If only Dr. Marty Makary could be everybody’s doctor. He’s a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital and associate professor of Health Policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Unlike many of his fellow professionals, he’s vocal about the deficiencies in the delivery of health care, and openly discusses the problems of medical malpractice…..
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Arbitration Agreements: Bad for Consumers, Good for Nursing Homes
Last month, Kaiser Health News published a story about mandatory arbitration agreements in nursing home contracts. Such agreements are common when signing up for services such as credit cards and cell phones. Increasingly, medical consumers are asked to sign arbitration agreements at doctors’ appointments (see our post about binding arbitration ). Essentially, agreeing to arbitrate….
Continue ReadingThe Impossibility of Asking Patients to Control Health Care Spending
Health-care business writer Merrill Goozner recently analyzed a report from the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM). It showed that in 2009, half the U.S. population (150 million people) spent an average of $236 per person on health care, or $36 billion of the $1.3 trillion in personal health-care expenditures. Only 5 percent of….
Continue ReadingHealth Care Reform: New Coverage for Women
As of this month, an estimated 47 million women covered under a variety of health plans gain access to eight more preventive health-care services. We previewed this aspect of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last year. Of course, it’s not just women who are benefiting from the ACA-in the last couple of years, everyone has….
Continue ReadingSeniors Stop Taking Antidepressants When They Fall Into Medicare’s Donut Hole
The advent of Medicare’s Part D drug plan introduced everyone to the concept of the “donut hole.” That’s the point at which prescription drug coverage ceases for a period during which the plan member pays full price. The gap closes when the patient has spent a set amount for drugs, and subsidies resume. As reported….
Continue ReadingAMA Calls for Doctors to Consider Costs
One component of the changing U.S. medical industrial complex is a greater awareness on the part of physicians that superior health care isn’t only about science and practice management. It’s also about the efficient and fair delivery of medical care. There is, perhaps, no better example of this awareness than a recent report that issued….
Continue ReadingWhy the Broccoli Analogy Doesn’t Work
The legal attack on “Obamacare” — the Affordable Care Act — often asks the question: If the government can make you buy medical insurance, couldn’t it also make you buy broccoli? A lot of us chafe at this glib analogy, which masks the free rider problem with uninsured patients who drive up the costs of….
Continue ReadingSunshine Dims with Delay on Big Pharma Payment Reports to Docs
Here’s another arrow for the quiver of people exasperated with government. As part of its health-care reform, the Obama Administration proposed that drug companies be made to disclose payments they make to doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment. The rationale, as reported by The New York Times, was evidence that such payments can….
Continue ReadingGetting a Handle on High Deductible Insurance Plans
What with the uncertainty of the Obama Administration’s health-care reform and the increasing cost of medical care, few areas of U.S. commerce are as volatile as health insurance. But one segment of that industry is decidedly popular, although it’s fraught with “what-ifs.” In one year, between January 2010 and January 2011, high-deductible insurance plans grew….
Continue ReadingVenture Capital for Medicine Moves from Robots to Realism
In medicine, a culture shift may be underway in venture capital, which subsidizes the cutting-edge technology that keeps a culture moving forward. As reported by Kaiser Health News (KHN) in conjunction with NPR and KQED, for venture capitalists, the bloom is fading from expensive medical gee-whizzery. These days, such deep-pocketed supporters are more in favor….
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