President Ronald Reagan was famous for espousing anti-government views. To this day, he is lionized by Republicans, who frequently quote his “less is more” attitudes towards government. Which makes it kind of ironic that when he was in office, Republican faith in government rose significantly. In fact, when you ask people whether they trust the…
The percent of Americans without health insurance has dropped precipitously in the last few years, thanks in large part to the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. This is especially true in those states that, in accordance with the law, expanded Medicaid eligibility. Here is a picture of some recent data: This is really good news,…
Karen Vogt’s breast cancer journey began like many others, with her breasts painfully squeezed into a mammography machine. At age 52, it was far from her first mammogram, but this scan would be the most consequential by far. It revealed microcalcifications, little areas of breast tissue speckled with deposits of calcium that her radiologist worried…
For more than half a century now, the United States has stood out among its peers in the developed world for having the largest percent of its citizens living without health insurance. But once you turn 65-years-old in America, the government has you covered. Right? Maybe not so much. Because even after people enroll in,…
None of us view our children objectively. To a parent, Junior is always smarter, more talented and more attractive than objective evidence would indicate. But look at just how skewed parents’ views of their children are, when it comes to deciding whether their children are overweight. Not until a child gets near the top three…
Back in June, I published a series of essays about efforts to fly people around the country to give them better access to life-saving organ transplants. For your convenience, I have pulled the three essays together into one PDF. As a teaser, I will remind you of the first few paragraphs of the essay. But…
Under the Affordable Care Act, the percent of Americans who lack any health insurance has declined significantly. Put another way – more Americans have health insurance than ever. But having insurance coverage is different than being well covered by insurance. Sometimes a person can enroll in a health insurance plan, and still face the kind of out-of-pocket…
Here’s a display from an elementary school science fair, cleverly showing how much sugar various beverages contain:
The FDA has proposed new labels on grocery store food products, that adjust serving sizes to more accurately capture what Americans eat. Research I conducted with Steven Dallas and Peggy Liu suggests these labels could be a problem. Here is a great media story on our findings: Last year, the Food and Drug Administration announced…
A while back, I wrote a piece on the problems caused when hospitals don’t coordinate care in a way that promotes patient sleep. Now Shefali Luthra, a reporter at Kaiser Health News, has written a great piece, delving deeper into this issue. Here is the beginning of that story: Hospitals are reviewing their patient-sleep policies and…