While some individuals with jaw-dropping wealth have pushed into showy extremes of shooting themselves and their pals into outer space or dropping hundreds of millions of dollars on yachts or Manhattan penthouses, a tech mogul and pro basketball franchise-owning billionaire is winning attention by attempting something different, challenging, and potentially beneficial to regular folks in….
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Momentous developments on abortion, guns, and Americans’ health
Congress has passed a modest gun control law for the first time in three decades. The breakthrough, compromise measure, quickly signed by President Biden, not only provides for background checks for would-be weapons buyers younger than 21 and a push for states to pass laws to take guns away from the dangerous, it also provides….
Continue ReadingFinancial punishment is now a built-in aspect of U.S. health care system
The sky-high and relentlessly rising cost of U.S. health care is slamming patients, ensnaring them in pricey over-testing, over-diagnosing, and over-treatment. It is pounding them with pervasive, pernicious, and unacceptable medical debt. The crushing burden of expensive health care is leaving consumers going without as they also struggle now with soaring prices for gas, food, and….
Continue ReadingHidden code leaks private data from hospitals and ‘pregnancy centers’
The kids may obsess about social media platforms. But just how much do patients want them to snoop into their most personal medical information, accessed due to hidden snippets of computer code embedded on the sites of some of the nation’s biggest and most respected hospitals, as well as facilities purportedly dealing with women’s reproductive….
Continue ReadingU.S. hits hospitals with a million reasons to heed price-disclosure rule
Federal officials will fine two Georgia hospitals, both in the same health system, a total of more than $1 million for failing to post online legally required pricing information. Patient advocates and the former administration hoped this incremental disclosure would help check ever-rising health care costs and give consumers important data to make better choices….
Continue ReadingWith medical ‘news’, paying attention to two N’s can matter to nth degree
While hope can be a remarkable element in healing the sick and injured, can there be anything crueler than raising false hopes among the vulnerable? Patients with serious illnesses like cancer — of the pancreas, breast, and rectum — may need to take in with extra care journalistic reports on medical advances that might affect….
Continue ReadingMore shots coming to battle stubborn, still deadly coronavirus pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic stubbornly persists, infecting 110,000 Americans daily — and likely many, many more — and hospitalizing 29,000 a day on average. Vaccinations, also, have stayed at the forefront of efforts to deal with the disease, with shots on the brink of being regulator-approved and imminently available for the littlest of kids, and against….
Continue ReadingHospitals also become sites of lethal gun violence
In Tulsa, Okla., a 45-year-old patient angry over what he claimed was the pain he suffered after a back operation, bought a handgun and an assault rifle. He stormed into the office of his orthopedic surgeon, killing him, another doctor, a receptionist, and an office visitor, police say. The man then killed himself. In Dayton,….
Continue ReadingFocus on surging pandemic dims as two other infections grab headlines
The coronavirus pandemic continues to give Americans a crash course in global infectious diseases, with experts and regular folks warily watching not only the virus’s continuing summer surge but also seeing with concern increasing incidences of rare hepatitis cases in kids and outbreaks of monkeypox in travelers and among partying gay men. While the other….
Continue ReadingHospitals must boost safety efforts and cut low-value (but high-profit) care, experts say
Doctors and hospitals must redouble their efforts to protect patients in their care, as the coronavirus pandemic reversed years of safety advances, and these must be restored top to bottom — and more. This powerful, timely argument has been made in a top medical journal by leading federal regulators at the Centers for Medicare and….
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