Health Care
Is Dr. Robert Jarvik Public Health Enemy Number 1?
There was quite an uproar when the politicians who decide what information Americans may or may not see attacked Pfizer for using a certain physician in its ad campaign for Lipitor, the popular anti-cholesterol pill. Remarkably, the spokesperson, Dr. Robert Jarvik, was the inventor of the first artificial heart. Apparently, …
Cost-Plus Medi-Cal Pricing in California’s Nursing Homes: What Were They Thinking?
Or, it might be more accurate to say, a deterioration in care, but I think there are other variables at work here that the research might not have analysed. The research in question is a 100-page study of the consequences of AB-1629, a 2004 California law that changed how Medi-Cal …
Why Consumer-Driven Health Care is Crashing on the Shoals of Medicare
Last month’s Medicare Trustees’ report confirms that Medicare is going bankrupt faster than Social Security, even though they serve the same population. Social Security subsidizes demand by seniors for all goods and services, whereas Medicare subsidizes the supply of health goods and services to seniors at fixed prices, which creates …
Re-opening a Community Hospital: Why Are Activists Still Blocking It?
Only one, small, for-profit hospital has stepped forward to take the risk of re-opening a Los Angeles County community hospital that had such an atrocious record that the County closed it last August. Recognizing its own incompetence, the County Board of Supervisors decided that the hospital should not re-open under …
Bay State model bodes ill for the nation
Sunday Republican (Springfield, MA), April 6, 2008 Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are creating quite a spectacle as they joust over the minutia of their respective health care plans in their attempts to secure the Democratic vote. To witness the real action in health care politics and policy – and …
Families USA’s Death Train Chugs Into California
I wish that I had the PR skills of Families USA. When I released the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, comparing government interference in health care across the land, I only did it once. Families USA has figured out that if it releases the same analysis for each state on …
There is good in drug advertising
There was quite an uproar when the politicians who decide what information Americans may or may not see attacked Pfizer for using a certain physician in its ad campaign for Lipitor, the popular anti-cholesterol pill. Remarkably, the spokesperson, Dr. Robert Jarvik, was the inventor of the first artificial heart. Apparently, …
The Beginning of the Longevity Revolution
At last week’s Aging in America conference in Washington, attendees were greeted with multiple displays of technology aiming to help older people live better. A technological divide exists between the “oldest old” and the “recently old” baby boomers, but technologies developed for both groups may also be able to help …
McCain’s health proposal aims to tackle costs
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Given the amount of attention focused on the differences between the Democratic presidential candidates’ health-care proposals, you might think presumed Republican nominee Sen. John McCain didn’t have one of his own. But he does. As Democratic senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spar over whose proposal …
Corruption & Waste in New Jersey’s State Health Plans
Back in September, President Bush held the line on Congressional Democrats’ (and many Republicans’) irresponsible plan to make more American kids dependent on government health care. Congress proposed to expand SCHIP (state government health insurance program) grants into the middle class, which drew a rare response of relative fiscal responsibility …
Is Dr. Robert Jarvik Public Health Enemy Number 1?
There was quite an uproar when the politicians who decide what information Americans may or may not see attacked Pfizer for using a certain physician in its ad campaign for Lipitor, the popular anti-cholesterol pill. Remarkably, the spokesperson, Dr. Robert Jarvik, was the inventor of the first artificial heart. Apparently, …
Cost-Plus Medi-Cal Pricing in California’s Nursing Homes: What Were They Thinking?
Or, it might be more accurate to say, a deterioration in care, but I think there are other variables at work here that the research might not have analysed. The research in question is a 100-page study of the consequences of AB-1629, a 2004 California law that changed how Medi-Cal …
Why Consumer-Driven Health Care is Crashing on the Shoals of Medicare
Last month’s Medicare Trustees’ report confirms that Medicare is going bankrupt faster than Social Security, even though they serve the same population. Social Security subsidizes demand by seniors for all goods and services, whereas Medicare subsidizes the supply of health goods and services to seniors at fixed prices, which creates …
Re-opening a Community Hospital: Why Are Activists Still Blocking It?
Only one, small, for-profit hospital has stepped forward to take the risk of re-opening a Los Angeles County community hospital that had such an atrocious record that the County closed it last August. Recognizing its own incompetence, the County Board of Supervisors decided that the hospital should not re-open under …
Bay State model bodes ill for the nation
Sunday Republican (Springfield, MA), April 6, 2008 Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are creating quite a spectacle as they joust over the minutia of their respective health care plans in their attempts to secure the Democratic vote. To witness the real action in health care politics and policy – and …
Families USA’s Death Train Chugs Into California
I wish that I had the PR skills of Families USA. When I released the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, comparing government interference in health care across the land, I only did it once. Families USA has figured out that if it releases the same analysis for each state on …
There is good in drug advertising
There was quite an uproar when the politicians who decide what information Americans may or may not see attacked Pfizer for using a certain physician in its ad campaign for Lipitor, the popular anti-cholesterol pill. Remarkably, the spokesperson, Dr. Robert Jarvik, was the inventor of the first artificial heart. Apparently, …
The Beginning of the Longevity Revolution
At last week’s Aging in America conference in Washington, attendees were greeted with multiple displays of technology aiming to help older people live better. A technological divide exists between the “oldest old” and the “recently old” baby boomers, but technologies developed for both groups may also be able to help …
McCain’s health proposal aims to tackle costs
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Given the amount of attention focused on the differences between the Democratic presidential candidates’ health-care proposals, you might think presumed Republican nominee Sen. John McCain didn’t have one of his own. But he does. As Democratic senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spar over whose proposal …
Corruption & Waste in New Jersey’s State Health Plans
Back in September, President Bush held the line on Congressional Democrats’ (and many Republicans’) irresponsible plan to make more American kids dependent on government health care. Congress proposed to expand SCHIP (state government health insurance program) grants into the middle class, which drew a rare response of relative fiscal responsibility …
