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Nearly all adults who die in La Crosse, Wisconsin, have filled out “advance directives” – explicit instructions on what treatments they do and don’t want at the end of life. The medical ethicist who started the program says “We believe it’s part of good patient care.”
Devices that measure blood pressure and other health information may help the elderly and people with chronic conditions stay in touch with doctors while remaining at home. The technology could cut health spending by catching problems before they escalate into crises.
KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey and other experts discuss recent and upcoming activities on the Hill — part of a weekly series of video reports.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., may unveil his health care overhaul plan this week. A podcast is also available. Read Transcript.
A key question about the CLASS Act remains: How many will buy the coverage even if it is broadly available?
Dr. Richard “Buz” Cooper doesn’t mince words as he challenges highly-respected research asserting that hospitals and doctors waste up to $700 billion a year on unnecessary testing and treatment. He says the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care doesn’t adequately account for the health care needs of poor people.
Some argue the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, which found wide geographic differences in how medicine is practiced, overstates the amount of potential waste because its methods don’t fully factor in the heavy medical needs of very poor people. Here are some views on the debate.
The people in Southeastern Kentucky have the poorest health in the country. Yet the area is rich with medical facilities. Health reform bills are unlikely to change much: One doctor says: “We have to transform the way we take care of people.”
Dr. Gene Cohen, a geriatric psychiatrist who believed that old age can be a time of creativity, died this week.
NPR host Michel Martin interviewed KHN’s Julie Appleby about what the abortion amendment would mean.
Health care has to be looked at in context, according to Annie Fox and Teana Burns of “Harlan Countians for a Healthy Community” in Kentucky.
Family nurse practitioner Beverly May, of the Kentucky Mountain Health Alliance, treats many patients with chronic diseases.
Gerry Roll says people don’t understand the health problems in southeastern Kentucky: “You can get whatever you need as far as traditional medical care goes. Yet we have the highest levels of chronic disease in the nation. So when I hear people talking about access to health care being a problem, I am livid.”
Six years ago, Cathy Nance had to have open heart surgery. Later, she had kidney cancer. Because of poor health and inability to work, she became homeless, until she was helped by Harlan Countians for a Healthy Community.
As we move to the endgame of what will at best be health care reform 1.0, it is also important to remember that if we want to improve health-presumably health care reform is a means to improving health-we need to focus on more than just health care and reform of the health care system.
KHN’s Phil Galewitz talks to Donald Berwick, M.D., M.P.P., President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and clinical professor of pediatrics and health care policy at the Harvard Medical School.
Legislation approved by the House Saturday would bar insurers from selling policies that cover abortion if purchased with federal subsidies. There are already states that have similar policies.
The drive on Capitol Hill to create a bipartisan commission to help “bend the cost curve” of health spending is picking up momentum – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a handful of moderate Democrats and Republicans are supporting the effort.
Outrage is growing among Democratic activists over new and far-reaching abortion restrictions contained in the health care bill passed by the House. Some warn that Democrats may face trouble at the polls in 2010 if the restrictions survive a final bill. This story comes from our partner NPR News.
It was early summer. A senior federal health official wrote a memo suggesting that living wills — documents that can convey patients’ wishes about when to end life support — could help curb health-care costs.
