In a surprise, President Obama has signaled a willingness to discuss medical liability as part of the health reform process.

Good for him for standing up to the trial lawyers, a core constituency of the left.

That’s a good sign, as the costs of defensive medicine brought on by the broken malpractice system, should be addressed if there is any hope of reducing health care spending.

Trial lawyers like to say that medical (more…)

People have asked for my take on the President’s “health care summit” last week.

Cautious optimism, for now.

Having all the stakeholders in one room, and apparently, agreeing that something needs to be done, is encouraging.

But, compromises will have to be made, whether it will be the insurance companies, doctors, drug companies, or patients, who will bear the brunt of the sacrifices remains to be seen.

(more…)

If both patients and doctors don’t accept the changes required of their behavior, no amount of comparative effectiveness studies will cut health care spending.

Two prominent medical journalists write as much in their respective blogs.

First, the NY Times’ Tara Parker-Pope notes that patients have to realize that, yes, they should demand the best care possible. However, that means, “we will have to accept that ‘best’ doesn’t (more…)

Is it possible?

Medical Justice’s Jeffrey Segal proposes a model that benefits both patients and doctors, as well as cut costs.

The premise is based on immunizing doctors who follow evidence-based practice guidelines from liability.

As Dr. Segal writes, “Physicians would be armed with knowledge of how to predictably avoid an adversarial legal process. The conventional tort system remains as a backstop incentivizing (more…)

With the economy worsening, health reform appears to be taking a back seat.

Or is it?

Bob Doherty sounds the alarm, citing the contentious opposition to reauthorizing SCHIP, which once enjoyed bipartisan support.

Several outlets are also reporting that prominent politicians, including Pete Stark and Max Baucus, have privately admitted that comprehensive health reform will be pushed back until 2010.

MedPage (more…)

Despite faring poorly in metrics that compares the American health care system with other countries, the public may fear the unknown that radical change brings.

Prominent economist Uwe Reinhardt (via The Health Care Blog) provides some insight in a recent interview.

There is little question that the United States provides the best specialist-based care in the world. As Mr. Reinhardt says, “people imagine having the worst illness, (more…)

Cut costs and ensure enough primary care access first, then worry about the uninsured.

Even bloggers at the far-left Daily Kos get it: “Providing insurance doesn’t do you a helluva lot of good for people who don’t have any doctor to accept it.”

Obama is starting to realizing that’s his only option as he initially navigates through the rough health reform waters.

Given the backdrop of the recession, he has shifted his (more…)

In these desperate economic times, health care shines as a lone bright spot.

Merrill Goozner points out that the recent dismal jobs report would be even worse if the health care sector was excluded: “While the rest of the economy was shedding nearly 600,000 jobs . . . hiring remained robust at the nation’s hospitals, physician offices, diagnostic labs, nursing homes, and home health care agencies.”

Those who focus on cutting (more…)

Despite all the big talk about reform, very little may actually happen.

The reason, says Joe Paduda, is the failure to address costs. Blindly focusing on the uninsured and increasing coverage will drive up utilization of services, and “once the medical/pharma/device/hospital industry figures out there are a lot more people with coverage, they will raise prices, buy more technology, and build more capacity to service (more…)