The future of health care in the United States cannot look good as long as we waste so much of what we spend. I have long cited studies showing that we waste 30%-40% of our health care dollar, and have long claimed that we could beat that and reduce our costs by 50%,...
Rural vs. urban? Or something deeper? A provision in the House health care reform bill (HR 3962) instructs the Institute of Medicine to take two years to look at why health care costs so much more in some areas than in others in the last two years of life –...
In trying to think about the future of health care, thoughtful, intelligent people often ask, “Why can’t we just let the free market operate in health care? That would drive down costs and drive up quality.” They point to the successes of competition in other...
When the terrorist attacks of 9/11 hit the United States, and suddenly we were plunged into war, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, I don’t remember anyone demanding that the wars be “deficit neutral.” No one talked about whether we could afford them. They were...
At this week’s Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco, we interviewed innovators in healthcare IT. Here’s the first interview, Dr. Lou Cornacchia, a neurosurgeon who has spent 5 years developing a fully integrated electronic medical record system for...
A reader asks: "If the current bill passes are my health insurance costs likely to go up, down, or remain about the same?"If the form that I believe most likely to pass actually passes (insurance reforms, individual mandate, weak or no public option or...
