Is the VA the Key to Healthcare Reform?
To find out the answer to this question–ok, a partial answer–listen to my appearance on the NPR show The Takeaway. CLICK HERE.
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Follow-Up on My Stoplight Musings
ByadminRecently, I posed some thoughts about why the stoplight warning symbols about to be used for food products in United Kingdom might be misleading. A blogger at BigThink.com picked up on my train of thought. Here is her piece: Color-Coded Nutrition Facts May Confuse Rather Than Inform Consumers by Natalie Shoemaker The obesity epidemic is…
Simple Economics, Complicated Medicine
ByadminSeven days into the patient’s hospital stay, his doctors realized they had fought a losing battle. The patient, an overweight smoker with a touch of diabetes, had come to the emergency department with shortness of breath. After a series of tests in the emergency room, he was given a dose of antibiotics for possible pneumonia…
Will Consumers Be Able to Understand Health Exchanges
ByadminNow that states have decided what they are going to do about health insurance exchanges—those new shopping carts created by Obamacare to help consumers find health insurance who do not get it through their employers—the really tough part begins. State and federal governments need to make sure that consumers understand their health insurance choices. You…
Outpatient Spending Is Catching Up To Hospital Expenditures
ByadminFor decades now, policymakers have been trying to slow down the growth of healthcare costs. For much of this time, a large part of that effort was directed at hospital spending. American hospitals are extremely expensive, and take care of patients with the most severe illnesses. So if we’re going to control costs, it seems…
Insurance Woes
ByadminA great cartoon from the Kaiser Health News website that pithily captures the “wonders” of the American health insurance system. (Click here to view comments)
You Thought Innovation Was Hard, How about De-Innovation?
ByadminDavid Asch and I recently published an article in Health Affairs on the challenge of getting healthcare practitioners to stop doing things they are accustomed to doing, even when the evidence that those things are harmful becomes overwhelming. Here is a teaser from that article, and a link to the full piece: As hard as…