My Turn: Health reform debate must start with human rights principles
BY PEG FRANZEN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2011
For thousands of Vermonters, health care reform is not an abstract policy debate ("Debate single-payer must start with the facts" Jan. 23). Instead, across the state, Vermonters are organizing and mobilizing because they are faced with a choice between health or suffering, dignity or abuse, sound family finances or bankruptcy, and even life or death. They pay for the failures of a market-based system with their health -- physical and financial.
February 25, 2011
The War on Women
Republicans in the House of Representatives are mounting an assault on women’s health and freedom that would deny millions of women access to affordable contraception and life-saving cancer screenings and cut nutritional support for millions of newborn babies in struggling families. And this is just the beginning.
The budget bill pushed through the House last Saturday included the defunding of Planned Parenthood and myriad other cuts detrimental to women. It’s not likely to pass unchanged, but the urge to compromise may take a toll on these programs. And once the current skirmishing is over, House Republicans are likely to use any legislative vehicle at hand to continue the attack.
February 25, 2011
Amid Cuomo’s Medicaid Cuts, Health Care Workers’ Union Shapes a Victory
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
In Wisconsin, public workers face a nearly unprecedented rollback of collective-bargaining rights. In New Jersey, teachers and their unions find themselves the target of open ridicule from Gov. Chris Christie, who is seeking major increases in how much the state’s public employees pay for their pensions and health care. And in Connecticut, state workers are being pressured to accept a wage freeze, more furlough days and a higher retirement age.
Yet in New York, where a fiscal crisis has helped put the state’s powerful government employee and teachers’ unions on the defensive, New York’s influential health care workers’ union appears on the verge of wringing significant victories out of Gov.Andrew M. Cuomo’s austerity budget, even as he nears potentially historic cuts in spending.
Gov. LePage urges federal flexibility to enable states to solve financial problems
February 27, 2011
Prostate Guideline Causes Many Needless Biopsies, Study Says
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Current guidelines for the early detection of prostate cancer recommend a biopsy for men whose P.S.A. rises rapidly, no matter what the initial level. But a new study says that the practice does not help patients find aggressive cancers and that it results in many unnecessary biopsies.
February 27, 2011
When Health Insurance Isn’t for Sale
To the Editor:
Patrick gives Romney praise he may not want
Lauds his role in health overhaul
February 26, 2011Treat the Patient, Not the CT Scan
By ABRAHAM VERGHESE
Palo Alto, Calif.THE other day as I walked through a wing of my hospital, it occurred to me that Watson, I.B.M.’s supercomputer, would be more at home here than he was on “Jeopardy!” Perhaps it’s good, I thought, that his next challenge, with the aid of the Columbia University Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, will be to learn to diagnose illnesses and treat patients.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/opinion/27verghese.html?tntemail1=y&emc=tnt&pagewanted=print
February 26, 2011Carrots, Sticks and Digital Health Records
By STEVE LOHR
THE United States is embarking this year on a grand experiment in the government-driven adoption of technology — ambitious, costly and potentially far-reaching in impact. The goal is to improve health care and to reduce its long-term expense by moving the doctors and hospitals from ink and paper into the computer age — through a shift to digital patient records.Step back from the details and what emerges is a huge challenge in innovation design. What role should government have? What is the right mix of top-down and bottom-up efforts? Driving change through the system will involve shifts in technology, economic incentives and the culture of health care.“This is a big social project, not just a technical endeavor,” says Dr. David Blumenthal, the Obama administration’s national coordinator for health information technology.
February 25, 2011It Gets Worse
By TED C. FISHMAN
NEVER SAY DIE
The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age
By Susan Jacoby332 pp. Pantheon Books. $27.95.
Susan Jacoby has long made it her project to uncover ill-formed, cynical “junk thought” and administer a cold dose of reason and logic against it. But Jacoby is no Mr. Spock. Her rationalism is delivered in an angry barrage peppered with enthusiastically snide asides. In previous books, including “The Age of American Unreason” and “Freethinkers,” her targets have been right-leaning religionists, social Darwinists, and the paucity of reason in a generation that stares too much at glowing screens and too little at learned books. In her latest jeremiad, “Never Say Die,” she fights to slay the conspiracies of ignorance and greed that she believes conceal a single, and indeed irrefutable, truth: extreme old age can be nasty, brutish and long.
GOP-led states pursue dual strategy on health care
Obama's 'risky move' in Florida
By: David Nather
February 27, 2011 06:26 PM EST U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson has already dealt the Obama administration a staggering blow on health reform, and this week the administration may get another one from the fiery Florida judge.
The Justice Department asked Vinson to clarify his ruling that struck down the law as unconstitutional. Justice must file its brief on the motion by Monday, and Vinson has said he would rule quickly after that. At issue is whether Vinson meant to stop reform implementation in the 26 states that brought the suit.
By ABRAHAM VERGHESE
Palo Alto, Calif.
THE other day as I walked through a wing of my hospital, it occurred to me that Watson, I.B.M.’s supercomputer, would be more at home here than he was on “Jeopardy!” Perhaps it’s good, I thought, that his next challenge, with the aid of the Columbia University Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, will be to learn to diagnose illnesses and treat patients.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/opinion/27verghese.html?tntemail1=y&emc=tnt&pagewanted=print
February 26, 2011
Carrots, Sticks and Digital Health Records
By STEVE LOHR
THE United States is embarking this year on a grand experiment in the government-driven adoption of technology — ambitious, costly and potentially far-reaching in impact. The goal is to improve health care and to reduce its long-term expense by moving the doctors and hospitals from ink and paper into the computer age — through a shift to digital patient records.
Step back from the details and what emerges is a huge challenge in innovation design. What role should government have? What is the right mix of top-down and bottom-up efforts? Driving change through the system will involve shifts in technology, economic incentives and the culture of health care.
“This is a big social project, not just a technical endeavor,” says Dr. David Blumenthal, the Obama administration’s national coordinator for health information technology.
February 25, 2011
It Gets Worse
By TED C. FISHMAN
NEVER SAY DIE
The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age
By Susan Jacoby
332 pp. Pantheon Books. $27.95.
Susan Jacoby has long made it her project to uncover ill-formed, cynical “junk thought” and administer a cold dose of reason and logic against it. But Jacoby is no Mr. Spock. Her rationalism is delivered in an angry barrage peppered with enthusiastically snide asides. In previous books, including “The Age of American Unreason” and “Freethinkers,” her targets have been right-leaning religionists, social Darwinists, and the paucity of reason in a generation that stares too much at glowing screens and too little at learned books. In her latest jeremiad, “Never Say Die,” she fights to slay the conspiracies of ignorance and greed that she believes conceal a single, and indeed irrefutable, truth: extreme old age can be nasty, brutish and long.
GOP-led states pursue dual strategy on health care
| |
Obama's 'risky move' in Florida By: David Nather February 27, 2011 06:26 PM EST | |
| U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson has already dealt the Obama administration a staggering blow on health reform, and this week the administration may get another one from the fiery Florida judge. The Justice Department asked Vinson to clarify his ruling that struck down the law as unconstitutional. Justice must file its brief on the motion by Monday, and Vinson has said he would rule quickly after that. At issue is whether Vinson meant to stop reform implementation in the 26 states that brought the suit. |
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