The potential costs of Tom Price as HHS secretary

Policy
December 27, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to “repeal and replace Obamacare.” A logical question is: With what? The announcement of Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga) as Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services provides some answers.

Unlike other Republican critics of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Price, an orthopedic surgeon, has offered many replacement plans of unmatched detail. His Empowering Patients First Act was 242 pages …

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The potential costs of Tom Price as HHS secretary

This election is focusing on the wrong health issues

Policy
October 19, 2016

For all the media’s (and candidates’) attention to candidate health over the course of this presidential campaign, we seem to be spending precious little time in the presidential debates discussing the candidates’ actual health plans.

Those on the left have “diagnosed” Mr. Trump as unhinged and mentally unstable, calling attention to a narcissistic personality consistent with a DSM diagnosis, though in violation of the “Goldwater Rule.” They have further raised the Read more…

This election is focusing on the wrong health issues

Insurance constraints drive shortcomings in health care delivery

Policy
August 5, 2016

It is no secret that mental health conditions are prevalent, and recent years have seen an increase in the dialogue on their causes and consequences. However, we do ourselves a disservice when discussing mental health outside the context of the broader system in which care is provided, and the insurance constraints that drive shortcomings in health care delivery.

SAMHSA estimated that 58 percent of adults have a medical …

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Insurance constraints drive shortcomings in health care delivery

Prescription drug savings: You have to know where to look

Meds
July 11, 2016

I don’t want to need it.

That is a thought that has been all too familiar to me when I venture on the patient side of health care, an industry that I study as a scholar as well with the distance of one investigating a foreign land in which they do not intend to become entrenched.

It is a thought that has been all too familiar as I see added to my …

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Prescription drug savings: You have to know where to look