December 2009 - The Health Care Blog

Joe is kicking them when they're down

By Matthew Holt From a deeply depressing survey of the unemployed in today’s NY Times: Nearly half of respondents said they did not have health insurance, with the vast majority citing job loss as a reason, a notable finding given... Read More...

Published Tue, Dec 15 2009 1:47 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Policy/Politics, Policy

Health 2.0 Does Webinars

By Matthew Holt I'm excited to announce the latest program coming from Health 2.0 - The Health 2.0 Show with Indu & Matthew! This monthly webinar series will focus on news from the Health 2.0 community, a look at some... Read More...

Published Fri, Dec 18 2009 6:48 AM by The Health Care Blog

Virtual Medicine: The Lever That Just Might Save Independent Practice

By RICHARD REECE Give me a lever long enough, and a prop strong enough, I can single-handedly move the world. -- Archimedes Independent medical practice in America is in trouble. It is fragmented, with some 900,000 doctors – 300,000 primary... Read More...

Published Mon, Dec 21 2009 5:51 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Physicians

Coal in Your Christmas Stocking?

By ROBERT LASZEWSKI Is there anyone left, on either side of the political spectrum, who wants the Senate health care bill to pass? Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour had this to say about the Senate bill last week, “This health... Read More...

Published Tue, Dec 22 2009 9:44 AM by The Health Care Blog

Senate passes bill, more to come

By Matthew Holt Its Christmas Eve and the Senate just passed a major health reform bill. Personally I think the reforms in it are relatively minor, but the passage of the bill itself is a screaming big deal. When I... Read More...

Published Thu, Dec 24 2009 9:14 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Policy/Politics, Matthew Holt, Policy

Making A List and Checking It Twice

By MERRILL GOOZNER Allow me to call readers attention to an article in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that calls on medical specialty societies to make lists of the five most wasteful practices in their... Read More...

Published Tue, Dec 29 2009 10:11 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Physicians, Economics

The Patient Safety Movement Turns Ten

By BOB WACHTER On December 1, 1999, the Institute of Medicine released a report entitled To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Although its authors hoped to spark a national movement, they had little cause for optimism. After... Read More....

Published Wed, Dec 02 2009 3:33 AM by The Health Care Blog

Four grumpy lefties with Laura Flanders

By Matthew Holt Maggie Mahar, Jon Cohn, Jon Nichols and Olga Pierce hang out with Laura Flanders on the amusingly titled GRITtv and discuss how screwed up the politics of health care are in the Senate. Twenty minutes of amusing... Read More...

Published Fri, Dec 04 2009 12:19 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Matthew Holt, Policy

Abortion Should Not Imperil Health Care Reform

By Melissa Reed The House vote to establish near-universal health-care coverage came at a steep cost to women. That cost, issued as an amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), eliminates abortion coverage by private insurance companies even when women...

Published Tue, Dec 08 2009 5:49 AM by The Health Care Blog

Pelosi’s Hidden Tort Bomb -- an Alternative View

by Charles Silver & David A. Hyman We once thought Democrats would accept tort reform to win Republicans’ support for national health care legislation. Now, however, Democrats have dispensed with bipartisanship. Perhaps they think they can ram health...

Published Tue, Dec 08 2009 1:03 PM by The Health Care Blog

Senate Compromise on Health Care Reform: Political Genius?

By JOE FLOWER Democrat Roland Burris, the sudden senator who replaced Barack Obama in that august body, has now joined those who are pledging to filibuster any bill that does not have a "public option" – joining of course those,... Read More...

Published Thu, Dec 10 2009 9:29 AM by The Health Care Blog

Health 2.0 in Europe: Couldn't? Wouldn't? Does!

By Denise Silber They said it couldn’t happen in Europe, that social media and online tools wouldn’t catch on, because the healthcare context was soooo different from the US. They said that Europeans don’t worry about access and cost, that... Read More...

Published Sun, Dec 13 2009 2:33 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health 2.0

MedEncentive's Five Year Report

By Matthew Holt As many involved in the worlds of Health 2.0 and Information Therapy know, some of the most interesting experiments in the world of patient-physician engagement have been happening in the somewhat unlikely environs of small town Oklahoma...

Published Tue, Dec 15 2009 12:29 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health 2.0, Policy/Politics, Policy, Information Therapy, evidenced-based medicine

Interview with Paul Taylor, renegade hospital CEO

By Matthew Holt Paul Taylor is CEO of Ozarks Community Hospital, a teeny 2 hospital system catering to the poor and senior populations in rural Missouri and Arkansas. He thinks that he's figured out a way to deliver health care... Read More...

Published Fri, Dec 18 2009 7:06 AM by The Health Care Blog

Interview with Alan Greene MD, author <i>Raising Baby Green</i>

One of the most remarkable talks I heard this year wasn't about health care. It was about food. Of course, food is very, very closely related to health and health is at least tangentially related to health care. So I... Read More...

Published Mon, Dec 21 2009 1:01 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Matthew Holt, Policy, Consumers, Children's Health, Podcasts, Books