Health Costs A Key Worry For Those Nearing Retirement
Americans express changing expectations toward retirement, with near-retirees feeling significantly more anxious than those who’ve already left the workforce about whether their income and savings will support them into their golden years. Those approaching retirement feel most concerned about whether they will be able to pay for their health care as they live increasingly longer, according […]
Every week, reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reads from around the Web. The New York Times Magazine: A Drug That Wakes The Near Dead The heart attacks never came. Four days later, Chris woke up. It was not the awakening of Hollywood movies in which the patient comes to, just as he was, speaking full […]
Home Health Advocates Push Remote Monitoring In Medicare
Home care technology can play a critical role in keeping patients out of hospitals and at home, but many providers believe new policies should be used to encourage its adoption. Advocates for those changes were on Capitol Hill yesterday to push for legislation that would expand the use of such technology, which allows home health […]
The Supreme Court And Health Law Politics
Every week, reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reading from around the Web. New Yorker: Birthright There are eighty-two Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide, operating nearly eight hundred clinics. Planned Parenthood says that one in five women in the U.S. has been treated at a Planned Parenthood clinic. Critics of Planned Parenthood, who are engaged in a […]
Physicians Push For More Palliative Care Despite Barriers
A poll released Tuesday found that an overwhelming majority of doctors support palliative care, with 96 percent responding that they believe enhancing the quality of life for seriously ill patients is more important than extending life as long as possible. Despite these sentiments, many physicians responded that they have some hesitations about palliative care and […]
Do Extra Brain Cells Offer A Clue To Autism?
Every week, reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reads from around the Web. Time: Study: Autistic Children Have More Brain Cells There’s growing evidence that the brains of autistic children are very different from the brains of other youngsters. Now a new study that found an excess of brain cells in children with autism comes closer […]
Workforce Shortages To Strain Certain California Communities
Medical workforce shortages will disproportionately strain certain communities in California, as at least 4 million more people receive coverage in coming years through the 2010 federal health law, a new report finds. Researchers at the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote that “distribution (of health professionals) poses a […]
Apology For A Death Sparked A Hospital’s Change
Every week, reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reading from around the Web. The Boston Globe Magazine: The C-Section Boom I was the obstetrician on hospital duty that Sunday morning, so I introduced myself and learned that the patient, pregnant with her first child, wished to have as few interventions as possible. Respecting her desire, we […]
Advocates: Don’t Scrap Minority Health Training Programs
Even as experts stress the need to provide more culturally competent care for the nation’s burgeoning Hispanic population, Congress is poised to reduce or eliminate some of the programs that fund training of minority students for careers in health care. Federally funded programs called Title VII and VIII are on the chopping block in both […]
Looking For The Inventor Of The Individual Mandate
Every week, reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reading from around the Web. The Atlantic: Did A Conservative Think Tank Really Invent The Individual Mandate? In the course of defending the health care bill he passed in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney told Newt Gingrich that he got the idea for the individual mandate — a rule dictating that […]
ER Docs Focus On Medical Liability Reforms
The number of emergency room visits in the U.S. rose nearly 13 million in 2009 — about 10 percent — to more than 136 million visits — which is the largest increase ever, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Statistics like this, combined with changes that will result as the 2010 health law […]
For Doctors, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Every week, reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reading from around the Web. Economist: A Person Already? One evening in late September John Perkins, a veteran of the civil-rights movement, attended a rally at a Baptist church in Jackson in support of what he called “a total justice issue,” … It was concerned with Amendment 26, a […]
Bart Stupak’s New Life; Moving Primary Care Out Of The ER
Every week, reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reading from around the Web. The Daily Beast: Bart Stupak On Life After Health Care [F]ormer Democratic congressman Bart Stupak is relishing the good life. After nine terms in the House of Representatives, the once obscure, pro-life, conservative legislator who became the flash point in last year’s historic […]
Poll: Americans Receptive To New Options For Affordable Dental Care
Many of us dread visiting the dentist, but a new survey suggests that Americans are concerned about access to affordable dental care and that a majority support the use of alternative dental providers. More than 52 million people live in 4,675 federally qualified dental shortage areas where many face obstacles to receiving care because of […]
Vermont Edges Toward Single Payer Health Care
The new system will move many state residents into a publicly financed insurance program and pay hospitals and doctors a set fee to care for patients.
A Surgeon Examines His Professional Development
Every week, reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reading from around the Web. The New Yorker: Personal Best I’ve been a surgeon for eight years. For the past couple of them, my performance in the operating room has reached a plateau. I’d like to think it’s a good thing—I’ve arrived at my professional peak. But mainly […]
Addressing Childhood Obesity: From Public Health To Social Justice
Moving her hips and shaking her hands, U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin danced the Cupid shuffle alongside elementary school kids to kick off the NAACP’s initiative on childhood obesity inside the Thurgood Marshall Center, where the famous civil rights lawyer stayed in Washington, D.C. while fighting for desegregation. It seemed like an appropriate backdrop to […]
Breast Cancer Fundraising; Treating Autism
Every week, reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reading from around the Web. Marie Claire: The Big Business Of Breast Cancer Though breast cancer researchers and advocates perpetually plead for more money, the disease is, in fact, awash in it. Last year, the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s top agency for health-related research, allocated $763 […]
A Health Care Arms Race Video; The HPV Debate
Every week, reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reading from around the Web. The Atlantic: Resistance Is Futile We won’t stop the rising tide of infections until we develop a new business model to fight them. We are not quite on the brink of some dystopian Victorian future. But every year, the prognosis for infectious-disease patients […]
Unknowns In Sports Medicine; Shackling Pregnant Prisoners
Every week, reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reading from around the Web. The New York Times: As Sports Medicine Surges, Hope And Hype Outpace Proven Treatments Medical experts say (that) multiple futile treatments is all too familiar and points to growing problems in sports medicine, a medical subspecialty that has been experiencing explosive growth. … […]
