Health policy and public health

4,357 articles · Since 2004

Articles, page 52

Patients vs. customers during COVID

September 20, 2020Sep 20, 2020

Somewhere in Wuhan, China, a bat was eaten — and the world as we knew it was over. (Note to self: Never have your bat below medium, and avoid bat tartare like the plague.) Kids stayed home. So did their…

Somewhere in Wuhan, China, a bat was eaten — and the world as we knew it was over. (Note to self: Never have your bat below medium, and avoid bat tartare like the plague.)

Kids stayed home. So did their parents. They started talking to each other, instead of watching their phones while rushing from soccer games to ballet rehearsals via McDonald’s.

Sports got suspended, and millions of rabid sports fans remembered …

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Patients vs. customers during COVID

Health policy

The medical profession must address the injustices Black patients suffer

Angi Kang, MD, MPH

September 20, 2020Sep 20, 2020

Before he was another Black man shot by police, Jacob Blake could have been my patient. In Waterbury, Connecticut, where I practice as an internist, his shooting has left me to consider the health effects of the exposure of violence on his sons, who watched in horror from the back seat of the car as their father was shot eight times in the back by a white officer of the …

Health policy

42 ways to advance racial equity in academic medicine

Francisco A. Moreno, MD & Inginia Genao, MD & Jada Bussey-Jones, MD & Kimberly D. Manning, MD & Maria Maldonado, MD & Sylk Sotto, EdD, MPS, MBA

September 19, 2020Sep 19, 2020

Academic medicine generally encompasses a tripartite mission of research discovery, clinical innovation, and the next generation of physicians and scientists' education. It is the ethics and social justice principles, practices, policies, and innovation that advance research and education in the…

Academic medicine generally encompasses a tripartite mission of research discovery, clinical innovation, and the next generation of physicians and scientists’ education.

It is the ethics and social justice principles, practices, policies, and innovation that advance research and education in the health sciences, ultimately improving the health and well-being of all.

This is its socially responsible mission. Yet, it seems chief diversity officers, equity practitioners, and scholars everywhere have …

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Health policy

This is what a successful health care system looks like

Lillie Rosenthal, DO

September 18, 2020Sep 18, 2020

If a core goal of our nation is to have the healthiest population possible, then we need to rethink, regroup, and restore our commitment to health practices and processes that are aligned with this mission. We are currently investing our precious social and economic capital into a health care system that is wildly inefficient, too expensive, confusing, and failing most of us. As costs continue to spiral upward, the patient …

Health policy

Care is no longer personal. Care is political.

Eva Kittay, PhD

September 17, 2020Sep 17, 2020

Care. I do not believe we have ever heard more about care at a presidential nominating convention than in this year's Democrat convention. "Patriotism," "justice," "bravery," "strength"? For sure. But "care"? Scarcely a word. Yet we now hear that the…

Care.

I do not believe we have ever heard more about care at a presidential nominating convention than in this year’s Democrat convention. “Patriotism,” “justice,” “bravery,” “strength”? For sure. But “care”? Scarcely a word. Yet we now hear that the role of the president is to “care about and for the people” he governs.

Socrates spoke of the task of a ruler to care for his subjects as the shepherd who cares …

The Podcast by KevinMD

Is now the time for single payer? [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

September 16, 2020Sep 16, 2020

"Single payer is the solution. And the time for it is now. A single-payer system would guarantee health care coverage immediately to every American. So whether a loved one gets sick from COVID, has a heart attack, or gets in…

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“Single payer is the solution. And the time for it is now.

A single-payer system would guarantee health care coverage immediately to every American. So whether a loved one gets sick from COVID, has a heart attack, or gets in a car accident, she will receive the care she needs without it causing financial hardship.

A single-payer system will eliminate employer health insurance …

Health policy

Patients alone cannot combat high health care prices

Peter Ubel, MD

September 16, 2020Sep 16, 2020

After three months of physical therapy, her doctor told her that it was time to get an MRI. She had already paid off her annual deductible, meaning the imaging test would “only” cost her the $150 co-pay. An imaging center near where she worked charged $1,500 for the test. Just two miles away, another facility would have just charged only $900 for the same test. She arranged to go to …

Physician voices

The only way to save medicine, save our country, and to save ourselves is to pivot

Nicole M. King, MD

September 15, 2020Sep 15, 2020

A few months ago, I signed up for a virtual conference for women in medicine. It's a group of women, over 10,000 of us, who have watched me and supported me through the past two years of my career. Two…

A few months ago, I signed up for a virtual conference for women in medicine. It’s a group of women, over 10,000 of us, who have watched me and supported me through the past two years of my career. Two years of struggle. Two years of personal and professional pain. Two years of opportunity for growth, and two years of numerous setbacks that were only overcome with all of their …

Physician voices

What if health care went through a mindset shift?

Stephanie L. Kokseng, MD

September 13, 2020Sep 13, 2020

Very few people sit down and think about their mindset. And even fewer doctors or health care workers contemplate mindset. But if there were ever a time in human history to think about our minds and how we use them to process what is happening around us, it is now. As an unexpected gift from the pandemic, I was given months to take an inward look at my mindset and …

Health policy

Connecting health care, voting, and our communities

Vishnu Muppala & Yumiko Nakamura

September 13, 2020Sep 13, 2020

It has been eight years since I registered patients to vote in the Bronx. I remember the clinic, nestled in a busy commercial neighborhood with its modest windowfront facade. Inside, the flyer was posted everywhere. Among quilts of signs and reminders, it vied for attention with its large block letter logo, “I VOTE, I COUNT.” In the waiting room, our team approached patients to ask, “Are you registered to vote?”.

I …

Health policy

Why are so many community hospitals transferring children to larger facilities?

Christopher Johnson, MD

September 13, 2020Sep 13, 2020

A recent edition of Pediatrics has some disturbing research: “Trends in Capability of Hospitals to Provide Definitive Acute Care for Children: 2008 to 2016.” What the paper really does is document what many of us who work in referral hospitals have noted for some time: More and more community hospitals are transferring children who appear in their emergency departments to other, larger facilities instead of admitting them to …

Health policy

Analyzing the Biden health plan. Will it work?

Robert Laszewski

September 12, 2020Sep 12, 20203

If the Democrats capture the White House, keep the House, and take over the Senate, the Biden health care outline stands a good chance of being enacted. The Biden health care proposal directly takes on the big things that haven't…

If the Democrats capture the White House, keep the House, and take over the Senate, the Biden health care outline stands a good chance of being enacted.

The Biden health care proposal directly takes on the big things that haven’t worked in Obamacare.

Here are the things that are most broken in Obamacare:

The individual health insurance premiums and deductibles are, and have from the beginning of the program,

…

Health policy

It’s time to go all in on climate action

Vi Thuy Nguyen, MD

September 10, 2020Sep 10, 20206

I can’t sleep, or maybe it’s that I got up too early. It’s 3 a.m. and a good 1 to 2 hours before I usually get up. California is literally burning. We have no rain in sight. Colorado is burning as well, although they may have snow soon. Do you remember last year when Australia was up in flames and koalas were dying? Did you wonder what the Australians were …

The Podcast by KevinMD

Rural communities have unique vulnerabilities worsened by the pandemic [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

September 7, 2020Sep 7, 2020

"While Imperial County faces a confluence of vulnerabilities that have led to its susceptibility during COVID-19, it is not alone. Like an insidious undercurrent, these deficiencies are lurking in every region of the United States. Structural issues require structural solutions—to…

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“While Imperial County faces a confluence of vulnerabilities that have led to its susceptibility during COVID-19, it is not alone. Like an insidious undercurrent, these deficiencies are lurking in every region of the United States. Structural issues require structural solutions—to effectively contain COVID-19, our local, state, and federal leaders must address these underlying faults in the foundation of the systems which …

Health policy

Why doctors should be trained to speak out and lead the movement for social justice

Teshamae Monteith, MD

September 7, 2020Sep 7, 20203

Dr. Anthony Fauci, National Institute of Health Director of Allergy and Infectious Disease and White House Coronavirus Task Force member, recently underwent surgery to remove a vocal cord polyp. This is not surprising given that a major risk factor for developing vocal cord polyps is overuse of the voice, something Fauci has likely experienced during the COVID19 pandemic as he has been called upon to speak …

Physician voices

Accountability on the frontlines

Camille C. Imbo, MD

September 5, 2020Sep 5, 2020

Depending on our unique perspective, we’ve each digested everything that’s happened this year our own way. My perspective is of a Black, female physician (the mighty 2 percent) – among other things. Those three descriptors have put me in the middle of the two main headlines of 2020: COVID and the Black Lives Matter movement. To most, these two are seemingly mutually exclusive issues our country is entangled in. I, …

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Accountability on the frontlines

Health policy

How I was wrong about health care

Robert Yoho, MD

September 5, 2020Sep 5, 2020

An excerpt from Butchered by “Healthcare”: What to Do About Doctors, Big Pharma, and Corrupt Government Ruining Your Health and Medical Care. Doctors help patients, and they love us for it. We fix bones, replace joints, cure killer infections, and…

An excerpt from Butchered by “Healthcare”: What to Do About Doctors, Big Pharma, and Corrupt Government Ruining Your Health and Medical Care.

Doctors help patients, and they love us for it. We fix bones, replace joints, cure killer infections, and control diabetes with insulin. We use painless scans for diagnosis. Liver, kidney, and heart transplants are now routine. Some patients get cured of lymphomas, leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, …

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How I was wrong about health care

The Podcast by KevinMD

Blowing the whistle on health care fraud [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

September 3, 2020Sep 3, 20202

"Fraud in the health care industry is a fact of life. In 2016 alone, the federal government estimated that improper payments by Medicare and Medicaid totaled about $95 billion. And that’s only a single year’s amount for just two of…

Listen on Apple Podcasts · Spotify

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“Fraud in the health care industry is a fact of life. In 2016 alone, the federal government estimated that improper payments by Medicare and Medicaid totaled about $95 billion. And that’s only a single year’s amount for just two of the government’s many health care programs. With an aging population, increased health care spending, the passage of the CARES Act, and …

Health policy

What we can learn from England about universal health care

Naveen Kumar Reddy, MD

August 30, 2020Aug 30, 20205

It's winter in Oxford, and I'm biking to the John Radcliffe Hospital, the flagship medical center of England's National Health Service. It's raining, and the chain on my bike keeps slipping off the gear. "Figures -- I shouldn't have bought…

It’s winter in Oxford, and I’m biking to the John Radcliffe Hospital, the flagship medical center of England’s National Health Service. It’s raining, and the chain on my bike keeps slipping off the gear. “Figures — I shouldn’t have bought a bike from an antique shop.” Back in December, my school had offered to send me across the pond to immerse myself in the British health care system. Seeing as …

Drugs and prescribing

Why is the government so scared of directly negotiating drug prices?

Robert Laszewski

August 29, 2020Aug 29, 20206

President Trump recently signed two executive orders directly related to prescription drug prices in the U.S. One order would allow the "reimportation" of prescription drugs from Canada. This longstanding idea would allow U.S. pharmacies and drug wholesalers the ability to…

President Trump recently signed two executive orders directly related to prescription drug prices in the U.S.

One order would allow the “reimportation” of prescription drugs from Canada. This longstanding idea would allow U.S. pharmacies and drug wholesalers the ability to pay generally much lower prices for their prescription drugs by getting them from Canadian suppliers who benefit from government management of the system. Many consumers have been buying direct from Canadian …

Health policy and public health

Articles, page 52

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