According to figures from the Kaiser Family Foundation, one of the best sources of reliable health policy information, the majority of Americans will have to exhaust all their “liquid assets” to cover medical expenses, if they reach the maximum out-of-pocket costs allowed by their health insurance.
The moral of this story is simple: stay healthy!
Dr. Smith Townsend knelt on the filthy train station floor, the patient lying in front of him with a bullet wound in his back. The patient was clinically stable for the moment, so Townsend turned his attention to the wound, convinced a quick removal of the bullet would offer his patient the best chance of…
If you eat lots of meat, then you are contributing to global warming. Animals like cows require lots of grain, and they emit lots of methane; therefore, demand for hamburger increases CO2 emissions. Here’s a picture from the Washington Post illustrating how much we can reduce emissions by changing our diets:
Here is an article in the Duke University student newspaper, summarizing a public forum I led last night. Really nice summary—almost makes me sound coherent! In the midst of an ongoing debate about the future of the nation’s health care system, Duke professor Peter Ubel discussed the limitations of the current system and encouraged bipartisan solutions at a…
It is well known that Medicare expenditures threaten the financial solvency of the U.S. government. And it is pretty well agreed upon that some of our Medicare spending goes towards wasteful medical care. But which medical care is wasteful and how much is such care costing us? A study in JAMA Internal Medicine provides a…
The other day I posted a picture on job growth in the United States, in healthcare versus other parts of the economy. It showed that most growth was healthcare related. Well here is another picture, from the Wall Street Journal, showing just how the U.S. economy has changed, and how much healthcare has come to…
I’m back to blogging again, and thought I’d return to a topic I have blogged about recently: expanding the role of non-physicians in primary care. A very talented journalist in North Carolina, Jason deBruyn, wrote a nice piece which I am indenting below, laying out some of the controversies. Debate settles in on costs versus…