Public Learning about ACOs

"Culture beats strategy every time" is a truism in management consultation. The Accountable Care Organization concept is excellent...

Health Care in Singapore

I've had the good fortune to be invited by the Singapore Centre for Biomedical Ethics to do a week of teaching about health system ethi...

Pay for Performance vs Intrinsic Motivation

Among the many stories about health care heroes during Hurricane Sandy, this was my favorite: Allison Chisholm, 46, who works for the Visit...

The Ethics of Choosing Wisely and Practicing Efficiently

This month the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation (ABIM) joined with nine medical specialty societies, each of which released a ...

Medical Ethics and Blaming the Victim

A article on female genital pain got me thinking about one of my pet peeves in medicine – blaming the victim. The condition – vulvodynia - ...

Raising the Age for Medicare Eligibility - First Prize Dumb Idea

This week the Congressional Budget Office released a report  on proposals to raise the age of eligibility for Medicare and Social Security. ...

Stanford Medical Records Posted Online

The New York Times reported today that a spreadsheet with the names, diagnosis codes, admission and discharge dates, and billing charges fo...

Florida Gun Folly

Florida has forbidden physicians to ask their patients about guns! Here's what the stunningly asinine law says: Privacy of Firearm Owne...

The Ethics of Practicing Medicine Part Time

Dr. Karen Sibert, an anesthesiologist in Los Angeles and a mother of four, created a major brouhaha with her tough op ed , in which she inve...

More on Concierge Medicine

I recently posted about two physicians in my neighborhood closing their primary care practices in favor of a limited, fee-based concierge p...

Tiered Physician Networks - a Promising Development in Ethics and Economics

The most recent issue of the American Journal of Managed care features an interesting article on "Consumer Experience with a Tiered Phy...

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 " ...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

A Moral Conundrum in Massachusetts Health Reform

The Massachusetts legislature is beginning to deliberate about the Special Commission on the Health Care Payment System's recommendation...

Are Health Insurers Villains?

Since I direct the ethics program at a health insurer (Harvard Pilgrim Health Care - a regional non profit company serving 1.1 million membe...

Insurers and Health Care Costs

In a recent interview, Senator Olympia Snowe commented - "We need a lever to force the [insurance] industry to drive down prices."...

Is Ethics Relevant for Health Reform?

As I sat down to prepare a talk on health reform and ethics I'll be giving soon, a Tina Turner song started to play in my head - but wit...