The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines suicide as: “Death caused by self-directed injurious behavior with any intent to die as a result of the behavior .” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as: “the act or an instance of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally especially by a person of years of discretion and of…
David Asch and I recently published an article in Health Affairs on the challenge of getting healthcare practitioners to stop doing things they are accustomed to doing, even when the evidence that those things are harmful becomes overwhelming. Here is a teaser from that article, and a link to the full piece: As hard as…
All too often the most powerful illusions seduce us through truthful whisperings. Let’s start with an obvious truth: Living a long and happy life after a cancer diagnosis is better than living a short miserable one.
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Your father’s rheumatoid arthritis medicine was working well, fighting off that otherwise debilitating illness. Then he found out that Medicare would no longer pay for the drug. Your aunt’s multiple sclerosis was flaring and her neurologist recommended a promising new treatment. But she learned that she would have to try, and “fail,” on two other…
In 2008, the state legislature of Washington passed what was called the Death with Dignity Act, a law that legalized physician assisted suicide. Under the law, terminally ill patients (predicted to have less than six months to live) can request prescriptions for lethal medications from their physicians, under a series of safeguards: multiple requests for example,…
Obamacare gave employers permission to charge smokers up to 50% more for health insurance, as a way to incentivize healthier behavior. But to make sure smokers had a fair chance to avoid these penalties, the law required employers to provide tobacco cessation programs to anyone facing such a surcharge. Almost half of the companies who charge smokers…