We’re dizzily trying to keep track of all the ways that the new administration is defying the best hopes that it will pursue a health care policy that is fair, open, responsive, and based in evidence, research, and scientific expertise — not partisanship and knee-jerk. Compounding the confusion is that as soon as many of these….
Continue ReadingArchives for January 2017
Today is Last Chance for Many to Enroll in Health Insurance
But why bother? That’s what some might think even once they know that today, January 31, is the absolute final day they can enroll in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Yet even with an uncertain future for Obamacare, consumer advocates say the answer today is crystal clear: Yes, you should sign up. You….
Continue ReadingWhy you should care about radical Medicaid changes
Don’t tune out because conventional wisdom suggests it’s “just” a program for the poor. The partisans’ planned push for changes to Medicaid could have significant consequences for millions of Americans, many of them middle-class, older, disabled, and sick. The Medicaid changes, as various officials like counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, have described them without….
Continue ReadingGOP plans to repeal, replace Obamacare may divide nation in disturbing ways
Will the partisans who promised and now can’t deliver on a blitzkrieg to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, end up deeply dividing the country in even more disturbing ways? GOP leaders, after conceding that they cannot legislate their hoped-for Obamacare replacement until much later this year (reversing their pledge to do….
Continue ReadingSavvy consumers of health news must be skeptics with common sense
At one point, medical experts recommended that physicians aggressively treat patients 60 and older so the top number of their blood pressure readings ran as close as possible to 140. Maybe not so, anymore. For a while, physicians were told to treat patients so their “good cholesterol” increased significantly. But maybe this approach doesn’t protect….
Continue ReadingBig Pharma found to exploit ‘orphan’ drug law to jack up product prices
Big Pharma has ruthlessly exploited a well-intentioned measure that sought to provide medications to treat patients with rare diseases that might otherwise have been ignored. Drug companies, instead, have manipulated the 1983 Orphan Drug Act to create legally protected monopolies so they can gouge desperate patients with astronomically priced products that already were taken by….
Continue ReadingUncertainty rises about leadership in nation’s top health posts
Although attention has focused on the GOP-promised repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, other big changes also are afoot in the federal government that will have significant effects on health care in this country. There are appointments pending from President Trump at the federal Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease….
Continue ReadingRhetoric and reality: Will GOP strip up to 32 million of health insurance?
As partisans race to fulfill their seven-year political pledge to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, their rhetoric has collided with reality, posing huge questions as to how responsibly they will act in the days ahead in regard to Americans’ health. Curiously, the new president made no mention of health care in….
Continue ReadingBy 2020, will we get our health care at home, not at hospitals?
Dr. Bruce Leff explains why geriatric healthcare is best practiced out of the hospital It wasn’t that long ago — see those classic black-and-white movies — when hospitals commonly cared for many different kinds of patients in large open wards. Young volunteers, women known as “candy stripers,” could be seen rolling carts down the aisles between….
Continue ReadingWomen challenged by disparities in many parts of their health care
Modern medicine isn’t addressing women’s distinctive health care needs as optimally as needed, with research further showing it may be time to dial down expectations about breast cancer screening, while heightening physicians’ awareness and best practices in eliminating gender biases. Women also may want to keep close tabs on how changes with the Affordable Care….
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