Healthcare

Less Is Often More

In the blame game of who is responsible for our broken healthcare system, society often sees the government and insurance companies as the institutions responsible for creating fragmentation and driving up health care costs.  While they certainly are part of the equation, we can also point the finger at a number of parties. Hospitals, the … Continue reading

Uncategorized

State of Emergency

A recently produced New York Times video documented the alarming day-to-day operations of an inner-city Oakland hospital emergency room. The un-narrated short film is a montage of clips of patients waiting in long lines to receive care and hospital employees juggling patients from bed to bed and directing ambulance and waiting room traffic. This hospital … Continue reading

Uncategorized

Once Again, Florida vs. US

Yesterday, the Department of Justice made clear its intentions to seek a court injunction against the State of Florida for its ‘purge’ of illegal voters on the state’s rolls. This is only the latest episode in a long-term struggle between the Florida State Department and various federal agencies to gain cooperation over determining voter citizenship … Continue reading

Healthcare

The Romney Medicare Plan

Medicare spending is out of control. A key reason is that the government is inefficiently shoving its clumsy hand across the program, demonstrating a failure to understand the power of the free market. When individuals feel an inaccurately small marginal cost for a good, they purchase too much of that good. Too much medical care? … Continue reading

Uncategorized

The Health of Nations

Children today are the next generation.  Unfortunately, 10% of preschoolers in the U.S. are carrying enough extra pounds on their little bodies to be classified as obese, with an additional 10% being overweight. How tragic that kids who barely have had a chance at life are already off to such a burdensome start and have a … Continue reading

Uncategorized

Just shopping around

Two recent headlines have created a political stir in the Republican party that has left more than the average voter scratching his head. The first was that the American Legislative Exchange Council and the CATO institute are actively discouraging republican state legislators from implementing health insurance exchanges as required by Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA). The … Continue reading

Uncategorized

Focus on the Exchanges

It is important in nearly any political argument to win both the battle of ideas and the battle of substance. In the recent debate over the Affordable Care Act, conservative opponents have done an excellent job of drawing attention to the individual mandate’s circumvention of our basic American liberty to use our resources how we … Continue reading

Healthcare

Super Crunching and Medical Care

Evidence Based Medicine is a simple concept: using evidence and data (on top of intuition) to help inform physicians regarding diagnostics and treatment. Why would any physician object to this practice? It’s not like the data will be taking over their minds, or forcing them to make decisions. Medical data will do what data always … Continue reading