More Fundamental Healthcare Solution Than You Hear

“Less expensive, lower-quality innovations abound in every economic sector—except medicine” This is by far the most constructive article on healthcare, because it clearly identifies the fundamental issue in healthcare – our internal conflict.  Here are the excerpts, but read the whole...

TED Prize Wish: Teach Every Child About Food

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Quest for Insurance Part II: The Coverage

The trials chronicled in Part I have a happy ending.  I eventually obtained an excellent individual plan from Assurant Health. I followed my own advice and got a high deductible plan that covers no primary care. I thought it would be worth comparing to the traditional PPO coverage I had previously. The...

Quest for Insurance Part I: The Search

As you may recall, I previously posted about my recommendations for fixing health care (Part I, Part II, Part III). Recently, I had to navigate the current system and thought I’d share my experience in the context of those recommendations. You see, COBRA ran out on my health insurance from the last...

Approaching a Cure for Cancer

James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA’s double-helix structure recently called for a back to basics approach in dealing with cancer.  In previous post threads I’ve discussed cancer’s complexity and in particular the confounding and scary implications of somatic evolution, which underscores...

The Truth About Generic Drugs

The truth is out there. Finally. The NYTimes has a piece on the problems and differences between generic and brand name drugs. Think they are the same? Think again. The article is excellent and I recommend everyone read it. As usual, I will quote liberally, with some of my own commentary. But there is a...

How Many Calories for a Dollar?

Michael Pollan, as always, making perfect sense: Now watch Will Allen on urban...

Egyptian Mummies Yield Ancient Secrets of Good Journalism

This is based on an LA Times article here What strikes me most is how athlerosclerotic the science itself is.  Or perhaps it’s just the reportage? The opening line of the article is “CT scans of Egyptian mummies… show evidence of… hardening of the arteries, which is normally...

Daniel Nocera’s Gift

http://www.vimeo.com/8194089 I just saw the most important talk I have seen in 300+ TED, Pop!Tech, etc talks that I’ve watched.  And at the risk of hyperbole, I will say that the worst case scenario is that Daniel Nocera simply wins a Nobel Prize (and yes, I’m willing to bet at even odds that it...

Fixing Health Care III: Hospitals

Having addressed the uninsured and doctor’s visits, the next health care problem on my list is hospital spending. It represents the largest share health care costs, $696.5B in 2007 or roughly 32%. Now, it’s worth repeating that I don’t object to increased spending per se. It might be...

Fixing Health Care II: Doctor’s Visits

Now that we’ve solved the problem of the uninsured, it’s time to move on to the problem of doctor’s visits. Spending on physician and clinical services was $479B in 2007, 22% of total health care spending. Only hospital spending accounts for a larger share at 32% (I’ll be addressing...

The Climate or the Uninsured?

Declan McCullagh of CBSNews reports that a Department of Treasury analysis released under the Freedom of Information Act estimates that a cap and trade program would raise $100B to $200B a year in taxes. Those taxes come from us one way or another. Recall that my estimate of the cost to cover the uninsured...

The Link Between Food & Healthcare Reform

Also must-read this Sunday is Michael Pollan’s NY Times Op-Ed piece from Wednesday.  Nice cap to my week of ranting on the dismantling of rationality when it comes to lifestyle choices that directly impact one’s health, here and...

Two Important Links

If you do nothing else intellectual this Sunday, do these two things: (1) Read Tyler Cowen’s NYTimes column on how the bestowing of political favors was at the heart of the financial crisis and how we’re about to make the same mistake with health care. (2) Remember Norman Borlaug.  He is the...

Rafe Issues Challenge to Statin Industry

I have been trying to get the straight scoop on whether statins actually decrease mortality and morbidity in a significant way and I haven’t been able to find any real evidence that they do. If you ask a cardiologist it’s clear that they believe unequivocally that statins work, mostly because...

Fixing Health Care I: The Uninsured

Yes, I’ve decided to wade into the health care waters again.  One of the problems with the current debate is that it confounds several distinct problems.  So I’m planning to briefly address each one individually in the hopes of achieving some clarity.  First up, the uninsured. Most of us...

Allocating Scarce Medical Resources

Whether it is general resources after the implementation of a universal health care scheme or specific resources such as flu vaccine in the early stages of a pandemic,  there will always be instances of scarcity.  Who gets the resources?  Youngest first? Sickest first?  First in?  Lottery winners?...

Purple Balls of Death

Imagine a lottery machine filled with one million mostly white balls and a few purple ones bouncing around.      Each purple ball represents a MicroMort, a one in a million chance of you dying in the next year. Each year one ball pops out. If a purple one pops out you will die in the next year. By...

I’m a Nutritarian

For the past year or so I’ve been eating about 80% vegan.  I hate the word “vegan” because it has political/ideological connotations I don’t ascribe to, and also because by definition that’s not what I am.  I think Dr. Fuhrman’s neologism, nutritarian sums up my position...

Should You Use Sunscreen?

This is a very complex topic, as the following talk suggests: The main takeaways from this that I got are: Cancers for which sunlight deficit is a risk factor are orders of magnitude more prevalent than the few for which overexposure is a risk factor. People who are using sunscreen regularly are precisely...

What Obama Needs to Do

The old philosophical theory says that reason is conscious, can fit the world directly, is universal (we all think the same way), is dispassionate (emotions get in the way of reason), is literal (no metaphor or framing in reason), works by logic, is abstract (not physical) and functions to serve our...

Celiac Disease on the Rise

According to a new report in Gastroenterology (July 09), Celiac Disease is now 4 times more common in the US than it was during the 1950’s. The disease results from an intolerance to the protein gluten, found in wheat, barley, and rye.  When celiac patients consume gluten, they suffer an...

Health Care Parallels Education

I was listening today to a Fresh Air interview from a couple of weeks ago on the reasons for the high cost of health care: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your...

Something Fishy About Mercury

Here is a fascinating discussion on NPR’s Forum from earlier this year on the subject of mercury and fish: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. If you’ve...

Should We Tax Poor Nutrition?

I just tweeted on a subject that I suspected would cause a stir, and so it has, I’m moving it here: RafeFurst: I strongly support a soda tax! RT @mobilediner: check it out:  a Soda Tax? http://amplify.com/u/dvl coelhobruno: @RafeFurst what about diet soda? Would it be exempt? RafeFurst: @coelhobruno...

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