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Opinion Headlines

  1. Medicine. “Experimental Medicine in a Time of Ebola” by Jeremy Farrar 8-7-14
  2. Medicine. “Private Money Pays Off for Medicine” by Lander and Gerstner, Jr. 8-11-14
  3. Medicine. “The Battle Against Misdiagnosis.” [American doctors make the wrong call…]   8-8-14
  4. Medicine. Book report on the book, “Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician” 8-26-14
  5. Medicine. LTE. Communication, a Declining Skill in Medical Diagnosis.  8-18-14
  6. Medicine. “Hospital Mergers Can Lower Costs and Improve Medical Care.” By Kenneth L. Davis. [Stand-alone hospitals have too few patients to thrive in the new era of population health management.]  9-16-14
  7. Doctors. LTE “Disillusioned Doctors and Our Ailing Medical System.” 9-6-14
  8. Health care. LTE. “Disillusioned Doctors and Badly Thought Out Policies.” 9-12-14
  9. Medical. LTE. “Hospitals May Benefit From Mergers, but Patients Don’t.”   9-22-14
  10. Medicine. LTE. “Mass Screenings and the Wise Use of Limited Resources.” 9-24-14
  11. Medicine. “Medical Mergers Are Driving Up Health Costs.” By Suzanne F. Delbanco. [Insurer health-care payments are up 3% — a fortune, given the $900 billion spent annually.] 10-1-2014
  12. Medicine. LTE. “Hospital Mergers Can Raise Costs, Have Some Benefits.” 10-9-14
  13. Medicine. LTE.   “Drug Pitches Follow the Money and Power in Medicine.” 10-9-14
  14. Medicine. LTE. “Rising Health-CareCosts Promote Income Inequality.” 10-13-14
  15. Medicine. LTE. “It’s No Wonder Medical Innovation Is Likely to Decline.” 10-13-14
  16. Medicine. LTE. “EMRs, Containment of Ebola and ‘First Do No Harm.’ 10-17-14
  17. Medicine. “The Measles Outbreak Coming Near You.” By Haider Javed Warraich. [Parents who won’t vaccinate their children are reviving once-dead diseases. Will a vaccine mandate be needed?] 12-4-14
  18. Medicine. “Notable & Quotable”, Joel Zinberg, MD. […The new breed of physician-employee will split their allegiances between their employers and their patients…] 12-23-14
  19. Medicine. “A Stethoscope for the Next 200 Years.” By Eric Topol et.al. [The ability to see alien DNA and RNA in the blood can detect cancers very early.] 1-3-15
  20. Medicine. “Saying Goodbye to Third-Party Medical Payments.” By Gerard J. Gianoli. [No insurers. No government. No surprise bills. At our practice, patients pay in cash and prices are lower.] 1-15-15
  21. Medicine. “Dr. Death Makes a Comeback.” By Paul McHugh. [Legalizing physician-assisted suicide is receiving fresh support, but doctors should think twice before signing on.] 1-23-15
  22. Medicine. “The Revolution at the Corner Drugstore.” [The Weekend Inter view with Larry Merlo.] by Joseph Rago. [The CVS chief executive on upending the debate about costly specialty drugs and how he’s going to make sure you take your medicine.]   1-24-15
  23. Medicine. “Fear Measles, Not Vaccines.” By Marc Siegel. [The outbreak traced to Disneyland visitors reflects a dangerous parenting trend.] 1-27-15
  24. Medicine.   LTE. “Death With Dignity Vs. The Dignity of All Human Life.” 1-28-15
  25. Medicine. LTE. “Limit Vaccination Exemptions for Better Public Health.” 1-31-15
  26. Medicine. “The Weird Vaccine Panic.” [Rand Paul joins the Santa Monica left by indulging bad science.] 2-4-15
  27. Medicine. “What Failed, the New Cancer Treatment or Regulators?” [Bureaucracy and outdated rules too often block potential break throughs, but now hope is on the horizon.] 2-4-15
  28. Medicine . LTE. “New, Individualized Medicine Requires a New Paradigm.” 2-13-15
  29. Medicine. Vaccination. LTE. “Minimize Vaccine Risk for the Few While Helping Us All.” 2-13-15
  30. Medicine. “The Misbegotten Crusade Against E-Cigarettes.” By Michael B. Siegel. [‘Long term e-cigarette use can substantially decrease cigarette consumption in smokers not willing to quit.’] 2-25-15
  31. Medicare. “Bouncing the ‘Doc fix.’ [Faux fiscal hawks may scuttle modest but real entitlement reform.] 3-16-15
  32. Medicine. “Bungling the Job on Substance Abuse and Mental Health.” By E. Fuller Torrey. [Employees at this federal agency rank it 298th out of 315 in a list of best places to work in the government.] 4-4-15
  33. Medicine. “Close Encounters of the Medicaid Kind.” [The Supreme Court declines to make entitlements a right.] 4-1-15
  34. Medicine. “The Arrow of U.S. Cancer Progress.” 4-3-15
  35. Medicine.   Medicare. “Of Medicare, Melgen and Menendez.” By Homan W. Jenkins, Jr. [Mixed with scandal is a question: How much Medicare spending is actually worthwhile?] 4-8-15
  36. Medicine. “Let’s Hit ‘Pause’ Before Altering Humankind.” By David Baltimore et.al. [Two Nobel Laureates on gene technology capable of making changes that are heritable by generations to come.] 4-9-15
  37. Medicine. “They’re Your Vital Signs, Not Your Medical Records.” By David J. Brailer. [Americans don’t own their own health information, and access to it is controlled by others. Time to change that.] 5-1-2015.
  38. Medicine. LTE. “It’s Sensible for States to Tie WIC Program to Medicaide.” 5-7-15
  39. Medicine. “The ‘Michigan Model” for Malpractice Reform.” By Allen Kachalia et.al. [A communication and resolution program reduced claims by 36%.] 5-11-15
  40. Medicine. “Our Race for an MS Cure Is a Summer Spectacle.” By Lou Weiss. [A special guest speaker usually has the disease but has spent the year climbing Kilmanjaro. Thanks. 6-6-15
  41. Medicine. “Misplaced Hopes for Curing Alzheimer’s.” by David Shenk et.al. [Scientific research will stop the disease. Coconut oil and marijuana won’t.] 6-9-15
  42. Medicine. “When Treating Pain Brings a Criminal Indictment.” By Harvey Silverglate. [Lessons from the recent acquittal of a doctor and nurse-practitioner accused of overprescribing drugs.] 6-13-15
  43. Medicine. LTE. “We Should Have Better Results in the Alzheimer’s Battle. “ 6-16-15
  44. Medicine. LTE. “Help Those Who Have Chronic Pain But Limit Addiction.” 6-18-15
  45. Medicine. LTE. “Amyloid and Alzheimer’s: Round II.” 6-26-15
  46. Medicine. “A Cure for ‘Conflict of Interest’ Mania.” The Week-end Interview with Tom Stossel. By Joseph Rago. [A crusading physician says medical progress is hampered by a holier-than-thou ‘moralistic bullying.’] [‘We all inevitably have conflicts all the time.’ Unless you’re in the grave.’] 6-27-15
  47. Medicine. LTE. “Mediocre Drugs Raise Costs for all.” 6-30-15
  48. Medicine. LTE. “When Rules Fail to Cut Costs, Add More and More Rules.” 7-15-15
  49. Medicine. LTE. “Double Mastectomy: Women, Doctors State Their Case. 7-18-15
  50. Medicine. “A Not-So-Transparent Attempt to Cap Drug Prices.” By Robt. A. Ingram. Forcing the disclosure of profits on high-cost drugs reflects a misunderstanding of how research works.] 7-20-15
  51. Medicine. LTE. “Please Be Kind to Your Physician.” Iran. “The Iran Deal’s Collapsing Rationale.” By Bret Stephens. [“…To adapt a phrase, the administration believes that it has to destroy a region in order to save it…] 7-21-15
  52. Medicine. LTE “Patients’ Health-Care Cost Squeeze.” 7-22-15
  53. Medicine. “A Win for Vaccines, but Worries Remain.” By Nina Shapiro. [Doctors who offer easy exemptions could undermine efforts to rein in the antivaccine crowd.] 7-24-15
  54. Medicine. “How to Usher In a New Era of Preventive Health Care.” By Elizabeth Holmes. [People should be able to get any lab test on their own. Waiting for symptoms and a doctor’s order may be too late.] 7-29-15
  55. Medicine. “When a Doctor Is Always a Phone Call Away.” By Richard Boxer. [Many of the 136 million ER visits in2100 could have been replaced with a $50 telemedicine consultation.] 8-3-15
  56. Medicine. LTE. “Self-Ordered Diagnostics Have Pluses and Minuses.” 8-7-15
  57. Medicine. LTE. “When ‘the Doctor’s a Call Away’ May Not be Much Help.” 8-10-15
  58. Medicine. LTE. Medicare’s Ongoing Mid-Life Crisis.” 8-11-15
  59. Medicine. LTE. “Don’t blame the Poor Victims of Medical Identity Thefts.” 8-14-15
  60. Medicine. “A Doctor-Assisted Disaster for Medicine.” By William L. Toffler. [As a physician in Oregon, I have seen the dire effect of assisted-suicide laws on patients and my profession.] 8-18-15
  61. Medicine. “The Unforgettable Death of My Forgotten Patient.” By Brittany A. Betterndorf. [Ms. M had no family, no way to communicate, no hope of survival — and had left no directive about treatment.] 8-22-15
  62. Medicine. LTE. “On Celiac Disease, Gluten-Free Diets and Calling Wolf.” 8-24-15
  63. Medicine. LTE. “Many Near Death Welcome the Choice of a Swift Exit.” 8-26-15
  64. Medicine. LTE. “Therapy Is for Helping Patients, Not the Nursing Homes.” 8-26-15
  65. Medicine. “A Healthy Side Of Insurer Mega-Mergers.” By Victor R. Fuchs and Peter V. Lee. [As hospitals consolidate, more market power is needed to bargain for better prices.] 8-27-15
  66. Medicine. “A Technological Godsend to Counter Hearing Loss.” By David G. Myers. [The ‘hearing loop’ is a remarkable advance, but all too hard to find in the U.S.] 8-28-15
  67. Medicine. LTE. “Testing Drugs Via Platform Trials.” 8-29-15
  68. Medicine. LTE.  “End of Life Decisions for the Proxyless Who Can’t Speak.”  8-31-15
  69. Medicine. LTE. “Insurance Mega-Mergers Won’t Help Patients or M.D.s” 9-2-15
  70. Medicine. “Mandatory Paid Sick Leave’s Ill Effects.” By Maxford Nelsen. [Obama’s executive order won’t help, and may hurt, workers.] 9-14-15
  71. Medicine. LTE. “Disability: If You Build a Program, They Will Come.” 9-18-15
  72. Medicine. “What Cancer Doctors Don’t Know About Cancer Drugs.” By Thomas P. Stossel. [Investment – not good intentions — fuels high-risk research, and price controls will limit new therapies.] 9-23-15
  73. Medicine. “Why ER Visits for Non-Emergencies Aren’t Going Away.” By Paul S. Auerbach. [You can’t teach economics lessons to patients when they don’t feel well. So let’s improve the system.] 9-26-15
  74. Medicine. “A Shooting in Oregon.” [How about a debate over common-sense mental-health laws?] 10-3-15
  75. Medicine. LTE. “How to End the Costly Abuse of ER Facilities.” 10-6-15
  76. Medicine. LTE. “Electronic Records Can Help Care Directives.” 10-6-15
  77. Medicine. LTE. “Mental Health and Stopping Mass Murderers.” 10-7-15
  78. Medicine. LTE. “70,000 New Codes and Alpha and Beta Bees.” 10-8-15
  79. Medicine. “Mass Shootings and a Mental-Health Disgrace.” By Tim Murphy. [The federal bureaucracy is anti-patient, anti-family and anti-medical care. Reform is essential.] 10-9-15
  80. Medicine. “Medical Query: Were You Struck by a Duck?” by R. J. Petrella. 10-14-15
  81. Medicine. LTE. “Drug Wars Used to BE About Drugs, Not Prices.” 10-14-15
  82. Medicine. LTE. “Antibiotics Aren’t Always The Right Prescription.” 10-17-15
  83. Medicine. “The Answer to High Drug Prices Is More Drugs, Faster.” By Tom Coburn and Paul Howard. [In 2013, a new hepatitis C treatment cost $84,000. In 2014, a newer treatment led to discounting up to 40%.] 10-22-15
  84. Medicine. “Defeated by the 99-Cent Drug Store.” [Pharma markets move to solve an unusual pricing abuse – again.] 10-24-15
  85. Medicine. LTE. “Change the Byzantine World of Drug Pricing.” 10-27-15
  86. Medicine. “How About Fraud Alerts for Health-Care Charges?” by Hank B. Walther. [The federal government could learn from credit-card companies how to stop billions in bad claims.] 11-6-15
  87. Medicine. “Healing the Brains of American GIs.” Weekend Interview with Arnold Fisher – By William McGurn. [Intrepid Centers are making remarkable progress against the ‘signature wounds’ of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.] 11-7-15
  88. Medicine.   LTE. Are the $55 Aspirin and $90 Calamine Next? 11-10-15
  89. Medicine. LTE. “It’s High Time to Examine Policy About Generic Drugs.” 11-17-15
  90. Medicine. “The Coming Government Takeover of Drug Pricing.” By Scott Gottlieb. [ObamaCare provides the tools for a unilateral move against the industry the left loves to demonize.] 11-23-15
  91. Medicine. “Winning the right to Save Your Own Life.” By Darcy Olsen. [As the FDA dawdles, 24 states pass ‘right-to-try’ laws giving terminally ill patients access to drugs.] 11-27-15
  92. Medicine. “The Food Cops and Their Ever-Changing Menu of Taboos.” By David A. McCarron. [After decades of failure, maybe government should get out of the business of giving dietary advice.] 11-28-15
  93. Medicine. LTE “Ruling Will Thwart Biosimilar Drug Market.” 12-1-15
  94. Medicine. LTE. “Do Patients Really Have ‘Nothing to Lose.” 12-5-15 [See Nov. 27, #91, here]
  95. Medicine. LTE. “Promote, Facilitate Mental-Health Treatment.” 12-10-15
  96. Medicine. LTE. “It’s Yes to Right-to-Die But No to Right-to-Try.” 12-11-15 [See 11-27-15 here]
  97. Medicine. “The Folly of Targeting Big Pharma.” By Michael Mandel. [The biggest driver of rising health-care spending is the cost of labor, not drugs.] 12-11-15
  98. Medicine. LTE. “How Best to Test and Regulate Medical Tests.?” 12-19-15
  99. Medicine. LTE. “How Best to Test and Regulate Medical Tests.?” 12-19-15
  100. Medicine. LTE. “Bureacracy, Not Drugs, Drives Health Costs.” 12-22-15
  101. Medicine. LTE. “On Forcing the Involuntary Treatment of the Mentally Ill.” 12-22-15
  102. Medicine. LTE. “Higher Surgical Volume Improves Hospitals.” 12-30-15
  103. Medicine. LTE. “We Need Incentives for New Anticancer Drugs.” 1-2-16
  104. Medicine. “A Cancer ‘Moonshot’ Needs Big Data.” By Tom Coburn. [Analyzing vast genetic and clinical data from hospitals and doctors would lead to revolutionary advances.] 1-15-16
  105. Medicine. LTE. “Why Should Drugs for Americans Cost More?” 1-16-16
  106. Medicine.   LTE “Preventive Care and the Chief Health Officer.” 1-20-16
  107. Medicine.   LTE  “Big Data, Technology and Defeating Cancer.” 1-22-16
  108. Medicine. LTE. “Drug Labels: Right to Know vs. the Wider Public Interest.” Crime. “Chuck Grassley’s Guilty Politics.” [The GOP Senator and The White House oppose mens rea reform.] 1-26-16
  109. Medicine. “A New Prescription for Lower Drug Prices.” By Mark L. Baum. [Compounded-drug makers can bring inexpensive, off-patent medicines to market, if the FDA will let them.] 1-26-16
  110. Medicine. LTE. “Big Operation: Move Medical Power to People.” 1-28-16
  111. Medicine. “For Hospital Chains, Competition Is a Bitter Pill.” By Eric Boehm. [Building a new medical center in Virginia can take a decade, because state laws favor entrenched players.] 1-30-16
  112. Medicine. LTE. “Compounding Labs: No Answer for High Prices.” 1-30-16Medicine. “Gilead and Biden’s Cancer
  113. Campaign.” [You can’t make medical progress by punishing medical advances.] 2-2-16
  114. Medicine. “More Must Be Done to Expose Bad Doctors.” By Lawrence B. Schlachter. [Over the past decade, 1% of physicians accounted for 32% of paid malpractice claims.] 2-3-16
  115. Medicine. LTE. “Punishing the Cure Makers Won’t End Cancer.” 2-8-16
  116. Medicine. LTE. “What More Hospitals Mean Is More Treatment.” 2-10-16
  117. Medicine.   “Applying to Zika the Forgotten Lessons of Ebola.” By Scott Gotlieb. [Panic turns to complacency when the threat subsides. That’s no way to handle potential pandemics.] 2-10-16
  118. Medicine. LTE. “Excising Dangerous Bad Apples in Medicine.” 2-11-16
  119. Medicine. “Needed: A three-Year Medical Degree.” By Robert I. Grossman and Steven B. Abramson. 2-18-16
  120. Medicine. “Who’s the Better Drug Dealer? [How CVS cut pharma price increases through negotiation.] 2-24-16
  121. Medicine. LTE. “Do you Want to see a New Three Year M.D.” 2-24-16
  122. Medicine. LTE. “Hospices, Like Hospitals, Can Vary Greatly.” 2-27-16.
  123. Medicine. LTE. “Drug Plans Help, but Not Always the Patient.” 3-2-16
  124. Medicine. “Genetics and Mental Illness – Let’s Not Get Carried Away.” By Jeffrey Lieberman and Ogi Ogas. [Despite some fascinating new findings, gene therapy is still just a dream — one with a troubling history.] 3-4-16
  125. Medicine. “Getting Military Surgeons the Practice They Need to Stay Sharp.” By Richard Menger . [Low hospital caseloads can result in the erosion of skills. A civilian-military hybrid model would help.] 3-12-16
  126. Medicine. “The U.S. Is Botching the Zika Fight.” By John J. Cohrssen and Henry I. Miller. [A genetically tweaked mosquito could stop the illness, but regulators won’t test it. Why would that be?] 3-14-16
  127. Medicine. LTE. “Stopping Zika Via Specially Bred Mosquitoes.” 3-19-16
  128. Medicine. LTE. “Finding the Medical Snowball in a Blizzard.” 3-19-16
  129. Medicine. “An Empty Obama-Clinton-Sanders Plan on Drug Costs.” By Jon C. Lechleiter. [Requiring drug-by-drug data on R&D spending shows a misunderstanding of how my industry works.] 3-22-16.
  130. Medicine. “Ending The Prescribe-Don’t-Tell Charade for Off-Label Drugs.” By Joseph V. Gulfo. [A watershed moment for drug companies’ First Amendment rights.] 3-28-16
  131. Medicine. LTE. “Better Care for the Poor, More Return on Cost.” 3-29-16
  132. Medicine. LTE. “Moving on From Treating Cancers to Preventing Them.” 3-29-16
  133. Medicine. “A Wake-Up Call for Congress on Mental-Health Reform.” By E. Fuller Torrey. [The incident at the Capitol involving a clearly troubled man is the latest reminder: Lawmakers need to act.] 3-30-16
  134. Medicine. LTE “Opioids, Often Legal, Are Killing Many Users.” 4-4-16
  135. Medicine. “Anti-Vaccination Lunacy Won’t Stop.” By Dr. W. Ian Lipkin. [Robert De Niro made the right call in pulling ‘Vaxxed’ from his film festival. But the bogus message rolls on.] 4-4-16
  136. Medicine. LTE. “Mental Illness, Freedom and Public Safety.” 4-9-16
  137. Medicine.  “Warning: Medicare May Be Bad for Your Heart.” By Scott Gottlieb. [Aortic valve replacements are superior to open-heart surgery and less risky. So why are they hard to get?] 4-12-16
  138. Medicine. LTE. “Off-Label Treatment May Be cheaper, Better.” 4-15-16
  139. Medicine. LTE. “Difficult Patients and Overregulated Doctors.” 4-20-16
  140. Medicine. LTE. “Side Effects of Patients Rating Their Doctors.” 4-21-16
  141. Medicine. Suicide.  LTE. “Moving Down the Slippery Slope of Assisted Suicide.” 5-1-16
  142. Medicine. “Elderly, Ailing – and Treated at Home.” By Ezekiel J. Emanuel. [A pilot program that is good for patients and for taxpayers merits extension.] 5-3-16
  143. Medicine. “When Doctors Stop ‘Seeing’ Patients.” By Abraham M. Nussbaum. 5-9-16
  144. Medicine. LTE. “Care at Home Is Good, Except When It’s Not.” 5-11-16
  145. Medicine. “Steamlining Medicine and Saving Lives.” By Bill Frist and Tom Coburn. [The Senate has a chance to cut regulation and promote medical innovation.] 5-12-16
  146. Medicine. LTE. “The Doctor Will See You (Or Her Screen) Now.” 5-16-16
  147. Medicine. “How to Make Hospitals Less Deadly.” By James B. Lieber. [Doctors’ errors annually kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. Here are five reforms that would bring down the death toll. ] 5-18-16
  148. Medicine. “A Medicare Experiment With A Grim Prognosis.” By Jeffrey L. Vacirea. [Congress should stop this venture in bad medicine and flawed economics.] 5-23-16
  149. Medicine. LTE. “A Closer Look at ‘Needless’ Hospital Deaths.” 5-24-16
  150. Medicine. LTE. “New Biologicals Don’t Lower Costs for Many.” 5-24-16
  151. Medicine. LTE. “Biosimilars Are Complex, Costly to Produce.” 5-27-16
  152. Medicine. “Macra:  The Quiet Health-Care Takeover.”  By James C. Capretta and Lanhee J. Chen.  [A 962-page rule puts the federal government between doctors and patients.]  6-1-16
  153. Medicine. LTE.  “Medicare Drug Proposal May Imperil Patient Care.”  6-2-16
  154. Medicine. “Gluten-Free Water?  A Fad Wthout a Grain of Sense.”  By Sophie Egan.  [Almost a third of Americans avoid gluten.  About 1% of them actually have a medical need to.]  6-2-16
  155. Medicine. LTE.  “Macra:  The Creature From the Black Lagoon?”  6-10-16  (See #152, here)
  156. Medicine. LTE.  “New Law Won’t Cure Hospitals’ Dysfunction.”  7-8-16
  157. Medicine. “Government Hospitals Are Failing Native Americans.”  By John Barrasso and John Thune.  [Mismanagement at clinics for veterans makes news, but the Indian Health Service is just as bad.]  7-2-16
  158. Medicine. LTE.  “We treat Every Patient Who Comes to Us.”  7-19-16
  159. Medicine. LTE.  A Mental-Health Band-Aid For a Major Social Failure. 7-21-16
  160. Medicine. “Telemedicine Runs Into Crony Doctoring.”  By Shirley Svorny.  [State medical-licensing barriers protect local MDs and deny patients access to remote-care physicians.]  7-23-16
  161. Medicine. “Why Are They Trying to Make Us Kill Our Patients?”  by Philip B. Dreisbach.  [California’s new assisted-suicide law violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause.]  7-25-16
  162. Medicine. LTE.  “The Rise of Telemedicine Raises Many Issues.”  7-29-16
  163. Medicine. LTE.  “Assisted Suicide:  A right or a Slippery slope?”  8-2-16
  164. Medicine. “There’s No panacea for the Zika epidemic.” By Henry I. Miller.  [Since a vaccine is probably years away, the priority is to kill the mosquitoes that transmit the virus.]  8-3-16
  165. Medicine. “Give a Kidney, Get a Kidney.”  By Jeffrey Veale.  [An innovative voucher program started in 2014 at UCLA is spreading across the country.]  8-4-16
  166. Medicine. LTE.  “We Would Like to See More Legal Organ Donations.”  8-10-16
  167. Medicine. “How Medicaid Fails the Poor.”  [Patients enrolled in the program experience nearly the same outcomes as those without insurance.]  8-11-16
  168. Medicine. “Dems v. GOP on New Drugs.”  By Newt Gingrich.  [The key difference is that Republicans see the vital importance of private research.] 8-12-16
  169. Medicine. “Doctor to Patient: Do You Have a Gun?”  by Jerald Winakur.  [I cannot understand how my asking this question will help.]  8-12-16
  170. Medicine. “You Don’t Need to be a Dentist to Fill a Cavity.” By Eric Boehm [Midlevel ‘dental therapists’ can care for underserved Medicaid patients – but dentists see competition.] 8-20-16
  171. Medicine. LTE. “Providing Health Care Is A Moral Obligation.” 8-23-16
  172. Medicine. “Pay Bone-Marrow Donors, Save Lives.” By Jeff Rowes and Bob McNamara. [Thousands of Americans are waiting for donations — and while bureaucrats fiddle, patients die.] 8-24-16
  173. Medicine. “Anaphylactic Political Shock.” [Sorry, Hillary. The Feds are to blame for Mylan’s EpiPen monopoly.] 8-25-16
  174. Medicine. LTE. “Giving Bone Marrow: Difficult but Rewarding.” 8-26-16
  175. Medicine. LTE. “Competition Keeps Drugs Reasonably Priced.” 8-29-16
  176. Medicine. LTE. “The Hidden Perils of Non-Dentist Dentistry.” 8-31-16
  177. Medicine. LTE. “Demand is Up: Senior-Care Workers’ Wages Must Rise.” 9-1-16
  178. Medicine. “The Coming Trials of Generation Zika.” By W. Ian Lipkin. [We may see an increase in the incidence of mental illness, Parkinson’s and dementia.] 9-7-16
  179. Medicine. LTE.  “First Try to Understand the Opioid Epidemic.” 9-14-16
  180. Medicine. LTE.  “A Zika Vaccine Poses a Number of Problems.”  9-15-16
  181. Medicine. “’Liking’ Our Way to a Cure for Cancer.”  By Jon M. Huntsman Sr.  9-16-16
  182. Medicine. “Economic Nonsense From the U.N. on Drugs.”  By Tomas J. Philipson.  [Blowing up the patent system will make it harder, not easier, for the global poor to get medicines.]  9-17-16
  183. Medicine. “Turn Off the Computer and Listen to the Patient.”  By Caleb Gardner and John Levinson. [The practice of medicine is a subtle art.  Doctors need to give patients their undivided attention.]  9-22-16
  184. Medicine. “The Terminally Ill Deserve Right-to-try Laws.”  By Ron Johnson.  [The FDA’s approach to drug approval means that patients die waiting for possibly lifesaving drugs.]  9-23-16
  185. Medicine. “A Better Way to Find Faulty Pacemakers.”  By Josh Rising.  [Medicare forms don’t track such devices, but they should.]  10-20-16
  186. Medicine. LTE.  “If Used Properly, EMRs Can Help Patients.”  10-26-16
  187. Medicine. “Lilly’s Bet on Alzeheimer’s.”  [The failure of its big drug investment may still benefit society.]  11-26-16
  188. Medicine. “Don’t Thank Big Government for Medical Breakthroughs.”  By Tom Stossel.  [New cures come from private research not cash dumped into the National Institutes of Health.]  1-6-17Medicine. “Siri, Am I About to Have a Heart Attack?”  by Andy Kessler.  [Big data could provide early warning of disease – if medical records can learn to talk to one other.]  1-10-17
  189. Medicine. “Ignore Anti-Vaccine Hysteria, Mr. Trump.”  By Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell.  1-11-17
  190. Medicine. “It’ll Take More than a Band-Aid to Fix Medicaid.” By Regina Herzlinger and Richard Boxer. [Save the program by giving states money to provide high-deductible plans with health savings accounts.] 2-6-17
  191. Medicine. “Health-Care Innovations Are Coming to Your Digital Device.” By Regina Benjamin and Andrew Thompson. [New technology to keep you well, from virtual doctors’ visits to pills that talk to your smartphone.] 2-21-17
  192. Medicine. “How Other Countries Freeload on U.S. Drug Research.” By Peter Pitts. [Letting Americans buy prescriptions from foreign retailers would impair the development of new cures.] 2-22-17
  193. Medicine. “How Trumpism Can Bust the Medical Trusts.” By Clark Havighurst. [A populist war on health monopolies would unleash competition and give patients more choices.] 3-2-17
  194. Medicine. “A Theatrical Rebuttal to the Farce of ‘Dignicide.” (The Weekend Interview with Liz Carr by Sohrab Ahmari.) [The creator of ‘Assisted Suicide: The Musical’ says euthanasia denies the value of people who have illnesses or disabilities.] 3-4-17
  195. Medicine. “The Superbug Dirty Dozen.” [Baby got bacteria: Shaking the threat from drug-resistant germs.] 3-4-17
  196. Medicine. “$20 and an Algorithm Could Save Your Teen From a Heart Attack.” [Early testing can avert disaster, but false positives are stressful and costly. Now there’s a solution.] 3-4-17
  197. Medicine. (The Weekend Interview with Alexi Nazem by Allysia Finley) “High-Tech Help for the Freelance Physician..” [The founder of Nomad is giving his medical colleagues a way into the gig economy.] 3-25-17
  198. Medicine. “Opioids Shouldn’t Be a Doctor’s First Resort.” By Marc Siegel. 3-29-17
  199. Medicine. “Give Medicaid Dollars Directly to Patients.” By Justin Haskins and Michael Hamilton. [Each beneficiary could get $7,000 a year in a health savings account.] 4-13-17
  200. Medicine. “Personalized Medicine Is Here.”  By Pete Huber and Paul Howard.  [The FDA’s approval for 23andMe may be the first shot in a health revolution.]   5-1-17
  201. Medicine. “Decades in an Asylum Wasn’t the Worst Fate.”  By Howard Husock.  [My mentally ill great-uncle spent 72 years in custody.  Today he’d be isolated in a prison cell – or maybe homeless and dangerous.]  5-6-17
  202. Medicine. “The Drug Lobby’s In-House Hygiene. “  [Big Pharma cleans out some of its bad actors on drug prices.]  5-10-17
  203. Medicine. “Trump and Christie’s First Steps to Solving the Opioid Crisis.”  By Josh Bloom and Alex Berezow.  [The epidemic’s cause isn’t clear, but a nationwide system for tracking prescriptions would help.]  5-16-17
  204. Medicine. “How to Make Medicine More Expensive.”  [State politicians know nothing about drug prices.]  6-5-17
  205. Medicine. “A Regulation That Protects Big-Hospital Monopolies.”  By Hal Scherz.  [By restricting construction of new medical facilities, certificate-of-need laws drive up health-care costs.]  6-14-17
  206. Medicine. “Medicare Could Learn a Thing or Two From the VA.”  By Walid F. Gellad.  [A well-functioning formulary lets veterans get the medications they need with low copayments.]  6-15-17
  207. Medicine. “Take Me Out to the Pill Game.”  By Dana P. Goldman and Darius N. Lakdawalla.  [Why are prescription drugs so expensive?  Look to Major League Baseball for an answer.]  6-14-17
  208. Medicine. “An Academia-Big Pharma Truce.”  By Marc Siegel.  [The corporate and scholarly research worlds could learn much from each other.]  6-26-17
  209. Medicine. “The Other Republican Health Plan.”  [The FDA’s new chief is pushing more generic drug competition.]  7-1-17
  210. Medicine. “I Want My Doctors to Help Me Live, Not Die.”  By J.J. Hanson.  [Assisted suicide and the temptation of despair.]  7-7-17
  211. Medicine. “The Gene Editors Are Only Getting Started.”  (The Weekend Interview with Jennifer Doudna by Kyle Peterson)  [Would you eradicate malaria-carrying insects?  Change your baby’s DNA? Scientists soon may have the power to do both.]  7-8-17
  212. Medicine. “Return Medicaid to Its Rightful Role.”  By Frank Keating and Doug Beall.  [The program should provide poor Americans with quality care, not shoddy coverage.] 7-18-17
  213. Medicine. “In the Netherlands, the Doctor Will Kill You Now.”  By Kees van der Staaij.  [Healthy people who consider their lives ‘full’ may soon be eligible for assisted suicide.] 7-21-17
  214. Medicine. “Silicon Valley Trails in Medical Tech.”  by Michael S. Malone.  [With smartphones everywhere and little regulation, India and Africa are set to lead.]  7-24-17
  215. Medicine. “Is Your child Safe From Antivaccine Activists?”  by Julie Gunlock.  [Measles, all but eradicated by 2000, threatens a comeback.]  8-1-17
  216. Medicine. “Government Opioid Abuse.”  [State AGs target painkiller makers to pad their budgets.]  8-1-17
  217. Medicine. “HillaryCare Lessons For Today.” By Joe Liberman.  [Pat Moynihan was right.  President Clinton should have pursued legislation with bipartisan support.]  8-1-17
  218. Medicine. “Money for Marrow, Finally.”  [HHS withdraws an Obama rule that literally kills people.]  8-8-17
  219. Medicine. “Trump Can Save Lives by Stopping Illegal Opioids at Their Source.  By John P. Walters and David w. Murray.  [The experience of the cocaine epidemic shows why it’s important to target the supply side.] 8-15-17
  220. Medicine. “Medicaid’s Opioid Fix.”  [Evidence suggests the program may contribute to the epidemic.]  8-16-17
  221. Medicine. (The Weekend Interview with Carl June by Allysia Finley.) “How HIV Became a Cancer Cure.” [The immunologist behind the revolutionary new treatment set to win approval from the FDA.]  8-19-17
  222. Medicine. “A Health-Care Fix That Works, Now Being Rolled Back.”  By Jason Furman and Bob Kocher.  [When providers split a fixed fee – say, for a knee replacement – patients get only a single bill.]  8-21-17
  223. Medicine. “Talcum Tort Stick-Up” [No causal link between Baby Powder and cancer, but still a big payday.] 8-26-17  (See #240, here)
  224. Medicine. “Hearing Aid Breakthrough.” [Congress opens a key device market to more competition.] 8-26-17
  225. Medicine. “With Every Alzheimer’s Diagnosis, the Same Bleak Conversation.” By Jeremy Abbate. [Maybe scientists will find a treatment soon, I was told in 1982. Today I’m saying it to my kids.] 8-26-17
  226. Medicine. “Congress Has Exposed Patients’ DNA to Prying Eyes.”  By Twila Brase.  [How ‘anonymous’ is the health information that federal law helps pool?  Less than you’d hope.] 8-29-17
  227. Medicine. LTE.  “The Problems With Bundled Health Billing.”  8-30-17
  228. Trump. “Trump’s Reassuring Hurricane Response.”  By Tevi Troy.  [The While House has shown a focus on Harvey that extends even to the president’s Twitter Feed.]  8-30-17
  229. Medicine. “Why Home Care Costs Too Much.”  By Paul Osterman.  [Regulations often require that nurses do simple tasks like administer eyedrops.]  9-13-17
  230. Medicine. “Medicare and Medicaid Need Innovation.”  By Seema Verma [Trump’s HHS seeks to encourage health-care competition.]  9-20-17
  231. Medicine. “Does Medicaid Spur Opioid Abuse?”  by Allysia Finley.  [Overdoses and hospital visits have grown far more in states that took the ObamaCare expansion.]  9-25-17
  232. Medicine. LTE.  “Doctors, Not Bureaucrats, Make Innovations.”  10-2-17  (7 letters to the editor.)
  233. Medicine. “Reverse Patent Trolls Are Harming Drug Innovation – and patients.”  By Brent Saunders.  [Generic competition is good, but the law Congress passed in 2011 puts unfair burdens on innovators.]  10-9-17
  234. Medicine. “A Flawed Study Depicts Drug Companies as Profiteers.”  By Peter J. Pitts.  [Even the authors admit their selection criteria are a ‘critical limitation.’  That’s an understatement.]  10-10-17
  235. Medicine. “Gene Editing is Here, and Desperate Patients Want It.  By Henry I. Miller.  [Two-thirds of Americans support therapeutic use, but regulators are still stuck in the 1970s.]  10-13-17
  236. Medicine. “The Business of Saving Lives.”  (The Weekend Interview with John C. Martin. By Tunku Varadarajan.)  [Gilead Science’s executive chairman talks about the new era of biomedicine and why drugs cost so much, as Donald Trump has noticed.] 10-21-17
  237. Medicine. “Big (and Hurting) Media on Drugs.”  By Holman w. Jenkins, Jr..  [Did the Washington Post overplay its opioid story because it spent so much money on it?]  10-21-17
  238. Medicine.  “A Bipartisan Drug Cartel?”  [Here’s the rest ofr the story about that opioid non-scandal.]  10-25-17
  239. Medicine. “The Opioid Puzzle.”  [Innovation is the answer to treating a national public health emergency.]  10-27-17
  240. Medicine. “A Talcum Powder Tort Blowout.”  [A California judge tosses out a jury verdict based on little evidence.]  10-27-17  (See #223, here)
  241. Medicine. “Dr. Google Will See You Now.”  By Marc Siegel.  [Online self-diagnosis can be helpful.  But leave the treatment to your physician.]  10-30-17
  242. Medicine. “Can Marijuana Alleviate the Opioid Crisis?”  by Richard Boxer.  [The federal government should stop blocking research into the drug’s medical potential.]  11-20-17
  243. Medicine. “Why Tax Hospitals?  It’s a Medicaid Shell Game.”  By Red Jahncke.  [Providers pay the state.  The state pays providers, then collects matching funds from Uncle Sam.]  12-30-17
  244. Medicine. “Biotech’s Breakthrough Year.”  [Medical advances are accelerating, and even the FDA approves.]  12-30-17
  245. Medicine. “The Opioid Crisis Has Plaintiff Layers Smelling Cash.”  By Dennis Kneale.  [Drug manufacturers need to get proactive or they risk going the way of Big Tobacco.]  1-4-18
  246. Medicine. “Children’s Health-Care Myths.” [CHIP won’t be ended, though Democrats once said it should be.] 1-11-18
  247. Medicine. “Oprah’s ‘Truth’ and Its Potentially Deadly Consequences.”   By Julie Gunlock. [She gave Jenny McCarthy a platform to promote the discredited idea that vaccines cause autism.] 1-11-18
  248. Medicine. “In Search of Easeful Death.” (Bookshelf by Laura Landro) “With the End in Mind” by Kathryn Mannix.” [Palliative care is an alternative to the relentless and costly treatment that is so common toward the end of life.] 1-18-18
  249. Medicine. “Sanders Proposes Medicare for None.” By Chris Jacobs. [His bill would abolish all forms of private insurance and almost all existing public programs.] 1-18-18
  250. Medicine. “The Opioid Dens of Medicaid.” [More evidence that the entitlement may be facilitating abuse.] 1-27-18
  251. Medicine. “Welcome to the Health-Care Jungle.” [Some thoughts for the new Bezos, Buffett and Dimon venture.] 2-1-18
  252. Medicine. “Battlefield Medicine At Parkland.” By Marc Siegel. [Broward Health North doctors stood on military surgical giants’ shoulders.] 2-20-18
  253. Medicine. “What Medicare Could Learn From Netflix.” By Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Bob Kocher. [The company offered a $1 million prize to improve its algorithm. Why not do that for risk adjustment?] 2-21-18
  254. Medicine. “A New Regulatory Threat to Cancer Patients.” By Oliver Elemento. [Washington may impose needless limits on genetic testing.] 2-26-18
  255. Medicine. “Reagan’s Cure for America’s Debt Disease.” By Martin Feldstein. [Two programs, Medicare and Social Security, are the bulk of the problem. Here’s how to fix them.] 3-6-18
  256. Medicine. “A GOP Right-To-Try Fumble.” [House Republicans may kill a bill to give cancer patients a choice.] 3-21-18
  257. Medicine. “Republicans’ Quiet Health Victory.” By Bobby Jindal. [A third of patients on Medicare now opt for a private plan – and it could grow to 40% by 2024.] 3-22-18
  258. Medicine. LTE. “Doctors Debate Electronic Health Records.” 3-27-18
  259. Medicine. “This Warning May Cause Severe Anxiety.” By Peter Funt. [It’s a wonder anyone takes drugs given all those side effects.] 3-29-18
  260. Medicine. “In the War on Cancer, Truth Becomes a Casualty.” By Steve Salerno. [The multibillion-dollar treatment industry appeals to emotion in misleading ads.] 4-21-18
  261. Medicine. “How Long Till the Final World Malaria Day?” by Vas Narasimhan. [Wiping the disease out by 20140 could save 11 million lives.] 4-25-18
  262. Medicine. “Shop Around for Surgery? Colorado May Soon Encourage It.” By Tom Coburn. [Mandating that medical providers post prices would create competition and lower costs all around.] 5-5-18
  263. Medicine. “Can a Judge Solve the Opioid Crisis?” by Abbe R. Gluck. [Thanks to multidistrict litigation, a Cleveland based jurist may set drug policy nationwide.] 5-8-18
  264. Medicine. “Where Does the Law Against Kickbacks Not Apply? Your Hospital.” by Phillip L. Zweig and Frederick C. Blum. [The medical supply chain is a conflicted mess, and revoking its ‘safe harbor’ would save patients money.] 5-8-18
  265. Medicine. “The False God Of ‘Wellness.’” (Bookshelf by Ann Toews) “Everything Happens for a Reason” by Kate Bowler. “Natural Causes” by Barbara Ehrenreich. [Americans are hooked on a powerful illusion – that modern medicine, self-discipline and denial can together forestall death.] 5-23-18
  266. Medicine. “A Right to Try Arrives.” [Congress resolves its differences on access to experimental drugs.] 5-23-18
  267. Medicine. “On Legal Weed, Let States Tend Their Own Gardens.” By Randy E. Barnett. [A new Senate bill would conform federal marijuana enforcement to each state’s laws – a win for federalism.] 6-11-18.
  268. Medicine. “You Can’t Put a Price on a Hip Replacement, and That’s a Problem.” By Steve Cohen. [Andrew Cuomo’s FAIR HEALTH was supposed to make costs transparent. It hasn’t worked out.] 7-14-18
  269. Medicine.  “Election-Year Devices.”  [The House votes to repeal a nasty tax on medical innovation.]  7-25-18
  270. Medicine.  “The GOP’s Clean Bills of Health Savings.”  [Modest improvements in HSAs deserve votes in the Senate.]  7-30-18
  271. Medicine.  “Examining an Epidemic.”  (Bookshelf by Sally Satel)  “Dopesick” by Beth Macy.  “The Addiction Solution” by Lloyd I. Sederer.  [The emotional devastation of opioid addiction is staggering.  So is the economic fall-out.  Families can be bankrupted by the cost of in-patient rehab.]  8-8-18
  272. Medicine.  “The Terminally Ill Need More Than the ‘Right to Try.’”  By Paul J. Marangos.  [Two hundred cancer drugs are in Phase III trials.  Congress can ut them into patients’ hands today.]  8-14-18
  273. Medicine.  “Oregon Overshoots on Opioids.”  By Sally Satel And Stefan Kertesz  [A ban on Medicaid coverage would be cruel to patients.]  8-17-18
  274. Medicine.  “When Medical Innovation Meets Politics.”  (The Weekend Interview with Scott Gottlieb by Kate Bachelder Odell.)  [The FDA commissioner on the promise and challenges of biologic drugs, capital risk and ‘regulatory arbitrage” of generics.]  8-25-18
  275. Medicine.  “A Tale of Two Public Health Crises.”  [Lead in water in flint vs. lead paint poisoning in New York City.]  9-1-18
  276. Medicine.  “The Insurer Will See You Now.”  By Richard Menger.  [With preauthorization, financiers of care delay needed treatments.]  9-4-18
  277. Medicine.  “Let’s Throw a Patent-Burning Party.”  By Peter Kolchinsky.  [When a drug goes generic, it’s as if society has paid off a mortgage.]  10-1-18
  278. Medicine.  “Trump’s Drug Price Bust.”  [HHS follows the Obama method:  set policy first find statute later.]  10-19-18
  279. Medicine.  “Your Doctor Needs Your Trust.”  By Lisa DeAngelis.  [Memorial Sloan Kettering participates in commercial research, but not at the expense of patient care.] 10-24-18
  280. Medicine.  “The Eyes of Oklahoma.”  [Optometrists don’t want new competition from retailers like Walmart.]  10-25-18
  281. Medicine.  “Trump’s Socialist Health-Care Scheme.”  By Jim Greenwood.  [The administration’s plan would use countries like Greece as a benchmark for pricing medications.]  10-30-18
  282. Medicine.  “Trump’s Health-Care Progress.”  [The Administration is improving the individual market by expanding insurance choices.]  11-5-18
  283. Medicine.  “The Drug Price-Control Threat.”  [Trump, Sanders and Warren sound the same themes.  Watch out.]  1-8-19
  284. Medicine.  “Price Drugs According to What They Do.”  By Roger D. Klein.  [A simple reform to improve outcomes and control costs.]  1-9-19
  285. Medicine.  “Big Pharma’s Cancer Race.”  [After tax reform, companies invest in innovation rather than tax arbitrage.]  1-10-19
  286. Medicine.  “If  Weed Is Medicine, so Is Budweiser.”  By Peter B. Bach.  [Legalize marijuana, but don’t pretend it’s therapeutic.]  1-18-19
  287. Medicine.  “The Pros and Cons of Vaping.”  [E-cigarettes are effective in helping smokers quit, but they may also induce teenagers to start.]  1-25-19
  288. Medicine.  “Howard Schultz is Right About Medicare for All.” By Holman w. Jenkins, Jr. [If it works in Scandinavia, it won’t work in the U.S. because Americans won’t pay the required taxes.]  2-2-19
  289. Medicine.  “Don’t Blame Drug Prices on ‘Big Pharma.’”  By Adam J. Fein.  [Lawmakers want lower list prices, but insurers are at fault for mismanaging plans.]  2-4-19
  290. Medicine.  “It’s Time to fire Your Doctor.”  By Andy Kessler.  [Medical tech allow us to monitor health, get advice and seek care remotely and cheaply.]  2-11-19
  291. Medicine.  “Didn’t We Already Beat Measles?”  [Fifty-three cases are no confirmed, most in unvaccinated kids.]  2-13-19
  292. Medicine.  “How to Reduce Prescription-Drug Prices: First, Do No Harm.”  By Scott W. Atlas.  [Top-down controls restrict access.  Instead, encourage patients to shop around among pharmacies.]  2-14-19
  293. Medicine.  “What Your Doctor Isn’t Allowed to Tell You.”  By John Levinson.  [Badly designed electronic records can be hazardous to your health, but a gag clause protects the makers.]  3-5-19
  294. Medicine.  “We’re Overmedicating Our Children.”  By Erica Komisar.  [The use of drugs as a quick fix doesn’t help kids become resilient to stress or emotionally mature.]  3-7-19
  295. Medicine.  “The Unforced Error of Medicare for All.”  By Vin Gupta.  [Democrats would be wise to seek reform, not revolution.]  3-8-19
  296. Medicine.  “An Ounce of Prevention.”  (Bookshelf by Chris Pope)  “More Than Medicine” by Robert M. Kaplan.  [The U.S. spends a massive sum on health care.  Would urging behavioral changes and healthier living be the best way to bring down costs?]  3-18-19
  297. Medicine.  “Banishing Profit Is Bad for Your Health.”  By Bill Hammond.  [The Medicare for All proposal from House Democrats follows New York state’s bad example.]  3-19-19
  298. Medicine.  “Health Car’s Killer app:  Life Insurance. “  by Dan P. Goldman and Darius Lakdawalla.  [The industry could profit by helping policyholders pay for cancer treatments that prolong life.] 3-21-19
  299. Medicine.  “Medicare’s Hospice rules could Make Your Doctor a Criminal.”  By Kyle Clark and Andrew George. [If he says you have six months to live and you survive longer, has he committed fraud.?]  3-22-19
  300. Medicine.  “Where Did the Schizophrenics Go?”  by E. Fuller Torrey and Wendy Simmons. [The number drops to 750,000 from 2.8 million, and spending per patient soars.] 3-27-19
  301. Medicine.  “What Causes Cancer?  It’s Complicated.”  By Arthur W. Lambert.  [Each case of the disease is the result of several factors, and it’s usually hard to blame a specific exposure.]  4-2-19 (cf. R”ound-Up” lawsuit)
  302. Medicine.  “Pain Patients Get Relief From Regulation.”  By Sally Satel  [Abruptly losing opioids triggers symptoms of withdrawal sending them after illegal alternatives.]  4-15-19
  303. Medicine.  “Importing Bad ideas on Drug Prices.”  [Florida Republicans decide to imitate Vermont Democrats. ]  4-16-19
  304. Medicine.  LTE.  “Medicare for All Isn’t What Europe Provides.”  4-24-19
  305. Medicine.  “They Have to Get the Shots.”  [Measles outbreak vs vaccination]. 4-27-19
  306. Medicine  “’Medicare for All’ Isn’t Medicare.”  By Robert C. Pozen.  [Democrats mislead voters by appropriating the name of a popular program they actually see to abolish.]  5-2-19
  307. Medicine.  “The Complicated Truth About Vaccines.”  By Michael Segal. 5-2-19
  308. Medicine.  “Standing Against Psychiatry’s Crazes.”  (The Weekend Interview with Paul McHugh by Abigail Shrier.)  [In 1979 he closed the sex-change clinic at Johns Hopkins.  In the ‘80s he testified against phony ‘recovered memories.’  He hasn’t given up the fight.]  5-4-19
  309. Medicine.  “Weeding Out Dubious Marijuana Science.”  By Alex Berenson.  [Researchers find ways to minimize increases in crime and traffic deaths that followed legalization.]  5-6-19
  310. Medicine.  “No Religious Exemptions From Vaccines.”  By Jason L. Riley.  [The risk to public health is too great.  Lawmakers should limit medical exceptions more, too.]   5-15-19
  311. Medicine.  “Medicare Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be.”  By Chris Pope.  [The privately managed Medicare Advantage does a better job, though it could use improvement.]  5-15-19
  312. Medicine.  “Cut Out the Medical Middlemen.”  By John Darlson.  [Direct primary care provides high-quality flat, low monthly fee.]  5-20-19
  313. Medicine.  “About That ‘Junk’ Health Insurance.” [New evidence that short-term plans offer good coverage for many.]  5-20-19
  314. Medicine.  “Litigation Won’t Solve the Opioid Crisis.”  By Steve Miller.  [Patients suffering from the effects of abuse need real help, not scapegoats.]  5-28-19
  315. Medicine.  “Public Unions vs. Single-Payer.”  6-1-19
  316. Medicine.  “A Merger Cure for Bigger Government.” [“…By combining with Aetna, CVS aims to better align incentives for patients to comply with drug treatments and seek lower-cost care…]  6-5-19
  317. Medicine.  “Shop Till Medical Costs Drop.”  By Scott W. Atlas.  [Disclosing prices isn’t enough.  Patients don’t care al long as ‘it’s all covered by insurance.’]  6-7-19
  318. Medicine.  “Modest Cuts Could Save Medicare From Disaster.”  By John F. Early.  [The alternatives are huge increases in taxes, cuts in other spending, or Greek-crisis levels.]  6-11-19
  319. Medicine.  “Get Rid of Surprise medical Bills.”  By Benedic Ippolito.  [Congress can fight the scour]  ge of out-of-network doctors at in-network hospitals.]  6-12-19
  320. Medicine.  “How Big Pharma Suppresses ‘Biosimilars.’  By Denny Lanfear.  [Deals with insurers and pharmacy benefit managers at patient and taxpayer expense.]  6-24-19
  321. Medicine. “Requiem for a Rebate Rule.” [The feds discover that meddling in drug prices creates more problems.] 7-12-19
  322. Medicine. “Cures for Cancer Could Grow on Trees.” By Kathleen L. Hefferon and Henry I. Miller. [Poorly designed regulation blocks investment in ‘pharming’ – plant-based medications and vaccines.] 7-19-19
  323. Medicine. “Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion.” By Robert Nagourney. [The disease’s endless variety is reminiscent of Tolstoy’s observation about unhappy families.] 7-23-19
  324. Medicine. “Big Pharma vs. Big Pharma.” [Pfizer’s deal with Mylan may make both more competitive.] 7-30-19
  325. Medicine. “Time to Throw In the Towel on Biosimilars.” By Peter B. Bach and Mark Trusheim. [Biologic drugs don’t face strong competition, and Washington’s preferred solution slows innovation.] 8-22-19
  326. Medicine. “Don’t Give up on Biosimilars – Congress Can Give them a Boost.” By Scott Gottlieb. [Drugs grown in live cells are hard to replicate. But policy changes can help accelerate the process.] 8-26-19
  327. Medicine. “AARP’s Interests Diverge From Its Members.’” by Gerard Gianoli. [The advocacy group sided with insurers against a rule that would help seniors.] 8-30-19
  328. Medicine. “Cutting Medical Costs Can Be a Bargain.” By Henry I. Miller and Shiv Sharma. [Don’t underestimate inexpensive, low-tech methods of keeping people healthy.] 9-4-19
  329. Medicine. “How to think About Health Coverage.” [New Census data show the poverty rate fell for the fourth year in a row.] 9-11-19
  330. Medicine. “Be Grateful for Your Health Insurance Company.” By Chris Pope. [It has the thankless job of saying ‘no.’ But policing claims allows you to get better benefits.] 9-12-19
  331. Medicine. “The Stakes of the Vape Debate.” [The political frenzy ignores adults who want to quit smoking.] 9-13-19
  332. Medicine. “A Vaping Ban Will Send Smokers Back to the Pack.” By Liam Sigaud and Steve Pociask. [Banning safe e-cigarette products could reverse the decadelong decline in smoking rates.] 9-13-19
  333. Medicine. “The Red Meat Rethink” [Go ahead and have that steak, and hold the climate politics.] 10-3-19
  334. Medicine. “A Supercenter for Medicine.” By Charles Silver and David A. Hyman. [Pols talk of reducing health costs. Walmart and CVS are doing something about it.] 10-4-19
  335. Medicine. “Pelosi’s Expensive Drug Bill.” [Let’s hope impeachment kills the chance for pharma price controls.] 10-5-19
  336. Medicine. “Pot Legalization Makes Vaping Deadly.” By Scott Gottlieb. [Recent injuries and deaths demonstrate the need for Washington to take control over cannabis policy.] 10-11-19
  337. Medicine. “An Alzheimer’s Drug Surprise.” [More evidence of the benefit of trials based on genetic variants.] 10-24-19
  338. Medicine. “Sometimes Drug Prices Are Too Low.” By David R. Henderson and Charles L. Hooper. [Washington’s efforts to keep medications affordable have had unintended consequences.] 11-1-19
  339. Medicine. “America’s Miracle Medicines.” [The biotech cures keep coming, if politicians don’t get in the way.] 11-2-19
  340. Medicine.  Obamacare. “Medicare for All Preview.” [Britain’s National Health Service crisis starts early this year.] 11-15-19
  341. Medicine. “Trump’s Patent Trolls.” [A dubious lawsuit tries to cash in on Gilead’s anti-HIV drug.] 11-15-19
  342. Medicine. “Why Obama Stopped auditing Medicaid.” By Brian Blasé and Aaron Yeloowitz. [The share of recipients who aren’t eligible has grown sharply since the expansion began in 2014.] 11-19-19
  343. Medicine. “Medicine Without Doctors Doesn’t Compute.” By Marc Siegel. [The hospital of the future will still need flesh-and-blood physicians.] 11-25-19
  344. Medicine. “The Backward March of Civilization.” [A measles outbreak in Samoa kills 60 due to lack of vaccinations.] 12-7-19
  345. Medicine. “Price Controls Would Stifle Biotech Innovation.” By Scott Gottlieb. [A House price-control bill would do the most damage to Transformative and life-saving medications.] 12-12-19
  346. Medicine. “How the GOP Can Win on Health Care.” By Bobby Jindal. [Voters don’t want the left’s radical plans, but they may settle for them if the right doesn’t offer alternatives.] 1-3-20
  347. Medicine. “Trump delivers a Vital Christmas Gift.” By Mary Vought. [The administration’s new rules would ease organ transplants.] 1-9-20
  348. Medicine. “Where You Want to Get Cancer.” [Mortality rates are falling, especially if you live in the U.S.] 1-10-20
  349. Medicine. “U.S. Hospitals Aren’t Ready” by Betsy McCaughey. [Lessons from Canada’s 2003 SARS outbreak, when Toronto got sick and Vancouver didn’t.] 1-27-20
  350. Medicine. “Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic.” By Luciano Borio and Scott Gottlieb [Quarantines, flu vaccines and other steps to take before the Wuhan virus becomrs widespread. 1-29-20
  351. Medicine. “Pharma to the Rescue.” 1-31-20
  352. Medicine. “Trump’s Medicaid Benefit.” [Critics distort a new policy giving states more flexibility.] 2-4-20
  353. Medicine. “Opioid Inflection Point?” 2-6-20
  354. Medicine. “The 90-Day Prescription Isn’t for Everyone.” By Brian Barnett. [Pharmacies push it over physicians warnings.] 2-7-20
  355. Medicine. “How To Improve Health Outcomes for Older Americans.” By Elizabeth Goldberg. [The U.S. is struggling to meet the needs of this growing population. Here’s what doctors can do.] 2-10-20
  356. Medicine. “Why Does the U.S. Have So Few Confirmed Coronavirus Cases.” By Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb. [How officials can prepare for a disease that’s likely more widespread than CDC numbers show.] 2-21-20
  357. Medicine. “How Not to Panic Over the Wuhan Virus (or Russia).” By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. [Governments ae starting to use the word pandemic so publics can be ready to protect themselves.] 2-22-20
  358. Medicine. “How a Boy’s Blood Stopped an Outbreak.” By Arturo Casadevall. [A school physician’s approach to measles in 1934 has lessons for the coronavirus.] 2-28-20
  359. Medicine. “The OB-GYNs Who Play Politics With Women’s Lives.” By Christina Francis. [Abortion is more important to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.] 3-4-20
  360. Medicine. “A Court Corrects a Medical Injustice.” [Cardiologist Richard Paulus went to prison because another doctor disagreed with hs opinion.] 3-7-20
  361. Medicine. “White House Principles For Reducing Drug Costs.” By Joe Grogan. [In our partisan times, an opportunity for lawmakers to work across the aisle and get something done.] 3-11-20
  362. Medicine. “Florida’s Pioneering Medical Reforms.” By Sal Nuzzo and Vittorio Nastasi. [Other states should repeal rules they’ve temporarily relaxed to deal with the coronavirus epidemic.] 4-1-20
  363. Medicine. “Doctors Without State Borders.” [Governors are easing rules on caregivers, and it’s long overdue.] 4-11-20
  364. Medicine. “The Doctor Will Zoom You Now.” [The pandemic lockdown is proof of concept for mass telemedicine.] 4-27-20
  365. Medicine. “Relying on Foreign Drugs Is Dangerous.” By Scott W. Atlas and H.R. McMaster. [Generics are often made in India, with ingredients from China. Time to diversify the supply chain.] 4-29-20
  366. Medicine. “Government’s Ambulance Chasers.” by Anastasia Boden and Mollie Williams. [In most states, certificates of need laws stand in the way of new medical facilities and services.] 4-30-20
  367. Medicine. “Medical Research Is Locked Down, Too. By Kevin Sheth. [Clinical trials grind to a halt as patients are told to stay home and research personnel are redeployed.] 5-5-20
  368. Medicine. “A New Recipe for Waste In Medicaid.” By Brien Blasé. [The Democrats’ plan would have Washington cover all the health program’s costs for the states this year.] 5-5-20
  369. Medicine.  “Letting the Docs Dispense.”  [Should patients have to make a trip to the drugstore to fill a prescription.]   6-13-20
  370. Medicine.  “A Real Market in Medical Care?  Singapore shows the Way.”  By George P. Shultz and Vidar Jorgensen.  [Some American companies have embraced elements of it, such as price transparency and HSAs.]  6-16-20
  371. Medicine.  “A Rebuke on Drug Prices.”   [“…an appellate court this week rebuked the Trump Administration for an extralegal attempt to browbeat drug makers…”]  6-18-20
  372. Medicine.  “The Roundup Settlement.”  [Junk science prevails as Bayer strikes a deal with the trial lawyers.]  6-29-20
  373. Medicine.  “Reinvent Health Care to Beat Covid-19.  By Scott Gottlieb and Mark McClellan.  [Important surgeries can continue, but doctors need to be paid more for managing outbreaks.]   6-29-20
  374. Medicine.  “Price Controls Would Throttle Biomedical Innovation.”  By John Stanford.  [Congress should reject legislation that would deprive startups of vital investment capital.]  7-2-20
  375. Medicine.  “Cancer Screening Leaps Forward.”  By Andy Kessler.  [Innovation sneaks up on us:  There’s a new DNA test that detects more illnesses, earlier.]   7-6-20
  376. Medicine.  “Antibodies Can Be the Bridge to a Vaccine.”  By Lucianna Borio and Scott Gottlieb.  [Drugs that mimic an immune response are in development, but it’s time to ramp up manufacturing.]   7-6-20
  377. Medicine.  “A Plan to Avert a ‘Superbug’ Pandemic.”  By David A Ricks and Kasim Kutay.  [Without new medications, antibiotic-resistant germs could kill 30 million a year world-wide by 2050.]   7-9-20
  378. Medicine.  “Trump’s Drug Price Panic.”  [He adopts Biden-like controls that would harm YU.s. innovation.]   7-27-20
  379. Medicine.  “Medical Research’s Cross of ‘Gold’ Imperils Covid Treatments.”  By Allysia Finley.  [Randomized controlled studies have advantages, but there are other valuable sources of data.]   9-9-20
  380. Medicine.  “West Virginia’s Drug Deal.”  [A Republican AG teams up with trial lawyers to shake down business.]   9-10-20
  381. Medicine.  “The Federal Program That Keeps Insulin Prices High.”  By Adam J. Fein.  [Middlemen pocket discounts while forcing patients, employers and Medicare to pay more.]   9-11-20
  382. Medicine.  “Your Company Health Plan Isn’t Safe in a Biden Presidency.”  By Chris Jacobs.  [Two of his policies would lead to 24 million losing employer coverage, costing $2.2 trillion over 10 years.]   9-22-20
  383. Medicine.  “Addiction By Prescription.”  (Bookshelf by Sally Satel.)  “White Market Drugs.”  By David Herzberg. [Major drug crises arise not in the black market but in the ’white’ one, where the addictive potential of prescribed drugs is played down.]   10-21-20
  384. Medicine.  “Amazon Shakes Up Health Care.”  [New competition for pharmacies could have big consumer benefits.]   11-19-20
  385. Medicine.  “Legal Drugs Are Fashionable – and Treacherous for Children.”  By Naomi Schaefer Riley and John Walters.  [When kids have to be put in foster care, parental substance abuse is usually the underlying reason.]   11-19-20
  386. Medicine.  “Trump Isn’t the One Politicizing Science.”  By Joel Zinberg.  [Antimalarials seemed promising, then failed in trials.  That’s how it’s supposed to work.]   12-15-20
  387. Medicine.  “A Case Against Walmart Mocks Justice.”  By Michael I. Krauss.  [The federal government sues the chain for filling valid prescriptions in compliance with state law.]   12-28-20
  388. Medicine.  “Scapegoating Walmart.”  [The feds seek billions in penalties for filling valid opioid prescriptions. ]  12-30-20
  389. Medicine.  “Congress’s Doctor Shortage.”  [Trillions for Covid relief, very little to address medical training.]   1-5-21
  390. Medicine.  “The Good News on Cancer.”   1-15-21
  391. Medicine.  “The Battle Over an Alzheimer’s Treatment.”  [Biogen’s promising drug is caught in the FDA’s bureaucratic limbo.]   4-20-21
  392. Medicine.  “FTC Imperils a Cancer Breakthrough.”  By Francis deSouza.  [Illumina spun off Grail to develop a test for 50 forms of the disease.  Regulators seek to block our reunion.]  5-7-21
  393. Medicine.  “In the War on Cancer, Science Is Winning.”  By Robin L. Smith.  [Promising and amazing advances in vaccination, diagnostic tests, immune therapy and gene testing.]  5-25-21
  394. Medicine.  “Government Race Against a Cure.”  [EU and U.S. Trust busters conspire to block a biotech merger.]   6-3-21
  395. Medicine.  “Doctors for Progressive Conformity.”  [The AMA wants to police the speech of dissenting members.]   6-19-21
  396. Medicine.  “Republicans Can Lead on Healthcare Reform.”  By Bobby Jindal.  [They’re out of power in Washington, but in state capitals, they can show they have real solutions.]   6-25-21
  397. Medicine.  “Tarring The Nic Stick.”  (Bookshelf by Kate Bachelder Odell.)  “Big Vape.” By Jamie Ducharme.  “The Devil’s Playbook.”  By Lauren Etter.  [The founders of Juul developed a way to inhale nicotine without the tar.  In risk-averse America, that wasn’t good enough.]   6-29-21
  398. Medicine.  “A Cancer Patient’s Brutal Commute.”  By Ateev Mehrotra and Barak Richman.  [Maki Inada has to drive 5 ½ hours to see a doctor because of state laws restricting telemedicine.]   7-13-21
  399. Medicine.  “Three Cheers for Employer Health Insurance.”  By Casey Mulligan.  [It gets a bum rap.  Data demonstrate it delivers great value to companies, employees and taxpayers.]  7-17-21
  400. Medicine.  “Opioid Income Redistribution.”  [Actual liability doesn’t matter as the lawyers get rich as usual.]   7-22-21
  401. Medicine.  “Texas Provides a Model for Conservative Healthcare Reform.”  By Bobby Jindal.  [Republicans passed a package of market-friendly laws to expand access and increase competition.]   7-24-21
  402. Medicine.  “The Danger of Expanding Medicare.”  By Bobby Jindal.   8-26-21
  403. Medicine.  “The Texas Abortion Law Is Unconventional Because It Had to Be.”  By Bryan Hughes.  [After Roe v. Wade, many people think abortion is off limits to democracy.  It isn’t.]   9-13-21
  404. Medicine.  “Biden’s Price Controls Will Make Good Health More Expensive.”  By Tomas J. Philipson.  [Pharmaceutical innovation will suffer and drugs that could save your life may not reach the market.]   9-16-21
  405. Medicine.  “The Political Raid on Future Cures.”  [The Democratic price controls on drugs would be a historic tragedy.]   9-17-21Medicine.  “The Nest Medicaid Blowout.”  By Brian Blasé.  [Democrats plan a federal program to cover childless adults.  Insurers will win big but health won’t.]   9-22-21
  406. Medicine.  “Privacy Protection Is in Florida’s DNA.”  By hris Sprowls.  [Congress should follow Tallahassee’s lead and make it a crime to steal someone else’s genetic information.]  9-25-21
  407. Medicine.  “Regulatory Hurdles Block a Cancer Miracle.”  (The Weekend Interview with Francis de Souza by Allysia Finley.)  [Illumina’s CEO explains the Grail diagnostic test and the FTC action that risks slowing it down.]   10-9-21
  408. Medicine.  “Bernie’s Surprise Medicare Bill.”  [Democrats want to add benefits to a program already going broke.]   10-11-21
  409. Medicine.  “Patient, Heal Thyself.”  (Bookshelf by Tunku Varadarajan.)  “The Deep Places.”  By Ross Douthat. [He was stonewalled and scoffed at by skeptical doctors, but the disease was real – and painfully persistent.] 10-14-21
  410. Medicine.  “How AI Wil Make Your Doctor Smarter.”  (The Weekend Interview with Hassan Teitah by Allan Ripp.)  [From Suicide prevention to infection tracking, the U.S. military is applying the latest technology to a host of medical challenges.]   11-6-21
  411. Medicine.  “A Toxic Drug-Price Deal.”  [The new version of price controls is barely better than the first.]  11-9-21
  412. Medicine.  “Hawaii Is No Paradise if You Need Medical Care.”  By Keli’I Akina.  [High taxes contribute to a shortage of doctors while certificate-of-need laws crimp capacity.]   12-4-21
  413. Medicine.  “Drug Prices Haven’t Been Going Up.”  By Joel Zinberg.  [The myth that they have drives Biden’s proposals for price controls, which would throttle innovation.]  12-27-21
  414. Medicine.  “The Doctor’s Office Becomes an Assembly Line.”  By Deborah Goldman.  [Consolidation is wiping out private practices and making medical care costlier and worse.]  12-30-21
  415. Medicine.  “Single-Payer Makes a Comeback.”  [California Democrats are back, this time with huge tax increases.]  1-11-22
  416. Medicine.  “Indiana’s High-Priced Hospitals Press Their Political Luck.”  By Al Hubbard and Brian Blasé.  [If the state’s big nonprofit health systems can’t find a way to control prices, legislators will.]   2-5-22
  417. Medicine.  “The Doctor Will See You Now – Wait, Not You.”  By L.S. Dugdale.  [Physicians, losing patience with their patients, forget their obligation to care.]   2-9-22
  418. Medicine.  “Malady Unknown.”  (Bookshelf by Brandy Schillace.)  “The Invisible Kingdom.”  By Meghan O’Rourke.  [Our medical system does not deal well with uncertainty.  If a diagnostic test can’t determine what’s wrong, then the patient must be wrong.]   2-22-22
  419. Medicine.  “Injecting some Insulin Reality.”  [The House bill capping the cost for diabetics is a phony solution.]   4-6-22
  420. Medicine.  “Tell Me Your Symptoms, Not Your Color.”  By Ralph Alvarado.  [Xavier Becerra wants to pay me to racialize my medical practice.]   5-4-22
  421. Medicine.  “Biogen’s CEO Becomes a Political Sacrifice.”  By Allysia Finley.  [Michel Vounatsos pays after lawmakers target the company’s expensive Alzheimer’s drug.]   5-5-22
  422. Medicine.  “For Whom Do Democrats Seek Lower Drug Costs?”  [They plan to divert savings to other programs, not help those on Medicare.]   5-12-22
  423. Medicine.  “The Mental Illness Pandemic.”  By Daniel Henninger.  [Joe Biden prefers to talk about racism and guns rather than face the real problem.]   5-19-22
  424. Medicine.  “Overdose Rates Are Rising Fast.”  By Joseph Grogan and Casey B. Mulligan.  [Fentanyl will continue killing Americans until Biden decides to get control of the border.]   5-19-22
  425. Medicine.  “The West’s Struggle for Mental Health.”  By Lish Greenfeld.  [Rates of functional mental illness are high in open societies and low in authoritarian ones.]   6-1-22
  426. Medicine.  “The WHO’s Climate Neurosis.”  [The global health shop says eco-anxiety is an urgent problem.]   6-8-22
  427. Medicine.  “The Alzheimer’s Cure Conundrum.”  By Andy Kessler.  [Milllions of dollars later, scientists are still unsure of its causes.  Why?]  6-27-22
  428. Medicine.  “Congress’s Biotech Unicorn.”   [“…so it’s bizarre, to say the least, that Members of Congress now want to launch a government healthcare startup to develop technologies that are supposedy too cutting edge for pivate industry….”]  6-27-22
  429. Medicine.  “These Days It’s News When the CDC Does Something Right.”  By Allysia Finley.  [The mainstream media ignore rigorous study finding no increase in pediatric hepatitis. ]   6-27-22
  430. Medicine.  “In Defense of Pharmacy Benefit Managers.”  By Joe Grogan and Casey B. Mulligan.  [Drug-company lobbyists are pushing policy makers to kill the golden goose.]   7-12-22
  431. Medicine.  “A Price That Isn’t Soaring:  Rx Drugs.”  [Prescription medicine prices rose 0.1% in June, and 2.3% in the last year.]   7-15-22
  432. Medicine.  “Electricity Is the New Medical Miracle.”  (The Weekend Interview with Kevin Tracey by Allysia Finley.  [Stimulating the vagus nerve can relieve arthritis, Crohn’s disease and other inflammatory conditions – perhaps someday even Alzheimer’s disease.]   7-23-22
  433. Medicine.  “The Fattest ‘Skinny’ Bill Ever.”  [Obamacare expansions and drug price controls will have huge costs.]   7-25-22
  434. Medicine.  “Whom does AARP Serve?”  by Kimberley A. Strassel.  [The group advances its own interests by backing the Schumer-Manchin bill.]  8-5-22
  435. Medicine.  “Democrats Vote to Raise Drug Prices.”  [Price controls for Medicare mean higher costs for everyone else.]   8-8-22
  436. Medicine.  “The Government’s Stealth Health Takeover.”  [Medicaid and ObamaCare are replacing private insurance coverage.]   8-15-22
  437. Medicine.  “’Brain Death’ Marks the True End of a Person’s Life.”  By Michael Stanley.  [Anne Heche spent three days on life support, prompting confusion on the obituary pages.]   8-23-22
  438. Medicine.  “Expensive Medications Are a Bargain.”  By Charles L. Hooper and David R. Henderson.  [The Inflation Reduction Act gives the government the ability to ‘negotiate’ drug prices.  People will die.]   9-14-22
  439. Medicine.  “Biden’s Cancer Contradiction.”  [His new price controls might have killed Amgen’s breakthrough.]   9-15-22
  440. Medicine.  “Biden’s Alzheimer’s Lapse.”  [He takes credit for saving caused b not paying for a new drug.]   9-29-22
  441. Medicine.  “You Didn’t Invent that Drug.”  [“…Sorry, NIH, you didn’t invent that.]   10-7-22
  442. Medicine.  “Biden’s Choose-Your-Own-Pandemic Policy.”   10-15-22
  443. Medicine.  “If you’re Hunting for Heresy, You Aren’t a Scientist.”  By Allysia Finley.  [Joseph Ladapo is being condemned for something so-called public-health experts do all the time.]   10-17-22
  444. Medicine.  “The Inflation Reduction Act comes for Medicare.:  by Casey B. Mulligan and Tomas J. Philipson.  [It will cut benefits and increase premiums, upsetting millions of elderly voters.]   11-22-22
  445. Medicine.  “Another Political Shot at Insulin.”  [Now the politicians want to cap prices on the drug in the private market.]   11-28-22
  446. Medicine.  “Public Distrust of Health Officials Is Anthony Fauci’s Legacy.”  By Allysia Finley.  [He presented his judgment as beyond reproach, while consistently flip-lopping and silencing dissent.]  11-28-22
  447. Medicine.  “America Is a Sick Society – Literally.”  By Wm. A. Galston.  [A poor pandemic response and high drug-overdose deaths prove all is not well.]   1-4-23
  448. Medicine.   “Don’t Copy New York’s Medicaid Home Care Disaster.”  By Bill Hammond.  [The state invites fraud by spending nearly as much on home aides as the other 49 states put together.]   1-7-23
  449. Medicine.  “Asthma Education Beats Banning Gas Stoves.”  By Michael Segal.  [Teach sufferers how to prevent attacks and let freedom reign.]   2-3-23
  450. Medicare.  “The Medicare Status Quo Can’t Last.”  By Seema Verma.  [Common-sense market-based reforms can keep the program solvent and improve care for seniors.]  2-13-23
  451. Medicine.  “End Obamacare’s Ban ion Physician-Owned Hospitals.”  By James Lankford and Brian J. Miller.   [A little-known Affordable Care Act provision stifles competition and drives Medicare costs u.]   2-21-23
  452. Medicine.  “Joe Biden’s Insulin fictions.”  [He peddles nonsense about prices that almost no one paid.]   3-2-23
  453. Medicine.  “Legal Weed Feeds the Teen Mental-Health Crisis.”  By Erica Komisar.  [The idea that marijuana isn’t addictive is out of date.  And adolescents are at greater risk than adults.]   3-2-23
  454. Medicine. “Biden’s Tax and Health Rationing Plan.”  [The white House shows the cost of Medicare if it isn’t reformed.]   3-8-23
  455. Medicine.  “No Country for Alzheimer’s Patients.”  [Biden’s CMS won’t budge despite evidence of treatment progress.]   3-3-23
  456. Medicine.  “Another Medical Revolution Is Under Way.”  By Michael Milken.  [Twenty years ago we couldn’t have imagined cell-therapy applications, but they’re a reality today.]   4-11-23
  457. Medicine.  “Team Biden Looks for an Excuse to Impose Drug Price Controls.”  By Merrill Matthew.  [A new working group has bene tasked with redefining the Bayh-Dole Act’s march-in rights.]   4-27-23
  458. Medicine.  “Medicaid Expansion Won’t Stop Rural Hospital Closures.”  By Hayden Dublois.  [But it has disastrous consequences for state budgets and fosters high levels of dependency.]  4-29-23
  459. Medicine.  “Arkansas Gets Medicaid Back to Normal.”  By Sarah Huckabee Sanders.   5-2-23
  460. Medicine.  “No More Subsidies for Junk Food.”  By Marco Rubio.  [My bill would exclude soda and prepared desserts from SNAP.]   5-8-23
  461. Medicine.  “Another Big Legal Defeat for the CDC.”  [The agency loses a patent grab against Gilead’s HIV treatment.]   5-11-23
  462. Medicine.  “The Trouble With Medicaid Work Mandates.”  By Wm. A. Galston.  [At best they’re a half-measure that won’t solve the gathering crisis of federal debt.]  5-24-23
  463. Medicine.  “The Flaw that Endangers Medicare’s Solvency.”  By Chris Pope.   [Congressional oversight of new services added to coverage could avert a disaster for federal debt.]   5-31-23
  464. Medicine.  “Biden’s Short-Sighted New Health Rule.”  [The Administration is taking away cheaper insurance options from consumers.]   7-8-23
  465. Medicine.  “Virginia Leads the Way on Medical Price Transparency.”  By Dan Heimer.  [No more surprises.  A new state law requires hospitals to post online what they actually charge for services ]   7-15-23
  466. Medicine.  “Doctor’s Office Care at Hospital Prices.” By Bobby Jindal and Charlie Katehi.  [Consolidation of medical practices brings dishonest billing that costs patients and taxpayers billions.]  7-27-23
  467. Medicine.  “Why Is Medicare Saving Paying for Teslas?”  by Mark Merritt.  [the climate now takes priority over medical care in health policy.]   8-18-23
  468. Medicine.  “The State Covid Medicaid Scam.”  [The scare over lost post-pandemic insurance coverage was phony.]   8-18-23
  469. Medicine.  “A Most Bizarre Legal Theory.”  [A lawsuit claims Gilead should have rolled out a new drug sooner.]   8-19-23
  470. Medicine.  “Are You Sure You Have Cancer?”  by Mikkael A. Sekeres.  [Ask for a second opinion.  Misdiagnoses are all too common, especially for rare forms of the disease.]   8-26-23
  471. Medicine.  “No Covid Compliance This Time Around.”  By Matthew Hennessey.  [I avoided my father’s house as he was dying of cancer.  Never again.]   8-29-23
  472. Medicine.  “Drug Price Controls Mean Slower Cures.”  [The squeeze on pharma begins, and the effects will be perverse.]   8-30-23
  473. Medicine.  “The High Cost of Price Controls on Eliquis and Other Drugs.”  By Giovanni Caforio.  [By stifling innovation, the Inflation Reduction Act will harm patients far more than it helps them.]   8-30-23
  474. Medicine.  “Fitch Downgrade Could Mean Medicaid Cuts.”  By Brooklyn Roberts and Thomas Savidge.  [Amid a det crisis, Congress would likely slash aid to states.]   9-1-23
  475. Medicine.  “Medicare’s Bad Call on Transplant Tests.”  [Blood tests can save organs.  Why are the feds denying coverage?]   9-11-23
  476. Medicare.  “Biden’s Transplant Rejection.”  [Medicare rations blood tests to save money, but it will hurt patients.]   9-27-23
  477. Medicine.  “Kaiser’s Single-Oayer Portent.”  [The largest healthcare strike in U.S. history strands sick patients.]  10-6-23
  478. Medicine.  “Biden’s Race Against a Cure.”  [A new CMS rule would reduce access to gene-therapy breakthroughs.]   11-14-23
  479. Medicine.  “Britain’s NHS Left Indi Gregory to Die.”  By Mark Rienzi. [The state prevented the 8-month old girl from receiving medical care I Italy.]  11-21-23
  480. Medicine.  “Elizabeth Warren’s ObamaCare Epiphany.”  “She complains about healthcare consolidation and higher prices caused by the law.]   11-25-23
  481. Medicine. “Magic Pills Are Coming.”  By Andy Kessler.  [Wearable ultrasound machines and other inventions could reduce medical costs.]   11-27-23
  482. Medicine.  “Chinese and American Hospitals Learn the Value of Germs.”   By Allysia Finley.  [It’s no surprise respiratory viruses are infecting children sheltered by years of lockdowns.]   11-27-23
  483. Medicine.  “Biden, Trump and Obamacare.”  [Democrats distort the issue, but the GOP offers no alternative.]  11-30-23
  484. Medicine.  “Biden’s Drug-Price Boomerang.”  [Prices are rising faster since the IRA passed.  Here’s why.]   12-18-23
  485. Medicine. “DeSantis Is Right About Medicaid.”  By Brian Blasé.  12-18-23
  486. Medicine.  “The Doctor Is In, but the Patient Is Out of State.”  By Shannon Mac Donald.  [New Jersey puts patients at risk by restricting their telehealth options.  I’m suing to change hat.]   1-20-24
  487. Medicine.   “Marijuana Is More Dangerous Than Biden’s HHS Lets On.”  By Allysia Finley.  [In easing restrictions, it brushes past the long-term effects, from anxiety and depression to psychosis.]   1-22-24
  488. Medicine.  “Behind the ObamaCare Boom.”  [Sweetened subsidies are attracting more takers, at taxpayer expense.]   1-29-24
  489. Medicine.  “How Biden’s CMS Targeted Florida.”  By Larry Hogan.  [An example of using government power to attack political foes.]   1-31-24
  490. Medicine.  “A Year Later, East Palestine Still Suffers.”  By Salena Zito.  [J.D. Vance urges a proactive approach to discovering health effects of the disaster.]  2-16-24
  491. Medicine.  “The Disabled Will Pay for Indiana’s Medicaid ‘Forecasting Error.’”  By Jonathan Bechtle.  [To fill a $1 billion hole driven by ObamaCare expansion, the state cuts money for caretakers.]   2-24-24
  492. Medicine.  “Why Scientists Love Chasing Bats.”  By Matt Ridley.  [The threat to humans from animal viruses is small.  The financial incentive to pretend otherwise is large.]   3-7-24
  493. Medicine.  “Oregon Makes a U-Turn on Drug Decriminalization.”  By Kevin Sabet.  [Voters decided to tolerate possession of hard drugs in 2010.  Lawmakers are about to reverse the error.]   3-7-24
  494. Medicine.  “Avian Flu and the Experts Who Cried Wolf.”  By Allysia Finley.  [If Americans don’t line up for jabs, the public-health establishment will have itself to blame.]   4-8-24
  495. Medicine.  “Medicare’s Bureaucracy vs. Doctors.”  [The government ignored its own medical experts on transplant tests.]   4-19-24
  496. Medicine.  “What You Aren’t Hearing About Marijuana.”  (The Weekend Interview with Bertha Madras.) [A leading expert on weed outlines the science linking it to psychiatric disorders, perm anent brain damage, and other serious harms.]   5-11-24
  497. Medicine.  “Bureaucrats vs. Kidney Patients.”   5-28-24
  498. Medicine.  “Foreign Physicians Can Help Solve America’s Doctor Shortage.”  By Jonathan Wolfson.  [Iowa and Virginia join the list of states eliminating needless extra training as a licensing requirement.]   6-1-24
  499. Medicine.  “This Is How President Biden ‘Beat Medicare.’”  By Thomas J. Philipson.  [His Inflation Reduction Act leaves patients with less access to medicines and higher premiums.]   7-10-24
  500. Medicine.  “The Baby Formula Lawsuit Raid.”  [The plaintiff bar targets life-sustaining nutrition for premature infants.]   7-24-24
  501. Medicine.  “Ideology in Medical Schools Threatens Everyone’s Health.”  By Travis J. Morrell. [Urged on by a Colorado professor, students rally to defeat a resolution aimed at protecting girls.]   7-27-24
  502. Medicine.  “Hallelujah, a Transplant Test Reversal.”  [“The episode is a cautionary tale about the human cost of government healthcare rationing.  It won’t be the last.”]   8-22-24
  503. Medicine.  “Welcome to Canada, the Doctor Will Kill You Now.”  By Nicholas Tomaino [Assisted suicide was sold as compassionate.  In practice it has turned out to be monstrous.]   9-3-24













                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Issue Headlines

Medicine. “U.S. Drug Prices Dwarf Other Nations’” Wall Street Journal, p. A1. 12-1-15

Medicine. “U.S. Rules Reshape Hospital Admissions.”  Wall Street Journal, p. A1. 12-2-15

Medicine. Drudgereport.com 6-2-17

BLUE CROSS plan to punish for ‘unnecessary’ ER visits…

Medicine. Drudgereport.com  11-15-17

Black Death escalates; DOCTORS struck down…

‘Resilient’ to antibiotics…

Kills in 3 HOURS…

Medicine. “The Future of Hospitals.” Wall Street Journal 2-26-18 Section R1, special report.

“Driven by economics, the inpatient institutions we know are radically changing – becoming smaller, more digital, or disappearing completely. The result should be cheaper and better care.”

Campaign Consideration

Medicine. “The Future of Hospitals.” Wall Street Journal 2-26-18   Section R1, special report:

“Driven by economics, the inpatient institutions we know are radically changing – becoming smaller, more digital, or disappearing completely. The result should be cheaper and better care.”

Talking Points

Medicine. Drudgereort.com, 9-5-19

Doctor shortage crisis in USA… https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/06/americas-aging-population-is-leading-to-a-doctor-shortage-crisis.html

 

 

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