“In the next few weeks Congress will decide whether to cut $54 billion in overpayments to Medicare insurers, igniting a battle that may well determine whether the program survives. On one side are Medicare supporters, who want it to continue as a successful social insurance program. On the other is the insurance industry, which is […]
“There is no need to wait until a new president is elected next year for the great national healthcare debate. It is underway right now, disguised as a routine extension of an immensely popular, non-controversial 10-year-old program of providing coverage to poor children. In fact, this proposal is the thin edge of the wedge to […]
“For some patients, the repeated out-of-pocket medical expenses associated with treating their chronic conditions are too much financial pressure, and they are forced to choose between buying critical medication or paying for other needs like groceries or electricity. These tough choices are not new to many Americans: according to a recent WageWorks study, even working […]
“The U.S. government now pays for and controls half of the healthcare in America. That is up from less than 10 percent forty years ago. Government spending on healthcare has increased at a rapid rate as its share of healthcare has increased…. During a recent interview, a talk radio host told me that all private […]
“GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s experimental vaccine Cervarix has proved more than 90 percent effective in preventing precancerous lesions due to two types of a virus responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. Interim results from the biggest cervical cancer vaccine trial to date, published on Thursday in the Lancet medical journal, confirm previous promising data. Cervarix is […]
“As the national debate rages over how to fix the country’s broken healthcare system — with 2008 presidential candidates offering up their solutions and Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko opening Friday — San Francisco will become the first city in the country to actually try to solve the problem itself. Starting Monday, the city will roll […]
“The good news: Arizona patients no longer top the nation when it comes to how long they spend in the emergency room. The bad news: The average visit to an Arizona emergency room takes 5 hours and 37 minutes. That’s according to a study released Wednesday by Press Gainey Associates Inc., which asked patients to […]
“A new study links small doses of the popular artificial sweetener aspartame to leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer in rats. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said it will review the data, but will not rush to judgment on the sweetener, which can be found in the sugar substitutes Equal and NutraSweet, as well […]
“As states begin to require that drug companies disclose their payments to doctors for lectures and other services, a pattern has emerged: psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty. How this money may be influencing psychiatrists and other doctors has become one of the most contentious issues in health […]
“U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings on Wednesday proposed ‘a more nuanced’ way of evaluating schools under President Bush’s No Child Left Behind school reform law — one that would differentiate between schools that are close to meeting state math, reading and science standards and those that are ‘chronic, chronic underperformers.’ Under the proposed change, public […]
