pretty regularly on out-of-pocket medical expenses, a topic I’ve been conducting research on, and one that will fit centrally into the new book I’m writing. Most often when people think about paying for medical care, they think about medications. But as this figure from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows, don’t forget about the…
Among people receiving hospice care, the last few days of life can be intense, with progression of pain or breathing problems or other symptoms of their terminal illnesses. For those who die on Sundays, that means they are less likely to see doctors or nurses in the last days of life:
The United States far outspends peer countries on healthcare. When American politicians complain about these high healthcare costs, they often vilify pharmaceutical and insurance companies for profiting at the expense of the general public. As I wrote earlier, such vilification is misguided, pushing too much of the blame on individual actors rather than on the…
The Duke Alumni Magazine just published a Q & A about my new book, Sick to Debt. Here was the picture accompanying that article. Y’all agree that this should have been the “author photo” on the back cover? Link to the Q & A
Despite passionate warnings that the Affordable Care Act would demolish the American economy, things haven’t exactly turned out that way. Here is evidence Dan Diamond circulated a while back. Dan is someone I suggest you follow on Twitter if you want more pictures like these: