Insurance Woes
A great cartoon from the Kaiser Health News website that pithily captures the “wonders” of the American health insurance system.

A great cartoon from the Kaiser Health News website that pithily captures the “wonders” of the American health insurance system.

The always informative Jonathan Cohn at the New Republic recently wrote about an opinion poll that seems to show significant support for at least one part of The Affordable Care Act. It showed a majority not only of Democrats and independents, but also Republicans, supporting Medicaid expansion: Only one problem with that finding. Ask the…
In a New England Journal of Medicine article from November 18, 2010, Zhang and colleagues map out rates of what are arguably inappropriate prescriptions. For instance this picture shows rates of high risk drugs in Medicare recipients, drugs like Valium (and its cousins) which are known to cause falls and other complications: This picture shows that WHERE…
As part of Obamacare, people are required to get health insurance or pay a penalty. That’s what’s known infamously as the individual mandate. But is the penalty too small to matter? For some people, the penalty might be as low as $95. Would anyone in their right mind, who is not otherwise inclined to buy…
It is well known that Medicare expenditures threaten the financial solvency of the U.S. government. And it is pretty well agreed upon that some of our Medicare spending goes towards wasteful medical care. But which medical care is wasteful and how much is such care costing us? A study in JAMA Internal Medicine provides a…
The United States Medicare program is forbidden, by law, from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies. This was part of a negotiation that was reached at the time that the government, under the leadership of George W. Bush, created Medicare Part D, to cover prescription benefits for Medicare recipients. The pharmaceutical industry was quite worried that government…
There’s lots to love about American healthcare. We have some of the best clinicians in the world, as evidenced by the huge number of people who come to the U.S. from other countries when they are sick. Yet the American people are less satisfied with their healthcare system than are citizens of the majority of…