When discussing the costs of various healthcare reform proposals, itâs crucial to keep one thing in mind: doing nothing would be a financial disaster. If we donât change the rate at which healthcare costs are growing, total health spending is projected to double over the next 11 years, from an expected $2.6 trillion this year […]
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure One of the premier and earliest flu bloggers and co-founder of Flu Wiki, DemFromCT is also a doctor. Not a young doctor, either, although somewhat younger than I am (most people seem to be, these days). In our young professional days, the American Medical Association was a real political […]
The World Health Organization has officially declared that weâre at the start of an influenza pandemic. Nearly 30,000 cases of swine flu/H1N1 have been confirmed in 74 countries, and the virus is spreading easily among people in multiple regions of the world. North America has had the highest number of cases so far â 13,217 […]
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure Listening to yesterday’s press briefing with WHO’s Dr. Keiji Fukuda (audio file here), several things seemed clear to me. The first is that everyone, WHO included, thinks a pandemic is well underway. Second, WHO’s efforts to explain why they are not making it “official” by going to phase 6 […]
The last time we had a major health reform proposal was the Clinton administration, and it didnât go well. Ezra Klein explains the reasons: Instead of bringing members of Congress and stakeholders into the process early, the administration drafted a detailed proposal and then presented it to Congress. Those in favor of reform failed to […]
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure There is no reason why a flu blogger-epidemiologist-physician’s family should be immune to flu in the community. And it appears my family is not. My daughter has had a cough for the last few days and Friday night was suddenly seized by nausea, vomiting and fever. Her HMO’s urgent […]
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure In New York City, an illness termed “mild” for many has killed 7 and put 300 in the hospital. A preliminary analysis of about half of those hospitalized, most (82%) were said to have some underlying medical condition. That’s common with flu, but it’s also a reminder that one […]
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure Since I talk a lot about flu in my real life as well as on the blog, I get questions from moms and care givers who wonder when they should start to get worried about a sick child or relative. It’s context dependent, of course. The same symptoms that […]
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure As flu season ramps up in the southern hemisphere, the US, Europe and Asia are keeping an eye on it to see what will happen as swine flu finds new pieces of meat to sate its appetite for human flesh. Sorry about the overheated image. I’ve been reading what’s […]
By Alison Bass (cross-posted) In order to truly stabilize the economy and rescue Medicare from financial collapse, the Obama administration knows it has to do something about the elephant in the room: ever-rising health care costs. In this week’s New Yorker, surgeon-writer Atul Gawande presents an eye-opening discourse on why American health care costs have […]