Gerald Ashley (twitter handle @Gerald_Ashley) recently tweeted a photo of what was SUPPOSED to be a helpful nudge, reducing the odds that people would bump into each other going up and down the stairs. Can you see what might not be helpful here?
For my entire life, a half century and counting, healthcare spending in the U.S. has almost always risen faster than inflation. Sometimes it’s relatively slow, sometimes it’s relatively fast, but no matter the time, healthcare spending is climbing. Getting healthcare spending under control is really important for us to do if we hope to have…
Ken Mishark is a hospitalist at the Mayo Clinic who formerly served as a physician in the military. Early in his career, he interviewed for a job in the CIA. That experience might explain why he paid attention when the CIA declassified a manual it had developed on how to conduct “enhanced interrogations”. As he…
The COVID-19 virus is wreaking havoc on healthcare providers. Hospitals and outpatient practices are struggling from a combination of lost revenue, from people delaying or canceling appointments, and increased expenses, related to the measures they are taking to reduce the spread of the virus within healthcare settings. As always, when American healthcare providers are in…
When I graduated from college, I was chosen as one of the commencement speakers. In my speech, I pretended to be reading a letter I wrote to my father. My dad came to the graduation, completely unaware of my speech. When he heard me start reading the letter, he put his head in his hands…
Recently, pharmaceutical companies have been pricing many of their products at astounding values. A couple years ago, in fact, an amazing new hepatitis C drug came to market priced at about $90,000 per patient. But since that time, several other companies have come to market with competing products. That has brought the overall price of…
Recently, I showed some data illustrating the rapid growth in healthcare jobs in the United States, compared to jobs in other parts of the economy. Here’s a picture, courtesy of Dan Diamond, showing that this growth has not been steady. Instead, the growth of hospital jobs in the US stalled for a while, before taking…