A JAMA study shows how our diets have changed since 2000. The big winners?
Nuts
Whole grains
Whole fruits
The big losers?
Sugar sweetened beverages
Fruit juice
White potatoes
Maybe there’s hope for us after all?
Sometimes it is hard for hospitals to provide expensive care to poor patients. When a low-income patient needs $20,000 of chemotherapy, a hospital loses money if that patient cannot pay for the medicine, or pays through Medicaid, with its relatively stingy reimbursement. Fortunately, the federal government created a program for hospitals that care for a…
She came to the urgent care center with a sprained ankle. The primary care provider gave her excellent care, expertly applying evidence-based evaluation guidelines to her situation, and, thereby, avoiding unnecessary x-rays. By all measures, the provider’s care was excellent, but the interaction still ended up reducing his salary. You see, that patient’s only medical…
I am currently on sabbatical (and enjoying some hiking in the Appalachian Mountains). Blog posts will resume in September!
Greedy pharma execs have been in the news of late. Here is a story on the topic, from Wired. The reporter misquotes me. I never said Apple could make profits selling iPhones for $10. I said that even if they could profit at that price, they’d be crazy to do so if people would…
Doctors who join up with hospitals or large healthcare organizations in anticipation that this will increase their incomes are misguided or ill informed.
Bret Stephens won a Pulitzer Prize for his foreign affairs column in the Wall Street Journal op-ed page. Only in his early 40s, Stephens can already boast of an enviable number of accomplishments. He has already been Editor-in-Chief of the Jerusalem Post. And he is now Deputy Editor at the Wall Street Journal, one of…