Health policy and public health

4,357 articles · Since 2004

Articles, page 65

How vaping bans create a vaping electorate

October 16, 2019Oct 16, 20192

Vapers across the country are swarming Twitter, the White House comment line and statehouse steps with the message “We Vape, We Vote.” They’re speaking out after a slew of attacks on their way of life. President Donald Trump announced his…

Vapers across the country are swarming Twitter, the White House comment line and statehouse steps with the message “We Vape, We Vote.”

They’re speaking out after a slew of attacks on their way of life. President Donald Trump announced his support for a vaping flavor ban in September. Some states temporarily banned the sales of vaping tools or flavors. And the Centers for Disease …

Physician voices

Too few minorities become physicians. Why is that?

Linda Girgis, MD

October 15, 2019Oct 15, 20198

On Twitter recently, I saw a tweet that commented on the fact that there were too few black men who became doctors. I readily confess that I don’t know the reason why. I asked whether it is due to implicit bias or outright racism. Another doctor answered that both play a role. Although I have witnessed acts of racism and bias in the past, I can’t say I understand it …

Health policy

Why Medicare for all is not going to happen in America

Margalit Gur-Arie

October 14, 2019Oct 14, 201933

I am going to make a prediction here. No matter who we elect in 2020, Bernie or Trump or anything in between, Medicare for all is not going to happen in America. One can run an electrifying campaign on the promise of Medicare for all, or indignantly against it, but this is pure theater on both sides. I don’t know if God can make a rock so big and heavy …

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Conditions and diseases

Save health care by saving kids

H. Robert Cannon

October 14, 2019Oct 14, 2019

My wife is a teacher. Her passion is helping the Bart Simpsons of the education system. This past year the school district in the rural area where we live tasked her with the job of opening the community’s first alternative…

Imagine taking 60 of some of the hardest kids in the area and creating a school just for them, so they have an opportunity to feel success, thrive, and …

Read more…

Save health care by saving kids

Medical education

These medical students signed up for rural medicine. What happened to them?

Lauren Weber

October 12, 2019Oct 12, 20193

The University of Kansas School of Medicine-Salina opened in 2011 — a one-building campus in the heart of wheat country dedicated to producing the rural doctors the country needs. Now, eight years later, the school’s first graduates are settling into…

The University of Kansas School of Medicine-Salina opened in 2011 — a one-building campus in the heart of wheat country dedicated to producing the rural doctors the country needs.

Now, eight years later, the school’s first graduates are settling into their chosen practices — and locales. And those choices are cause for both hope and despair.

Of the eight graduates, just three chose to go where the shortages are most evident. Two …

Physician voices

3 ways to win back the public’s trust in medicine

Rick Pescatore, DO

October 11, 2019Oct 11, 2019

The United States is currently facing the largest measles outbreak in three decades, with more than 1,200 cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control. The spread of that disease is a mere symptom of one of the most dangerous…

Social media transformed the information age, kicking it into overdrive. Now everyone has a platform to push natural remedy products or cast doubt on pharmaceuticals and …

Health policy

The ideal health system lies between the two extremes

Suneel Dhand, MD

October 10, 2019Oct 10, 20195

Admittedly, my views on funding health care have done a 180 since I left medical school. I grew up and went to university in the United Kingdom, which famously has one of the most heavily centralized socialized systems anywhere in the world. Born out of the ruins of World War 2, the core concept of the National Health Service (NHS) is to provide equitable care to the entire population, which …

Health policy

Why hospitals are getting into the housing business

Markian Hawryluk

October 10, 2019Oct 10, 2019

One patient at Denver Health, the city’s largest safety-net hospital, occupied a bed for more than four years — a hospital record of 1,558 days. Another admitted for a hard-to-treat bacterial infection needed eight weeks of at-home IV antibiotics, but…

One patient at Denver Health, the city’s largest safety-net hospital, occupied a bed for more than four years — a hospital record of 1,558 days.

Another admitted for a hard-to-treat bacterial infection needed eight weeks of at-home IV antibiotics, but had no home.

A third, with dementia, came to the hospital after being released from the Denver County Jail. His family refused to take him back.

In the first half of this year …

Physician voices

It’s time for women in medicine to get their moonshot

Sheila Dugan, MD & Shikha Jain, MD

October 5, 2019Oct 5, 20197

This year, the world reflected on the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 mission to the moon. The achievement was extraordinary for many reasons, not the least of which was the sheer tenacity and imagination required for thousands of scientists, researchers, dreamers, and doers to roll up their sleeves and accomplish what seemed impossible. Whatever doubts may have existed — and surely, there were setbacks …

Health policy

How non-physician practitioners are pawns of large health care organizations

Anonymous

October 5, 2019Oct 5, 20194

During our family trip to Walt Disney World this past year, we got the Disney Dining Plan. It turned out to be a lot of food. On the last day of the trip, we each still had two sit-down meals…

During our family trip to Walt Disney World this past year, we got the Disney Dining Plan. It turned out to be a lot of food. On the last day of the trip, we each still had two sit-down meals and about five snacks apiece to go through. Needless to say, we ended up leaving with a bunch of soda and cheap candy and still felt sick from all the …

Health policy

The public charge rule crosses the line, and doctors need to push back

Susannah Hills, MD

October 4, 2019Oct 4, 20196

An impossible choice: your child’s health or your child’s future. This is the choice being posed to immigrant families with the proposed changes to the public charge rule. These changes would make those using government aid -- such as food…

An impossible choice: your child’s health or your child’s future.

This is the choice being posed to immigrant families with the proposed changes to the public charge rule. These changes would make those using government aid — such as food stamps, housing assistance, or Medicaid — less likely to be granted a green card. Under this rule, immigrant families will need to decide whether to choose health care coverage over …

Health policy

If you build a budget, hospitals will adapt

Peter Ubel, MD

September 30, 2019Sep 30, 20192

U.S. health care spending is maddeningly high. As in fifty percent higher than what other wealthy countries spend, with no evidence we’re getting any bang for all those additional health care bucks. In 2014, the state of Maryland took direct…

In 2014, the state of Maryland took direct aim at this profitless profligacy, enacting a bold (dare I say European?) approach: It gave hospitals fixed budgets to cover the costs not only of inpatient hospital care, but also outpatient care …

Health policy

Medical schools need to produce more clinician-activists to help drive social change

Elizabeth Métraux

September 30, 2019Sep 30, 20193

For hundreds of years, health care providers have been on the front lines of social change. Think Margaret Sanger, a nurse who championed women’s rights and started the organization that later became Planned Parenthood, or Max Recamier, one of the…

Health policy

Don’t underestimate the appeal of a Trump “health plan”

Bob Doherty

September 28, 2019Sep 28, 20193

As the Democratic candidates for president continue to beat up each other on how best to achieve universal coverage (Medicare for all, a public option, closing the ACA’s coverage gaps), health care journalists keep wondering when President Trump will release his long-promised “phenomenal” plan to position the GOP as “the party of health care” for the 2020 election.

Skepticism is warranted over when or even if …

Drugs and prescribing

It’s time for presidential candidates to debate the safety of pharmaceutical products

Steven Reznick, MD

September 28, 2019Sep 28, 20194

I watched all three presidential debates this summer with health care being a time-consuming topic for all. Universal health care and Medicare for all, with or without an option for private insurance, were debated and discussed at length. At the…

At the same time, NBC Nightly News presented a story documenting that all our antibiotics come from production in China. With globalization policies, which promote moving production to lower-cost overseas factories, there is …

Health policy

Black market pharmaceuticals target immigrants

John M. Glionna

September 25, 2019Sep 25, 2019

The bootleg medications were smuggled across the border and sold to mostly Latino immigrants in public spaces throughout Los Angeles — at swap meets, parks, beauty salons and makeshift stands outside mom-and-pop grocery stores. The drugs were cheap, and the…

The drugs were cheap, and the customers — mostly from Mexico and Central America — did not need prescriptions to buy them. Some of the products featured brand names and colorful packaging that immigrants knew well from …

Physician voices

In medicine, find the beauty in what is common

Andrew Ross, MD

September 25, 2019Sep 25, 20193

"The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely." - Osler, "Aequanimitas" Recently, my family and I were leaving a restaurant, and in so doing, we crossed a large parking lot filled with a seemingly endless…

“The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.”
– Osler, “Aequanimitas”

Recently, my family and I were leaving a restaurant, and in so doing, we crossed a large parking lot filled with a seemingly endless number of pebbles. My youngest daughter, whose hand I was holding, suddenly pulled away from me. I stopped short, about to reinforce with her the importance of holding hands in the parking …

Health policy

Your bone fracture, my cash flow: the consequences of private equity in health care

Michael L. Millenson

September 25, 2019Sep 25, 20195

A recent article in Modern Healthcare describes how private equity firms are starting to snatch up specialist physician groups that promise rich revenues, such as orthopedists, dermatologists, and ophthalmologists. Naturally, this is about adding value, not adding to bank accounts.…

Naturally, this is about adding value, not adding to bank accounts. Because whether it’s physicians or hospitals, health insurers or drug companies, no one in health care ever does anything except in the best interest of patients.

The Modern Healthcare …

Physician voices

How pneumatic tubes symbolizes our health system

Fred N. Pelzman, MD

September 24, 2019Sep 24, 2019

About once or twice a day, everyone on our hospital's computer network gets an emergency message that scrolls across the bottom of our screens, highlighted in the colors of danger and warning. They include things like a notification that a…

About once or twice a day, everyone on our hospital’s computer network gets an emergency message that scrolls across the bottom of our screens, highlighted in the colors of danger and warning.

They include things like a notification that a particular data system is down and that a backup on paper will have to be used for documentation, or the hospital …

Health policy

Let’s end surprise billing without a Trojan Horse

Damian Caraballo, MD

September 24, 2019Sep 24, 2019

With August recess at a close, Congress has yet to find a solution to end balance (or "surprise") billing, where patients are charged the remainder of their medical bill for out-of-network (OON) expenses not reimbursed by their health plan. About…

With August recess at a close, Congress has yet to find a solution to end balance (or “surprise”) billing, where patients are charged the remainder of their medical bill for out-of-network (OON) expenses not reimbursed by their health plan. About the only compromise for-profit health insurers, hospitals, and physician groups can agree on is that patients should be taken out of the middle, but they can’t agree on how.

Physician groups …

Health policy and public health

Articles, page 65

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