Commentary by Jatin Roper, MD, PGY3, NYU Internal Medicine and Nitin Roper, MSIII, University of Connecticut School of Medicine

Pharmaceutical companies play a vital role in improving the public health through drug discovery. These for-profit entities are in the business of selling their products to physicians and patients. If you’re a physician, the images of drug marketing are ubiquitous: the attractive, vivacious sales representative who always seems happy to see you; the sea of purple tote bags at the last national gastroenterology meeting…

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Commentary by Sandeep Mangalmurti MD, JD PGY-2

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Riegel v. Medtronic the first of a series of cases that may fundamentally alter medical liability lawsuits for decades to come.

The case involves Charles Riegel, who in 1996 suffered complications secondary to coronary angioplasty. During the procedure, the angioplasty balloon burst, and the patient required emergent coronary artery bypass graft to save his life. He later sued Medtronic, the…

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Commentary by Vlad Fridman MD, PGY-3

On July 30, 1965, then president Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law an amendment to the Social Security legislation establishing a national health care program for the elderly called Medicare. In fact, at the signing, former president Harry S. Truman was enrolled as the first Medicare beneficiary and received the first Medicare card. Then it was simple. Currently, Medicare is a complicated health insurance program that is comprised of multiple parts, various co-payment and deductible schedules, and…

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Commentary by Zackary Berger MD PhD, PGY-2, Health Care Policy Section Editor

Medical protocol and consent on trial in the New York Supreme Court.

In 2004, while working at a construction site, Brian Persaud was hit in the head by a large wooden plank, lost consciousness, and was taken to the emergency room at New York Presbyterian Hospital. There he received what he says was an unjustified digital rectal exam. Persaud brought suit against the hospital, and soon, four years later, the…

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In this series, we are trying to cut through some of the media hype in order to summarize the health care proposals put forward by the leading candidates for President.

Commentary by Aaron Lord MD, PGY-1

Our third post presents the plans of one Democrat and two Republicans.

John Edwards (D)

The “Edwards Plan for Universal Health Care” would create a system of regional, non-profit “Health Care Markets” — collectives of discount insurance plans. Individuals could choose from any one…

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In this series, we try to cut through some of the media hype and summarize the health care proposals put forward by the leading candidates for President.

Commentary by Aaron Lord MD, PGY-1

With the New Hampshire primaries upon us, there’s no time to lose! Here’s a summary of the health plans of two more candidates, Senators Barack Obama and Fred Thompson.

Barack Obama (D)

Like Hillary Clinton’s plan (see the first post in this series), as well as…

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Welcome to the first post of our newest series. In this series, we’ll try to cut through some of the media hype and summarize the health care proposals put forward by the leading candidates for President.

Commentary by Aaron Lord MD, PGY-1, and Zackary Berger MD PhD, PGY-2, Health Care Policy Section Editor

Post # 1: A Subway Series

First up in this series are New York’s Hillary Clinton (D) and Rudy Guliani (R). We’ll devote more space to Clinton’s plan…

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Commentary by Sandeep Mangalmurti MD, JD PGY-2 

“Pay-for performance” is the broadly encompassing term used to describe recent efforts to restructure physician compensation so that rewards are commensurate to performance. Initially limited to small pilot programs, pay-for-performance has rapidly expanded over the past decade; currently over half of all HMOs have implemented some form of it1, and plans are underway to introduce pay-for-performance measures into Medicare and Medicaid2.

There are various versions of pay-for-performance, and each presents its own advantages and disadvantages. The…

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Commentary by Zackary Berger MD PhD, PGY-2

A recent article in the New York Times publicized changes in Medicare subsidies. In the article’s own words, “Medicare will no longer pay the extra costs of treating preventable errors, injuries and infections that occur in hospitals, a move could save lives and millions of dollars.” This change was widely discussed, no less so in our hospitals.

But the devil is in the details. What is a preventable error? How was the list modified,…

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Commentary by Zackary Berger MD PhD, PGY-2 

In the political arena, reforming health care is continually a major domestic issue. It’s no surprise that the lead 2008 democratic contenders cite the same statistic on each of their websites, “Nearly 45 million Americans, including 9 million children, are without health insurance.” Moreover, on each of their sites, the candidates ambitiously describe plans that would provide universal and affordable healthcare for all Americans. Their tactics largely entail expanding Medicaid, holding employers more accountable to providing…

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Commentary by Vlad Fridman MD, PGY-2

$50,000. This is the price of a new (and cheap) model BMW, and also a price the US government is willing to spend to prolong your medically trained (or everyone else’s for that matter) life by one year. Before describing why $50,000 was chosen it’s necessary to describe what this number stands for.

For years, health economists have been struggling to determine a way to ration health care. Since resources are limited, who is…

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