For six years now Republicans have promised to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. But while the House of Representatives has passed literally dozens of bills to repeal it (none of which actually got anywhere), they still haven’t been … Continue reading
A few weeks ago I was in a doctor’s waiting room and heard a sincere but seriously misinformed person spouting nonsense about the Affordable Care Act. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think it was my place to do. … Continue reading
There’s a lot to be said for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare): It has reduced the number of Americans without health insurance to a record low. (And it would be even lower had a number of states not screwed themselves … Continue reading
Recently the health insurance company Aetna announced that starting in 2017 it would no longer be selling policies through the Affordable Care Act exchanges in several states because it was losing too much money. Curiously, though, one of those states … Continue reading
Pediatrician and medical school professor Aaron Carroll discusses the causes of high infant mortality in the United States relative to other developed countries. Some proposed explanations don’t appear to be supported by research. For example, it doesn’t seem to be … Continue reading
We’ve all heard that eating better and exercising more is good for health. The hard part is getting people to do it (and that certainly includes me). A couple of doctors have been doing research on that, and the results … Continue reading
Back in 2009 Harvard Business School professor published an article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (link to PDF) on the economics of on-line pornography. Probably its most reported observation was that by multiple measures, the conservative and heavily religious … Continue reading
Here’s another interesting post from pediatrician and med school professor Aaron Carroll describing recent research published in JAMA involving a huge sample of Americans — almost everybody middle aged and older — based on data from the Social Security Administration … Continue reading
Antibiotics are overused in many countries, including the U.S., in part because patients insist on them even when they have an illness, such as a viral illness, that can’t be helped by antibiotics. Doctors sometimes justify this to themselves as … Continue reading
An 85-year-old man going to get his taxes done happened to see a dance studio in the same building. He had for decades dreamed of taking tap dancing lessons, and despite the fact that he was a bit unsteady on … Continue reading