Health Affairs

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction wasn’t dubbed the “super committee” for nothing. In theory at least, it had immense and unprecedented power.  If the select committee had been able to produce a consensus plan on deficit reduction, that legislation would have been guaranteed an up or down vote in the House and Senate [...]

In our current political environment, wins are more important than policy successes, and for too long that has driven a juvenile mindset which engages in “magical thinking” in which beliefs trump facts, and benefits can be achieved without costs. So it’s no surprise that Republican leadership recognized that opposition to the individual mandate would be [...]

Physician/writer Atul Gawande was the winner of this year’s Health Services Research Impact award at the National Health Policy Conference cohosted by AcademyHealth and Health Affairs earlier this week. At Tuesday’s lunch, Gawande was scheduled to receive his award for the important policy impact of his efforts to bring surgical checklists into use around the [...]

We are pleased to announce the “most-read” Health Affairs journal articles published in 2009. The number 1 article published in 2009 was on “Annual Medical Spending Attributable To Obesity” by Eric Finkelstein and colleagues.  All articles below are open to all readers for the next 2 weeks—through February 12, 2010. Top-viewed articles published in 2009 [...]

As President Barack Obama and his allies press their case for health care reform, the president exhorts that his vision will slow the growth of medical expenditures, expand coverage to millions, and improve the quality of care.  In the trenches, where millions of medical interventions occur daily, physicians and hospital managers who do the heavy lifting describe a [...]

A new study published today in Health Affairs finds that the decade-long nurse shortage is easing, or even ending, partly as a result of the continuing recession. Study author Peter Buerhaus of the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing and colleagues found that older nurses are delaying retirement or returning to the workforce and part-time nurses [...]

Last week’s New Yorker article by Atul Gawande highlighted the phenomenally high variations in cost of medical care and services between regions in the United States, specifically focusing on McAllen, Texas. Gawande’s spotlight on McAllen was based on many studies of our health care system. For Gawande’s readers, we would like to point you to [...]

Despite economic hard times, Massachusetts still shows gains in insurance coverage and access to care as a result of its 2006 state health reform. However, some of the early gains in reducing barriers to health care and improving affordability had eroded by the fall of 2008, according to Urban Institute researchers in a new study published last week on the [...]

This week’s Health Wonk Review, the roving digest of the best of health policy blogging, features new posts on health reform, including the public plan option, health care costs, health IT, and more. This week’s host is Tinker Ready of Boston Health News.

There is widespread agreement that greater investment in information technology (IT) is critical to reforming U.S. health care. The use of such technologies as electronic health record systems, personal health records, e-prescribing, and computerized physician order entry holds the potential for vastly improving care at a reasonable cost. The recently enacted economic stimulus legislation included [...]

The most-read posts on Health Affairs Blog this January included much health reform advice to the Obama Administration and calls to action on health IT and rebuilding primary care. Additional commenting is always welcome. Top 20 Health Affairs Journal Articles For 2008 by Jane Hiebert-White Complete The Work On Health Information Technology by David Brailer [...]

The Health Wonk Review brings you the best of health policy blogging on a biweekly basis. Introducing the Review’s latest edition on The Health Care Blog, Brian Klepper suggests that America’s big-spending health care infrastructure, which is even now “defying the relentlessly corrosive gravitational pull of waste, corruption, and a tanking economy,” could ultimately prove [...]

In the closing weeks of his successful race to the White House, the campaign of President-Elect Barack Obama made a strategic decision to blanket the air waves and his stump speeches with health care messages closely tied into the fears of voters that they could lose their health insurance as the economy sunk deeper into [...]

As a thirty-five year veteran of the debates and initiatives to reform the U.S. health insurance system, I am delighted that so much of the presidential campaign rhetoric, advertising, and general press coverage this month has included this subject. However, most of the rhetoric has focused on the “refundable tax credits” of Sen. John McCain [...]

The problem with the private health insurance system in the United States is that sick people without insurance can’t find affordable policies. Covering the uninsured pays for itself by providing preventive care and reducing expensive emergency room care. Lack of insurance is the principal barrier to getting high-quality care. All of these statements represent “facts” [...]

It’s the morning after the final presidential debate. Today Joe Paduda (not Joe the Plumber, but a founder of the Health Wonk Review) weighs in with a substantive round-up of what the health policy blogs are saying about the election, the economy, and the presidential candidates’ health reform plans. Today’s terrific edition of the Health Wonk Review is [...]

For further vetting of the presidential candidates’ health care proposals, health economics, and more, turn to today’s Health Wonk Review. This terrific edition of the best of health policy blogging is hosted by Jaan Sidorov of the Disease Management Care Blog.

In June, Health Affairs Blog featured a series of guest posts on pay for performance and offered blogs from the Global Health Council meeting and Annual Research Meeting of AcademyHealth, both held in Washington, D.C. Sign up for email or RSS feed alerts to stay on top of new postings. Additional commenting always welcome. Health [...]

Today’s edition of the Health Wonk Review features a post on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s economic assessment of health care presented at last week’s Senate Finance Committee Health Reform Summit. While rising U.S. health care costs pose a strain on the economy, there are positive aspects of new health care technology, says Bernanke: “Although the high cost of [...]

Today’s new Health Wonk Review rounds up posts from the political (would an Obama presidency energize young adults to demand entitlement reform?) to the analytical (John Wennberg’s practice variation work, the Medicare SGR debate, and more). This latest compendium of the best of health policy blogging is hosted today by Merrill Goozner of GoozNews, with great insights from [...]