As a physician who grew up in a small town in central Illinois, I’ve witnessed firsthand the decline of rural health care in America. The hospital where I first became interested in medicine is now half its original size, merged with a larger health system, and struggling to stay afloat. This story is all too common across rural America, where health care access is becoming increasingly scarce, and the challenges …
My friend and colleague, Alex Berezow, wrote a piece titled “Is the U.S. doctor shortage intentional?” The writers at ACSH share their work before publication to get feedback, and in the case of Alex’s latest, we disagreed. While much of what he wrote is factual, without the nuance of the setting, it fails to tell the entire story. So here is not so much my rebuttal but the rest of …
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a medication regimen that effectively helps prevent the transmission of HIV. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), most private health insurance companies must cover preventive care services, including PrEP, without additional cost-sharing. In Braidwood v. Becerra, a for-profit corporation challenged the ACA’ s PrEP coverage mandate. The corporate plaintiff argued that compulsory PrEP coverage infringed upon its religious beliefs and violated the Religious Freedom Restoration …
The breakdown in security leading to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump can be compared to the multifactorial failure inherent in medical errors. Both scenarios involve complex systems where multiple layers of defense and prevention are designed to avoid catastrophic outcomes. When these layers fail, it often results from a combination of human error, systemic issues, and procedural flaws.
Both presidential security and health care systems are highly complex and require …
“Rules and regulations, who needs them? Throw them out the door.”
— Graham Nash (lyrics), from “Chicago,” sung by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Business entrepreneur and billionaire Michael B. Kim recently was quoted as saying: “Leadership without ethics is a body without a soul.” Kim donated $25 million to his alma mater, Haverford College in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to start a new Institute for Ethical Inquiry and Leadership. His goal is …
“I’m sorry, but we’re unable to accept this patient into the program right now due to a shortage of Spanish-speaking workers.”
I have lost count of the number of times I’ve had to say this statement to the various referral sources that call me daily, requesting services for immigrant patients.
Jane is a single parent from Guyana. She traveled to New York to visit family with her daughter, who was …
As physicians, many of us were drawn to the medical field by a profound desire to serve humanity and alleviate suffering. We hear buzzwords in corporate work about values-led teams, but in the house of medicine, we have always been led by a strong sense of values. This calling propelled us through the rigorous demands of medical training—endless hours of study, countless lectures, sleepless nights, and missed personal milestones. We …
Recent regulatory changes create a national staffing level for nursing facilities. Despite the much-needed rule change and the well-known stench of understaffed nursing homes that many Americans dread going to, most of the news cycle has portrayed this as a negative development. This is but one example where our patients are being manipulated into beliefs and actions that are contrary to their best health care interests. Recently, the same lies …
17th Street – nestled between Jackson Memorial, a major U.S. safety net hospital, and Camillus House, the largest homeless shelter in South Florida – is empty. There are no bicycles or tents belonging to the individuals who typically inhabit the area. There is no line outside of the Three Sisters where people usually wait for a meal. The street is quiet and desolate.
We visit 17th Street every Saturday morning with …
It is no secret that the U.S. lags greatly behind other developed nations in maternal health outcomes. When we hear the stories of women like Shalon Irving, who died three weeks after giving birth and whose pleas for help prior to her death were all but ignored, or the story of Kira Johnson, who was left hemorrhaging for ten hours in the hospital after what was supposed to be a …
In the not-too-distant past, health care was a local industry. If you saw a doctor, they were likely a solo practitioner. If you went to the hospital, it was probably run by a local religious order or non-profit. Health care leaders and board members shopped at the same stores as their patients did, socialized in the same community groups, and sent their children to the same schools. Today, though, health …
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Join us for a discussion on the complexities of the U.S. health care system with orthopedic surgeon Alejandro Badia. We’ll delve into the evolving perceptions surrounding health care, exploring factors contributing to its …
America’s health care system, much like Congress, is broken, and doctors have to be part of the solution. I don’t know a single doctor who doesn’t wish to improve our ability to increase access and the delivery of health services to our patients. Maintaining and/or improving the health of patients is our goal. That should be the goal of anyone associated with the health careRead more…
My grandfather was forced to immigrate from Japan to Canada in 1910. As I learned, he owned many sake factories in Japan, which were nationalized in a government takeover of certain businesses. Governments do that. The family was heavily burdened, and the government pressured them to move across the Pacific.
Over the next century, our family prospered under the Canadian government, with some family members coming to the United States.
One reflection …
Since January 1, 2023, the Transparency in Coverage Rule required health insurance providers and health insurers to provide price information to participants in a publicly accessible place. This means consumers should, in theory, be able to go to any payer’s website and see what different doctors, hospitals, and health systems are charging for the same services. The law was meant to allow consumers the ability to shop for health care …
There are frequent accusations against physicians and other health care professionals regarding their behavior and/or education: they cannot communicate, are misogynist, racist, and ageist, and are poorly educated, despite American physicians training longer than those in other developed countries. But are these complainants aiming at the most obvious, though not most significant, target? There are more pressing problems than patient-provider relationships, as serious as they are, weightier concerns that are …
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Join medical student Elizabeth Picazo to explore the intersection of health care and politics. Elizabeth shares her insights on the implications of Proposition F in San Francisco, discussing its impact on marginalized communities …
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