A JAMA study shows how our diets have changed since 2000. The big winners?
Nuts
Whole grains
Whole fruits
The big losers?
Sugar sweetened beverages
Fruit juice
White potatoes
Maybe there’s hope for us after all?
Recently, I showed some data illustrating the rapid growth in healthcare jobs in the United States, compared to jobs in other parts of the economy. Here’s a picture, courtesy of Dan Diamond, showing that this growth has not been steady. Instead, the growth of hospital jobs in the US stalled for a while, before taking…
Obamacare dramatically reduced the number of people in United States who lack health insurance. Reduced as in: brought the proportion down to historical lows. Yet very few Americans knew this about the law, which is part of the reason why so many people didn’t like Obamacare. Here’s evidence to back up that connection, from the…
Even before Obamacare became the law of the land, the U.S. health care system was undergoing a dramatic transformation. Millions of people were shifting from generous health insurance plans to consumer-directed ones that pair low monthly premiums with high out-of-pocket costs. This shift has been encouraged by employers, eager to reduce the cost of employee…
Shutterstock As a primary care physician, I have counseled thousands of patients to get cancer screening—blood tests to look for prostate cancer, mammograms to detect impalpable breast cancers, and colonoscopies to find precancerous colon lesions. I’ve even tried to find cancers on physical exam, palpating people’s necks for thyroid growths, for example. The goal of…
Take 100 Americans who have used medical care this year, find the one who has receive the most medical care, and you have probably accounted for a fifth of all healthcare spending in that group. One person, 20% of spending – that is how skewed healthcare consumption is in this country. Here’s a picture, which…
And the problem is getting worse with time!