As I and others have cautioned, there has been an excess of exuberance about the recent slowdown in health care spending. The jury on that is still out on the degree to which the encouraging numbers are due to profound… Read More ›
Caring for the Uninsured and Underinsured 
JAMA Forum: Eliminating Wasteful, Unnecessary Care Is the Best Way to Preserve Medicare
The release this past week of the Medicare Trustees’ report was met with widespread enthusiasm among health economists and supporters of the federal health reforms in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The report confirmed that Medicare costs continue to exceed… Read More ›
JAMA Forum: The Slowdown in Health Care Spending Persists and Intrigues
Last August, I wrote a JAMA Forum post about the slowdown in health care spending and speculated about whether the slow growth is likely to continue. The release of 3 new studies on this issue enables us to revisit the… Read More ›
JAMA Forum: ACA Implementation Starts to Get Real
President Obama spoke extensively about implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) during his recent press conference, particularly about what it means for people: So there are a whole host of benefits that, for the average American out there, for… Read More ›
Survey Shows 84 Million With No Health Insurance or Inadequate Coverage in 2012
Nearly half of all US working-age adults—about 84 million people—were uninsured or had too little health coverage to protect them from high out-of-pocket medical costs last year, according to a new survey. The Commonwealth Fund 2012 Biennial Health Insurance Survey… Read More ›
JAMA Forum: Social Status and Health: A Coming Issue for Physicians
“The rich are different from you and me. They have more money,” a cynic once noted. The modern-day version would add a deeply troubling observation: and they live longer too. The gap in life expectancy between the better off and… Read More ›
JAMA Forum: Is Medicaid Expansion Really a No-Brainer for States?
Even after the Supreme Court struck down a requirement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that required states to expand Medicaid coverage to low-income individuals,* states still seemed to have a juicy carrot to do so. That’s because 100% of… Read More ›
JAMA Forum: Will the Evaluation of the ACA Be Health Services Research’s Finest Hour?
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides an unprecedented opportunity to expand insurance coverage and to reform the health care delivery system in the United States. The political debate about its merits and shortcomings has been highly partisan and unrelenting and… Read More ›
JAMA Forum: Missed Opportunities Abound as Congress Wrangles Over Fiscal Challenges
In my “Poised on the Edge of the Fiscal Cliff” blog post of December 18, 2012, I bemoaned the fact that 13 days before the end of the year, Congress had yet to decide what to do about the upcoming… Read More ›
JAMA Forum: The State Role in Health Care Innovation
A couple of weeks ago, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a new round of grants from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). If you didn’t pay much attention to the announcement, it’s worth a… Read More ›
