When Have We Seen Enough Drug Ads on TV?
I believe Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, is doing a good job of trying to improve our broken healthcare system. The move to allow states to seek a Federal waiver to implement Medicaid in ways tailored to their needs has a lot of potential. Some states have already shown they can reduce […]
Medicare to Negotiate with Pharmaceutical Industry
In March 2015, Health Attitude: Unraveling and Solving the Complexities of Healthcare was published. One of the recommendations made in the book, to address the spiraling healthcare cost for Americans, was to allow Medicare to negotiate the price of drugs. It was a lone voice at the time, but since then more and more people, including the […]
Biobanks for Population Health
As millions of consumers and providers add data to patient EHRs, a multitude of data will become available for the greater good. Researchers can anonymize the data and combine it with a large database containing vast amounts of information about the health of the population at a community level, nationally, or globally. In order to […]
Big Changes Coming to Healthcare
Last week, the new Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Alex Azar, said, “Change is possible, change is necessary, and change is coming.” I hope so. Change is desperately needed. It remains to be seen if the federal government can make the changes needed and make them fast enough. The biggest barrier is Congress. HHS […]
Healthcare Cost
We hear a lot about high health insurance premiums. Some of the high premiums have to do with the inefficiency of the health insurance industry, as written here last week. The basic reason for high premiums, however, is the high cost of healthcare. If you have a Ferrari, your insurance will be higher than if […]