Several years ago, I got my genome sequenced and obtained my variant call files, the tabulation of all differences between my gene sequences and the annotated human genome. Although my primary care physician was aware, I didn’t require his intermediation to obtain or interpret my genomics data. How I might react to adverse information was […]
by Jasper Craven Task & Purpose In mid-April, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, and Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, sent a letter to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough demanding to know why the agency was wounding itself. Specifically, they worried about a series of seemingly contradictory eligibility and staffing policies. In […]
by Hayden Rooke-Ley, Soleil Shah, and Erin C. Fuse Brown New England Journal of Medicine Introduction The government will pay roughly $500 billion to insurance companies in 2024 to administer the Medicare Advantage program, including 23% more per beneficiary than it spends on traditional Medicare . . . equivalent to an extra $88 billion per year. Medicare Advantage plans cost […]
As a subject in the Moderna phase III COVID vaccine trial, I wasn’t told whether I’d get the vaccine or a placebo. Indeed, neither my nurse nor the doctor overseeing the trial knew which subjects got which. It was a double-blind trial. 12 hours after the second jab, I started experiencing a headache, muscle and […]
Continuing the ongoing implementation of President Biden’s prescription drug pricing law called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final part one guidance for the new Medicare Prescription Payment Plan. Today’s guidance helps ensure that Medicare Part D plan sponsors can successfully implement the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan and effectively […]
by David Wainer WSJ, June 1, 2024 America’s healthcare insurers do not say this openly. It is not a secret that many of them would like to be a little more like United Health Group UNH 4.69% increase; green up pointing triangle. Just as Amazon is the e-commerce industry’s 800-pound gorilla, UnitedHealth has built a sprawling health services company. It shows […]
by Merrill Goozner GoozNews Government prognosticators once again foresee rising health care costs amid falling insurance coverage. Is this an election prediction? Each mid-year, economists and actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services offer their predictions for the direction of health care spending over the next decade. This year they projected health care’s share of […]
by Robert Gundran The Copper Courier I was not expecting to see a turnout as large as this one in Arizona as mentioned below in The Copper Courier. In April, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 1864 law, which carries with it a mandatory prison sentence for doctors who provide an abortion for any reason other […]
I was unable to get all of a candidate’s healthcare policies in one place in some cases. You will see where I said so as stated “More on . . .” If you need the entire list for a candidate or both, I have included the links to the article and on each where the […]
In a previous post, I called attention to the decline in the number of medical students who choose pediatrics as a career. Some of the slack can be taken up by nurses and physician assistants, but access to pediatricians is a growing problem. So, too, is access to pediatric care at hospitals: “Pediatric hospitals have […]