As the coronavirus pandemic causes Americans sky-high anxiety about their health and how they might access and afford extensive medical treatment if infected, the nation slid with only modest public attention into the second decade of one of its landmark health care experiments — the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare became the law of the land….
Continue ReadingArchives for March 2020
As virus slams U.S., courage and valor are on display — but some not-so-great behavior too
As the Covid-19 pandemic slams the United States — with infections exceeding 100,000 and deaths spiking beyond 2,000 — the battle with the viral outbreak underscores the axiom that a crisis brings out true character, good and bad. Our highest praise continues to go out to first responders and medical personnel who have demonstrated huge courage….
Continue ReadingWith youngsters ages 10 to 14, a tragic and scary spike in suicides
While alarms have been raised about the nation’s ever-increasing numbers of suicides, mental health experts, educators, and medical researchers also are making urgent pleas for grownups to pay heightened attention to the spike in cases in which youngsters are taking their own lives. As the independent, nonprofit Kaiser Health News Service reported: “[S]uicide by children….
Continue ReadingFor 70+ women and their MDs, more reasons to rethink routine mammograms
As Americans live longer, clinicians may need to reconsider whether they need to subject older patients to routine screenings that may trigger even more costly, invasive, painful, and unnecessary medical testing and procedures. For women 70 and older, for example, yet more new evidence raises doubts about mammograms designed to detect breast cancers. As the….
Continue ReadingTrump storms into medical-ethics minefield by flogging drugs’ untested use
President Trump has stormed past accepted professional practices and triggered alarms about ethical decision making by caregivers, as he persists in his noisy advocacy for treating seriously ill patients with Covid-19 infections with an unproven pair of prescription drugs. Promoting this drug regimen — on social media and in White House news conferences — has….
Continue ReadingAs pandemic grips the globe, outbreaks, too, of ‘What were they thinking?’
Even as Covid-19 wreaked unprecedented harms, there also have been actions that might lead even the most jaded observer to cry out: What were these people thinking? The pandemic’s global toll has risen to hundreds of thousands of infections and thousands of deaths. The U.S. toll at the end of the third week in March,….
Continue ReadingAlcoholics Anonymous can benefit many with drinking problems, research finds
Although federal experts estimate that alcohol abuse leads to 88,000 Americans’ deaths annually and economic costs of almost $250 billion, one of the nation’s oldest and best-known programs to deal with this problematic behavior has long been surrounded by doubts. Critics have questioned its effectiveness, criticized its “irrationality,” and focused on its stepped regimen, desperate….
Continue ReadingDon’t fall for malpractice malarkey: A briefing details medicine’s many harms
Cold, hard facts — not hunches, arguments, or theories — matter most when tough health care decisions must be made. Americans have been reminded of this by painful headlines on the opioid and overdose crisis, the rise of lung injuries and deaths due to vaping, and, yes, now the rapid spread of a new coronavirus…..
Continue ReadingPatients get rule-making boost to access and use important medical records
The Trump Administration, to its credit, has put out finalized new rules that aim to give patients greater access to and use of their all-important medical records, now mostly captured and contained in electronic form. Federal officials had to battle a handful of wealthy, powerful corporations that own and install proprietary software and computing systems….
Continue ReadingLife grinds to a halt as Americans start to deal with gravity of Covid-19 spread
Across the nation, and throughout the DC region, Americans — finally — have started to come to grips with the gravity of a fast-spreading, new respiratory virus’ infections. The novel coronavirus has infected almost 150,000 internationally, killing thousands as part of what now is officially a global pandemic and a national emergency. Cases of Covid-19….
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