Patients, politicians, and regulators may find it tough to believe, so they need sharp periodic reminders: While there are many terrific, dedicated doctors working today, there also are some truly terrible ones. And dealing with the harms of medical malpractice by the incompetent and abusive can require courage and vigilance. Perhaps a new, streamed Hollywood….
Continue ReadingHealth Care Reform
Tens of millions keep Obamacare as justices toss a GOP suit for a third time
It’s three strikes now from the U.S. Supreme Court: Have Republicans finally gotten themselves thrown out of their game to strip tens of millions of Americans of their health insurance? The conservative-packed high court, in a 7-2 vote, rejected the latest and third GOP attempt to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans in Congress….
Continue ReadingNew health care leader looks to clean up the nursing home mess
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure has won U.S. Senate confirmation and will become the first black woman to lead the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services or CMS. The longtime government official, who was an adviser to President Obama and has served in multiple other top federal roles (shown right, with her boss, Health and Human Services….
Continue ReadingBig Pharma, battling over sky-high prices, called out on big fib on R&D costs
With malpractice claims constrained, injured Florida kids and families struggle
When doctors, hospitals, and insurers bellyache about malpractice claims with little evidence on their prevalence or outcomes, patients and politicians should push back: And they can cite the nightmares people in grievous circumstance have suffered when their constitutional right to seek justice in civil lawsuits gets stripped away. The Miami Herald and ProPublica, the Pulitzer….
Continue ReadingRacism? CDC calls it a threat. Prominent doctors need a kick to recognize it.
While the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declared racism a serious threat to the nation’s health, establishment medicine finds itself mired in an angry scandal over doctors’ inability to recognize the term, much less its existence, or its considerable harms. An uproar at a leading medical journal might seem a tempest in….
Continue ReadingCan U.S. billions keep seniors at home and out of problem nursing homes?
As the coronavirus pandemic’s most catastrophic effects recede in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, notably due to vaccinations and other public health measures, residents and their loved ones still face costly, confounding issues in safeguarding the aged, sick, and injured. The Biden Administration wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to help…..
Continue ReadingBiden extends special sign-up period for Obamacare with increased subsidies
The Biden Administration has further expanded a special sign-up season for health insurance plans offered on Obamacare exchanges, giving consumers until Aug. 15 to enroll in coverage that also may be much cheaper. The newly confirmed Health and Human Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement: “Every American deserves access to quality, affordable health care….
Continue Reading$1.9-trillion Biden law takes major steps to reshape U.S. health and health care
The Biden Administration’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus pandemic relief law, called the American Rescue Plan, tackles one of the leading concerns expressed by American voters in repeated recent political campaigns: our health and health care. Foes have denounced it as wasteful and unfocused. But it arguably offers common sense federal responses to the worst public health catastrophe in a….
Continue ReadingInsurers and employers could save $352 billion if hospitals stuck to Medicare rates
Who wouldn’t want $352 billion in health care savings in 2021? Insurers — and more importantly employers — could see that hypothetical big chunk of change staying in their pockets, if somehow they could persuade hospitals to forgo their sky-high and ever-increasing prices, tying those charges instead to rates established and paid in the federal….
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