Editorial: A strategy for combating opioid addiction
Everyone in Washington agrees bold action to combat the opioid epidemic is long overdue. Yet the legislation advancing in Congress barely qualifies as a start.
Editorial: The children's crusade against gun violence
Because of the horrendous public health consequences of rampant gun violence, it's incumbent on every healthcare leader to join the #NeverAgain movement.
Editorial: A new vision for population health management
Healthcare leaders need to expand their vision of what it means to pursue population health management to raise quality, lower costs and improve the overall health of their patients.
Editorial: VA privatization will harm veterans
Dr. David Shulkin's ouster as head of the Veterans Affairs Department suggests the forces seeking full privatization of veterans' healthcare now have the upper hand in Washington.
Editorial: Waste isn't the cause of high healthcare costs
A long-standing obsession with waste and overutilization is slowly giving way to a greater appreciation for how entrenched poverty, a tattered safety net and exorbitant prices may explain why we spend so much more than other countries.
Editorial: Second thoughts on physician pay reform
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission wants Congress to scrap the new Merit-based Incentive Payment System for physicians, better known as MIPS, and replace it with a voluntary program. They want to ditch one before it's even been tried.
Editorial: The era of healthcare consumerism is here
Put the patient at the center of care. It's a mantra that's voiced as often as the Triple Aim. But most providers and payers admit that, until recently, they mostly dictated what the patient wanted and needed. But now, the era of consumerism is upon us.
Editorial: Will vertical integration actually lower healthcare costs?
The hospital systems buying physician practices say vertical integration will facilitate care coordination and lower costs. Where's the evidence?
Editorial: Good jobs with benefits are the next healthcare reform
One political party is touting skimpy health plans and Medicaid work requirements. In their view, affordable health insurance is a gift to the poor, not a right. My experience suggests it is a gift—to employers that offer substandard wages and no benefits.
Editorial: Is the era of healthcare cost control ending?
It's too early to say the era of cost control, which stretched roughly from 2010 to 2016, is over. But as the latest CMS cost projections suggest, the U.S. appears headed into another period when healthcare spending routinely exceeds the economy's overall rate of growth.
Editorial: The next healthcare reform agenda
Until we build a bipartisan consensus that access means everyone in our society has the right to obtain high-quality healthcare at an affordable price, we will never move beyond the sterile "repeal and replace" debate.
Editorial: Rising healthcare costs are a cancer, not a tapeworm
Cancer is the better comparison for the healthcare system's unsustainable costs. The system is growing too quickly, like a tumor. To restore health, you have to eliminate the cancer, not the vital organ on which the tumor grows.
