It is not a mirror you can easily use when trimming your beard or flossing your teeth. Because if you face it and aren’t smiling, this is what you see: Nothing but an opaque, glass surface. That’s because the mirror, designed by Berk Ilhan, only becomes reflective when the person facing it smiles: Ilhan designed…
To my liberal friends, Donald Trump’s polices are a moral abomination (not to mention, his own personal behavior which, of course, I just mentioned). To my conservative friends, Donald Trump and his policies are, quite literally, a godsend (as the press secretary made clear). Flip the topic to Nancy Pelosi, and you’ll find a similar divide….
Want to go bankrupt from medical bills? You should move to the United States, where that fate is WAY more possible than in other wealthy countries: #WeNeedToFixThis
All the Republican health care bills that have so far failed to pass through Congress have tried to reduce Medicaid spending, by limiting the amount of federal money going to states to cover this population. That might be popular among some conservative voters, who think Medicaid is a handout to healthy but lazy young people…
Jill Ladkin was already having a terrible autumn. It began with a seizure that put her in the hospital with what seemed like scores of unfamiliar physicians attending to her state of health. The brain scan revealed a mass in the lining of her brain, a location usually signifying a benign tumor; but, given her seizure, the…
Cass Sunstein just posted a really nice write-up of the calorie count research I was lucky enough to conduct with Steven Dallas (now a law student at Duke) and Peggy Liu (a marketing Professor at University of Pittsburgh). Thought I’d give you a flavor of the write-up: A provision of the Affordable Care Act that…
Our Medical Decision Making Research Group is looking for an Associate in Research to join our team. Please see the job description below and the link to apply. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Associate in Research (RA) will support investigators on multiple research projects related to patient decision making and health communication. The RA will contribute to the…
I had the pleasure of recording a podcast organized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Avalere Health. Here is a link to the episode. You should also check out other episodes.
We have an epidemic of C-sections in the US, now accounting for almost 1 in 3 births. That represents a 50% increase since the mid-90s, despite all the advances we’ve seen in obstetrical care. Sometimes C-sections are critical to saving the life of either baby or mother. But C-sections are major surgical procedures, with commensurate risks….
In the U.S., we do a lousy job of paying for long-term care. We don’t help people cover the costs of nursing homes or home-health aids when they have chronic, life-threatening illnesses. As a result, more Americans die in the hospital than they would if we covered long-term care more generously. At least that’s the…