Medicare Costs - the Biggest Leadership Challenge

Today the Bush administration confirmed the prediction made one year ago: the Medicare hospital fund will be exhausted in 2019. The looming...

Patients, Social Networking, and Moral Complexity

While returning to Boston from New York on Amtrak yesterday, I read a fascinating New York Times article about an internet startup - "...

I'll be back on March 24

I will be in DC & NYC for the next 10 days. I look forward to posting again on Monday March 24. Best to all!

Elliot Spitzer, Health Care, and the Placebo Effect

The big topic of conversation today has been – “should Elliot Spitzer resign?” In principle I don’t think he should, any more than I thought...

Teaching Medical Ethics - (Individual Virtue and Organizational Integrity)

The topic for a recent class in the Harvard Medical School course on "Medical Ethics and Professionalism" was truth telling. (See ...

Lily-Livered Approaches to Health Care Cost Containment

In a recent JAMA article on the trade-off between cost and coverage, the always prescient Zeke Emanuel (my candidate for CMS director in th...