In a recent post, I give you a flavor for Rich Cohen’s wonderful book The Fish That Ate the Whale. One of the things that struck me in reading his book was the psychology of entrepreneurial success. It is often difficult to be a superstar entrepreneur if you are realistic. Often the biggest successes in…
In this video, I talk about why doctors should talk to patients about out-of-pocket costs when evaluating treatment options.
We have experienced an impressive slowdown in the growth of healthcare expenditures in recent years, a slowdown attributed in part to the plethora of important drugs which have gone generic in recent years. But state Medicaid programs, according to a recent study in Health Affairs, could have slowed healthcare costs even more, if they had been quicker to switch patients from trade to…
Speaking of time of day, here is George C. Marshall opining on originality: “No one ever had an original idea after 3 o’clock in the afternoon.” A totally false statement, of course. But I don’t think that was his point!
Pretty soon, people will be able to start shopping for health insurance on the infamous Obamacare exchanges. In North Carolina, one of the states asking the feds to take the lead in this effort, only one insurer is offering insurance coverage in every county of the state. That is Blue Cross Blue Shield, and they…
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…
The below post is a response to my article Death With Dignity Should Not Be Equated With Physician Assisted Suicide by Kathryn L. Tucker, JD. My own thoughts on her response are here. In a Forbes.com oped, “Death With Dignity Should Not Be Equated With Physician Assisted Suicide, Duke University physician Peter Ubel writes: “I think it is wrong-headed to…
Recently I had the pleasure of reading Rich Cohen’s wonderful book: The Fish That Ate the Whale – the Life and Times of America’s Banana King. The book tells the story of Samuel Zemurray, a true rags to riches story, a man who started by spending his entire life savings – all $150 – to…
A recent news article reported that a grocery store in Durham, North Carolina now offers healthy checkout aisles for people interested in minimizing temptation. Ring up your groceries in that aisle, and you won’t be surrounded by candy bars and bags of chips. On the other hand, I’m guessing you will still be surrounded by magazine…
Most people would say they would prefer to work in a job with interesting and fulfilling opportunities. But new research shows that people may pick a boring job over a stimulating one if they perceive they aren’t being paid enough for extra effort. Duke University Fuqua School of Business marketing professorPeter Ubel and David Comerford, an assistant professor at…