Category: Opinion

JGrimes
There are some harsh words for Democrats trying to overhaul health care in the Washinton Post this morning.
Comprehensive health care has been lost. If it fails, as appears possible, Democrats will face the brunt of the electorate’s reaction. If it passes, however, Democrats will face a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls. […]

noreply@blogger.com (RCoffield@fsblaw.com)
Paper medical records can easily go missing, contain bad or missing information and undermine patient care. But consider the alternative, says Alexander Friedman, a fellow in maternal-fetal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
As a resident fresh out of medical school, Friedman was working an an ememrgency room switching over to electronic […]

James A. White
Rising health-care costs are a problem that can never be solved outright; they can only be managed in an eternal, iterative way. So including a bunch of little pilot projects in the Senate health-care bill — rather than a few big, sweeping measures — is a step in the right direction, […]

JGrimes
What with the playoffs just getting going, the Health Blog doesn’t want to bum everybody out about baseball. But we couldn’t help noticing an op-ed in this morning’s Boston Globe that asks the question: During baseball’s steroid epidemic, where were the doctors?
The piece, by a pair of Harvard-affiliated docs, notes that pro ballplayers […]

JGrimes
Should hospitals start penalizing doctors and nurses who fail to follow patient safety rules?
That’s one solution proposed by Peter Pronovost of Johns Hopkins and Robert Wachter of the University of California at San Francisco. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the doctors contend that the failure to hold clinicians accountable for […]

JGrimes
Rationing is a dirty word in health-reform debates. It’s used as a warning by those who oppose a larger government role in health care, and it’s avoided by those who support a new, government-backed health plan.
But rationing already happens in American health care, the philosopher Peter Singer argues in an article to be […]

JGrimes
Rationing is a dirty word in health-reform debates. It’s used as a warning by those who oppose a larger government role in health care, and it’s avoided by those who support a new, government-backed health plan.
But rationing already happens in American health care, the philosopher Peter Singer argues in an article to be […]

Jacob Goldstein
A little more than two years ago, I first clicked the publish button on this blog, nervously putting our debut post on the Web. Now, more than 3,900 posts later, I’ve had the pleasure of hitting that button for the last time.
I’m leaving The Wall Street Journal and the blog today. In […]

JGrimes
In a rare moment of agreement, the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have both called for Tom Daschle to give up on becoming secretary of Health and Human Services. The Washington Post says Daschle still deserves the job.
In its lead editorial this morning, the NYT points […]

JGrimes
As President Obama gets down to the business of increasing patients’ access to health coverage, some liberals in Congress are suggesting he take a page from the Bush administration’s playbook: expand community health centers.
In an opinion piece in Politico today, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) write […]