Much has already been written about President Obama’s Health Reform Summit and what we learned or didn’t learn (see in particular blog posts at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times). On the same evening as the Summit, I had an opportunity to participate on a health reform panel sponsored by the University of Michigan college Democrats with …

The fact that presidents have been trying to get some form of universal, government supported health insurance for almost 100 years now has been well publicized. What is less known is why — with the exception of the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 — almost all of their efforts have failed to produce substantive change. It’s instructive to …

Jerome Groopman published a provocative and thoughtful essay In the February 11, 2010 New York Review of Books  about the way one determines “quality health care.” Groopman’s focus is on clinical guidelines and just how prescriptive they can be. He makes a fundamental distinction between guidelines that can be applied in a standardized way (e.g., how to clean a catheter to …

The last time a major effort at health care reform was tried, it died an ignoble death. Bill and Hillary Clinton were certain that they had read the political signals correctly and that health care reform was a winning issue for them. Bill Clinton framed health care as an essential economic issue after he was elected and before he became …

There is much speculation — and advice — about what to do about health reform given the change in Congress since the Massachusetts’ Senate race. Some policy makers and pundits are advising that it would be better to take small bites out of health reform — rather than trying to continue down a path focused on change to the entire …

Well, every politician for the past 100 years has known that health care reform is the “third rail” of politics. And, if they didn’t know before Massachusetts, they know it now. So, why did health reform fail this time? Is it for the same reasons it has in the past or is there something unique about this moment or this …

During the debate about health care reform, there has been much discussion about the need for a public option. The advocates for that option talk about the need to assure real competition in health care. About the public option, Robert Reich said, “…without a public option, the other parties that comprise America’s non-system of health care — private insurers, doctors, …

Health reform is exciting and both the House and Senate bills have elements that could greatly improve the way care is delivered for millions of people. But, with all those great things, you have to know that there are lots of things in those more than 1,900 pages of the House bill and more than 2,000 in the Senate bill …

“Breast-screening advice is Upended” (Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2009) For years, we have been told that we should have a mammogram every year after age 40 and in 2002, this advice was repeated by the same folks who now are recommending that most women can wait until 50 for routine mammograms. Does it make anyone think about the margarine …

I was having a debate the other day about whether the health reform bill going through Congress was a good or bad thing and whether it went too far or not far enough. This dialog is occurring with my friends and colleagues who are strong European model supporters – let’s put all docs on capitation/salary – and my friends who …