Why people hate health reform
Here is a link to an Op-Ed I wrote with two colleagues at Duke, in which we provide a novel explanation for why so many Americans hate Obamacare.
Here is a link to an Op-Ed I wrote with two colleagues at Duke, in which we provide a novel explanation for why so many Americans hate Obamacare.
Physicians have been, at best, slow to adopt electronic medical records. But who can blame them? These computerized systems often cost lots of money, and force physicians to spend gobs of valuable time learning a new way to track how they care for patients. On the other hand, we would all be better off if…
On November 23, 1973, Dennis Weaver read a disturbing article in his Atlanta newspaper. Two men were found dead in a ditch along the very same highway where he had been hitchhiking the day before. Even more disturbingly, Weaver recognized that these were the very same men who had picked him up. Weaver called the…
Students at Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill just put together a very thoughtful proposal on how the state of North Carolina could expand its Medicaid program, while still promoting the private insurance market. Here’s a link to a wonderful story, that highlights their efforts and shows, I think convincingly, that the students are taking…
Once again, lots of reports in the news about crazy variation in hospital prices in the United States, with thousands or tens of thousands of dollars difference in the price of services from one hospital to its neighbor across the street. Marketplace did a nice report on this issue recently, including an interview with yours…
As part of the Duke undergraduate course I teach on health care policy, I recently prepared a lecture on Bill Clinton’s ultimately futile efforts to reform the US health care system early in his first term of office, back in 1993. This preparation gave me an excuse to read Theda Skocpol’s wonderful book, Boomerang.
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Recently, I wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Timescalling upon physicians to discuss out-of-pocket costs with their patients before making medical decisions, and urging patients to take matters into their own hands if their physicians fail to initiate such conversations. This Op-Ed closely mirrored an argument I made in the New England Journal of Medicine with my colleagues Yousuf Zafar and Amy…