Many Americans are buying healthcare insurance that asks them to pay a lot, out-of-pocket, for the care they receive. It looks like that trend, towards higher expenses, is especially common among higher income folks, as shown by this picture courtesy of the Commonwealth Fund:
I got a really nice email the other day, from one of the provosts at my university. Here is the highlight: “During the 2015 fall semester, in the categories of Quality of Course and/or Intellectual Stimulation, your course evaluations were among the top 5% of all undergraduate instructors at Duke.” Which just leaves one question:…
Here is a figure reproduced in Fortune, showing that when researchers publish articles raising questions about the harms of salt, they cite other researchers who raised similar questions. By contrast, when they definitively argue in favor of the harms, they cite other definitive colleagues. Some of this makes scientific sense. If you show a particular…
Shutterstock The average life expectancy of American men is almost four years less than men in Switzerland. In fact, among 17 high income countries, U.S. men ranked 17th in life expectancy. American women die young, too, with a life expectancy five years less than the average Japanese woman. Why is American life expectancy so poor? In part,…
I post pretty regularly on out-of-pocket medical expenses, a topic I’ve been conducting research on, and one that will fit centrally into the new book I’m writing. Most often when people think about paying for medical care, they think about medications. But as this figure from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows, don’t forget about the…
Here’s a picture from @RAdamsDudleyMD, one that, sadly, is consistent with many previous studies. The US doesn’t measure up in giving people access to medical care.
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…