Primary care and illness prevention are victims of the recession. The recession is causing Americans to delay visits to primary care providers including physicians, dentists and eye doctors. The American Optometric Association’s fourth annual American Eye-Q survey focuses primarily on eye health, but dives into a range of preventive health issues as well. The key [...]

Today the cost of health for each health-insured employee in the U.S. is $10,743. In 10 years, the cost will nearly triple to $28,530, if the status quo continues. The status quo here is a 10.2% average annual rate of health cost increase, which was the rate experienced between 2001 and 2009. Hewitt has worked [...]

The Federal government spent $600 billion on chronic care through Medicare and Medicaid last year. They spent about $700 billion on the banking bailout. Overall, the U.S. allocates 75% of health spending each year toward chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and asthma. How can we get to a chronic care bailout? Read my column [...]

In a meeting yesterday in Boston, I was reminded by the CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Cleve Killingsworth, the great work of the New England Healthcare Institute (NEHI) on clinical waste. NEHI’s magnum opus on clinical waste shines a light on hundreds of studies which illustrate standards of care that, goether, [...]

While President Obama has spoken more in public about health reform than any other topic in his tenure as president to-date, and health care is a much-covered subject in mass media outlets, most Americans remain confused about the President’s health plan. Ironically, the wealthy support the plan more than people with lower incomes. Yet the [...]