We've seen that diagnostic imaging costs more in the U.S than elsewhere, but what about physician fees? This is arguably the most subjective part of the health care system. For example, do some countries value their physicians more than others? What about the emphasis on primary care versus the various...

Diagnostic imaging represents one of the greatest leaps forward in medical innovation. With the advent of CT and MRI scans, physicians became able to move beyond the mere X-Ray and could visualize soft tissue, revolutionizing the practice of medicine. After all, how could the ability to see inside someone--to render...

Starting today and running into the beginning of next week, I'm going to be making some pretty charts that demonstrate just how the U.S. stacks up against its counterparts in the rich, industrialized nations of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom in the area of health...

Let me begin by making it very clear that I value all life--potential or fully realized--but that I am also pro-choice. How can this be? Well, unlike my Republican friends who are pro-life and pro-death penalty and my Democratic friends who are pro-choice and anti-death penalty, I fancy myself a...

After attending a friend's educational--and delicious--Scotch tasting on Saturday evening, the wife and I headed home where I wasted no time in turning on C-SPAN as if it were a Georgia Bulldogs football game. The reason? Live coverage of the House of Representatives voting on H.R. 3962 the "Affordable Health...

The Urban Institute has put together a series of policy briefs that take a close look at what health reform will mean for the millions of Americans who are uninsured. Their series of four reports are here. I base the rest of my post on their numbers and breakouts...

Thanks to the Game Show Network, even folks who weren't around when it aired in the sixties and seventies can enjoy the Monty Hall classic Let's Make a Deal. It really was a great deal of fun, with people coming to the show dressed up, and Monty making...

The buzz in the blogosphere for the last two weeks was all about the fate of the public option in health reform. The question seemed to be shaping up not as "Will there be a public option?" but rather "What will the public option look like?" Two Thursdays ago, Ezra...

When Barack Obama reached the White House with 60 Democratic seats in the Senate and a sizable majority in the House, the political stars were supposedly aligned: health reform was a foregone conclusion. Well, you know what they say about assuming. We hit August and the crazies came out of...

Dr. Norbert Gleicher writes a piece in The Wall Street Journal that roundly criticizes the proposed role of expert panels that would make determinations about what treatments to cover by using comparative-effectiveness research. Like many opponents of the idea he writes "the idea of inserting a government...

In an Associated Press story from last Monday we are told that when it comes to arguably the most ambitious public policy goal of the last 50 years -- comprehensive health reform -- the leader of the free world has a role to play. That's not surprising. What is...

Amy Goldstein had a nice piece in last Friday's Washington Post exploring the AMA's fence-straddling on the health reform issue. Now, before I go any further, it's important to acknowledge that the AMA doesn't speak for all--or even most--physicians. There can be little doubt, however, that the...

With health reform having made it through the five key Congressional committees, it's becoming increasingly clear that health insurers are on their heels. In fact, despite the widely held view that the AHIP-PWC report has unintentionally backfired and strengthened political support for reform--even including a public option--the insurers followed...

If you've watched television at all since 1995, you've probably seen Wilford Brimley as the spokesperson for Liberty Medical's diabetes testing supplies. Brimley actually pronounces it like "Dia-Beet-is" or "Di-uh-Beet-us" and that fact alone has gained him a cult following. Brimley tells people that if they, like him, have...

The big news this week, other than the outcome of the Senate Finance Committee's vote on Tuesday, was the release of a report on the "Potential Impact of Health Reform on the Cost of Private Health Insurance Coverage." The report, released just days before the crucial vote, is the...

We are a nation that has grown unbelievably accustomed to the idea of getting whatever we want, whenever we want it, and paying for it later. Tech bubble? Check. Housing bubble? Check. Health care bubble? Check. Fat ass bubble? Double check. And super-size that.

I cite heavily here from Ceci Connolly's excellent piece in the Washington Post that takes a look at just how much waste there is in the U.S. health care system, and argues that rationing--done right--would actually result in a redistribution of resources that would be a win-win...

In a recent Health Affairs article, authors Henry Aaron and Paul Ginsburg ask "Is health spending excessive? If so, what can we do about it?" Access and quality, they argue, are easily understood and addressed, although--in the case of quality--a bit challenging. Health care costs, on the...

A large body of research finds a geographic relationship between the ratio of primary care to specialist physicians and Medicare spending. Specifically, areas with a higher proportion of primary care physicians have, on average, significantly lower Medicare expenditures per capita. Given the concern over the unsustainable growth of health care...