Should the Irish Giant be Buried at Sea?

On December 20 the British Medical Journal published a fascinating and important article by ethicist Len Doyal and law professor Thomas Mui...

Adapting to Chronic Illness

I'm at a Vermont country inn for a few days of family holiday. Today a freezing drizzle deterred us from cross country skiing or snowsho...

Stopping the Over Charging in the U.S. Health Care System

How Profit-taking Distorts Health Care Delivery in America Recently, a Public Broadcasting Station (Channel 9) featured a story on a for-pro...

Getting Patients to Think About Cost

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC), the not-for-profit regional health plan (Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine) where I direct the ethi...

Why Patients Should Have Easy Access to their full Medical Records

Two articles in today's issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine present research on patient attitudes towards access to their doctor...

Screening at Wildrose a great Success - Video of Beth Kruse ARNP

Please enjoy this video of our recent screening at the Wildrose.  Why is it important for women who are lesbian, bisexual, transgender/sexu...

A Personal Experience with Consumer Directed Health Care

I'm agnostic about how effective Consumer Directed Health Care (CDHC) will turn out to be in prodding us patients into acting like disce...

The Reform Medicare Really Needs

Between now and the elections in November 2012 we're going to hear a lot about Medicare vouchers - or, in the prettied up term, "pr...

Why Diabetes Prevention and Management and the U.S. Health Care System Are At Odds

Diabetes Current-State and Changes to Come Unless you are Cro-Magnon-man and just emerged from a glacial field you are probably aware of som...

World AIDS Day is today December 1st

Today is World AIDS Day! As this year marks the 30 th anniversary of the emergence of AIDS, please consider donating $30 or ($300!) to BAB...

Ethics of Physician Self-Disclosure

Shara Yurkiewicz, an enterprising second year student at Harvard Medical School, edited the December issue of the American Medical Associati...

LBTQ Health Fair will have a table at CSPC Winter Vendor Fair on Saturday, December 3rd

It is time for the CSPC Winter Vendor Fair and we will be there to talk with folks about the upcoming LBTQ Health Screening at the Wildrose...

Rainbow Health Fair wants YOU for new Planning Committee

Rainbow Health Fair Needs You! Dear Friends in Health:                                                                         We are excite...

A Controversial Proposal about Complementary Medicine

A controversial proposal about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) will be the hot item today and tomorrow at the annual meeting of...

Learning from Massachusetts Health Reform

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts has just published a report on the first five years of Massachusetts health reform. ...

Zeke Emanuel on Health Reform

Zeke Emanuel provides an excellent piece of public education about the potential for improved quality of care and cost savings in a recent N...

Public Altruism about Health Care is Alive and Well

Four days ago I discussed Medicare beneficiaries who think about Medicare in terms of future generations and the common good, not just in t...

An Open and Fruitful Discussion

Hi All, First off, kudos to Iris, Shayne and Yeshika for coordinating a terrific session last night. Also kudos to our panelists - Matt, Emi...

Via Talking Points Memo , a new CNN/ORC poll (November 11-13) shows 52% of Americans supporting the individual-mandate component of the 201...

Skill Not Will - A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER

At the most recent Association of American Medical Colleges conferences, there was a presentation by Joseph Gerry from Vitalsmarts   who tal...

Mitt Romney on the Veterans Health System

By temperament I'm an optimist, but Republican pronouncements on health care, like Mitt Romney's proposal for privatizing the Vetera...

Do Medicare Beneficiaries Only Think About Themselves?

This week I spoke with a friend about my conviction that U.S. political process needs a voice from Medicare beneficiaries advocating for a p...