The Wait Goes On

It’s Not Just ER Patients These Days. The Entire Healthcare System Is in Limbo.

It used to be that long lines in the emergency room were the worst part of waiting for American healthcare. Now we’re waiting for everything: health insurance to be available and affordable; primary care physicians to increase in number; politicians to stop bickering long enough to make some decisions about physician fees in Medicare; Supreme Court justices to decide whether Congress is allowed to do what it did in the Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act.

You remember that goal of comprehensive reform? Cover everybody, improve the quality of healthcare services, …

by Julie Barnes | December 7, 2011

Consensus Gone Wrong

The Left and Right Agree on Medicare—And It’s Not a Good Thing

by Phillip Longman | December 7, 2011

Official Washington is now in the grip of an unprecedented bipartisan consensus. For all their other differences, leaders of both parties agree that Medicare, the nation’s primary means of providing …

A Sickening Dispute

Why Are Healthcare Policy Battles in the United States So Bitter?

December 7, 2011

Most Americans agree that everyone needs doctors, hospitals, and access to the best medical care possible. Countries compete for the highest life expectancies and the lowest infant mortality rates. But …

For It Before They Were Against It

Would a Court Ruling Against Healthcare Reform Actually Kill Off Cherished Conservative Ideas?

by Paul Starr | December 7, 2011

You would never know it from their denunciations of “Obamacare,” but in the battle over the 2010 healthcare law, conservatives have been fighting against ideas they once approved–and still approve …

Go Ahead: Break My Leg

I Can Afford It, Because I’ve Ditched My Health Savings Account

by Heather Boerner | November 8, 2011

I knew I was in trouble when the first bill arrived. A few months after going from uninsured to using a health savings account to manage the cost of care, …

Dear John, You Have Psoriasis

Why Your Medical Diagnosis May Soon Be Handled by Mail

by Stephen Johnston | September 12, 2011

As an inventor, I place a lot of weight on understanding the words I use to describe the problem I am addressing. For example, in medicine, the word patient is …

healthcare economics