Tragic Choices at Grady Hospital

On October 3, Grady Hospital in Atlanta closed its dialysis clinic. Grady committed itself to cover the cost of dialysis for three months fo...

The Ethics of Virtual Medical Visits

OptumHealth , a division of UnitedHealthGroup , will soon be offering a web-based platform for connecting patients and doctors by video. Whe...

Via Pollster.com , here are some interesting overview articles about health care polling, from Frank Newport of Gallup ( link ) and Bruce Dr...

Medical Culture and Costs at UCLA

An article about the cost of end-of-life care in this morning's New York Times focuses on the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. UCLA ha...

Political strategist Mark Mellman has produced a memo for Democratic party senators , summarizing polling results that he claims demonstrate...

Patient Safety, Ethics, and Psychiatry

This fall I was asked to discuss a case for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Mortality and Morbidity Rounds - a web-based pati...

Crunch Time in Health Care Reform

We're in the end game of health care reform. As I said in my last post , we're seeing real debate in the Senate, but - unfortunately...

How "P.O.'d" are Voters at the Dropping of the P.O.?

Early this week, word began filtering down from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) that all semblance of the public option (opt-out, t...

Empty Republican Rhetoric on Health Reform

I've just read " Health Care Reform - A Republican View ," by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, in today's online edition of th...

Facebook Friends, Judges, and Conflict of Interest

Florida's Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee was recently asked the following question: Whether a judge may add lawyers who may appear b...

Breaking Down Nov-Dec Decline in Support for HC Reform

As many observers have noted, support in public opinion polls for the overall health care reform bills before Congress has slipped several p...

Will Reducing Health Care Costs Kill Patients?

David Leonhardt, economics columnist for the New York Times, continues to do superb reporting and analysis of our health system. Print journ...

Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal has an essay today on the recent decline in support for general health care reform, with a focus on the ...

Problems for Medicine as a Self-Regulating Profession

Professions are occupations that society believes (a) serve vital human needs, (b) require a high level of knowledge, judgment and skill, (c...

A component of the latest Senate proposal to expand health insurance coverage is to let 55-64 year-olds purchase a policy under Medicare , ...

Massachusetts Association of Health Plans Ethics Forum

Yesterday I attended a goodbye party for Dr. Marylou Buyse, who has been President and CEO of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans ...

A Promising Proposal for Reducing Health Care Costs

Bruce Bullen, interim CEO at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, recently made this proposal for the financing of health care reform on his " ...

A Practical Approach to Organizational Ethics

I've been meeting with a number of organizations to help them develop new ways to deal with the ethical dimensions of their activities. ...

Hope for the Holidays

Bring It On 2010 With the country seemingly fomenting from one crisis to the next this past year, many of us are looking forward to a new be...

Obesity, Health Insurance, and Employer Incentives

Federal health reform is the front page news, but states and businesses are the laboratories for change. Next to Governors, who have to deal...

Ipsos Polling Executives Discuss Health Care Surveying

In a guest posting over at Pollster.com, Cliff Young and Aaron Amic of Ipsos Public Affairs and the Ipsos McClatchy Poll, offer their wisdom...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Via Pollster.com's " Thanksgiving Outliers ," here are three articles on health care reform. Ruy Teixeira argues that a lot of...

Doctor-Patient Sex: Why is it Unethical?

Earlier today I responded to the following anonymous response to a post I wrote in April about doctor-patient sex: What is the actual harm ...

Drew Altman on President Obama's Leadership

There's been lots of debate as to whether the President has been a wise leader or a wimpy neophyte in the health reform process. I'v...

Death Panel Plots and Mammogram Conspiracies

A number of friends are in despair over the possibility of rational political and public reflection about health policy. I'm not. Perhap...

Retort to Change in Breast Cancer Prevention Protocols

This week, lurid headlines were in all United States papers proclaiming a government charged task force of "experts" recommended r...

In Defense of "Bean Counters"

I've been speaking about health reform and managed care in different venues around the country. With regard to cost containment I often ...

Opposition to Health Care Reform from the Left (11/17)

As shown in this Pollster.com graphic , public support for President Obama and the Democrats' health care reform plans has consistently ...

Abortion and Health Reform

The current clash about abortion and health reform is a tragedy. It reflects the breakdown of civil national discourse. Although I'm a s...

October trends in support for health care reform are examined by Mark Blumenthal and by the team of Robert Blendon and John Benson , the la...

A Psychiatrist's Reflections on Dr. Hasan

I'm not going to speculate publicly about Dr. Hasan's psychological state, about which, of course, I know nothing. The American Psyc...

Nicholas Kristof on "Unhealthy America" - One Grand Slam and One Stikeout

I greatly admire New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's reportorial thoroughness and passion for social justice. So I wasn't su...