Dan Callahan

It began with a little black spot on Dan Callahan’s lower lip. He didn’t think it was anything to worry about. His doctor thought it was cancer.
The doctor was right.
It was neurotropic melanoma, a very rare — and very…

Otto von Bismarck: Not socialist.

Forget all this nonsense about socialized health care. The first head of state to propose a national health system was at the other end of the political spectrum. His name: Otto von Bismarck.

The system established by…

House Democrats unveiled a sweeping health care reform bill last Thursday built on shared responsibility.
Individuals would have to buy health insurance for themselves and their families.
Taxpayers would subsidize coverage for those unable to afford it on their own.
Employers would have…

By Dr. Walt Sumner, President, St. Louis Academy of Family Physicians

The St. Louis Academy of Family Physicians supports the St. Louis County clean indoor air proposal for the following reasons:

1. Fine particles in tobacco smoke hurt smokers and non-smokers alike.

These…

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, was in a fine fury Tuesday morning. Speaking on the Senate floor, he blasted Democratic lawmakers for a plan to permanently adjust the Medicare formula used to set payment…

If there were a way to save $207.4 million, avoid 30,000 unnecessary hospitalizations and more than 2,000 premature deaths, we’d jump at it, right?
That’s what Missouri would gain if its health system performed as well as the systems in Vermont,…

President Barack Obama speaks after last week's historic Senate health reform vote.

Forget all the angry shouting about socialized medicine and government take-overs. Health care reform is really all about markets, competition and choice.
That’s probably not what you’ve heard. But as…

To hear some people tell it, the number of people without health insurance in the United States is vastly overstated.
There are the illegal immigrants, the argument goes, and then there are those who can afford to buy insurance but don’t…

Robin Beaton's insurance company cancelled her breast cancer surgery because she didn't disclose she'd been treated for acne.

Health insurance companies launched an 11th-hour assault Monday on a compromise health care reform bill in the Senate. In a new report and a…

Suppose you were asked for a list of the game-changers in modern medicine — treatments that saved the most lives and had the greatest health impact.
You might name organ transplants or drugs to fight cancer and AIDS. Maybe if you…

"Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges."

Here’s how much the Congressional Budget Office says a new health reform bill in the Senate would cost: $829 billion over 10 years.

The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post , Associated…

Former U.S. Sen.  Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he that if he were in the Senate, he would vote for health care reform, even though the bill is not perfect.

Seriously.  He told a Time magazine writer that he would vote for…

Despite a lot of attention paid to sometimes raucous town hall meetings in August, a majority of Americans feel “shut out” from the health care debate, a new poll by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health shows. An NPR story reported that 71 percent of respondents…

Tim Blacke

When doctors found a tumor in Tim Blacke’s brain, health insurance was the last thing he worried about. That was his first mistake.
For nearly two decades, he’d worked for internationally known evangelical minister Josh McDowell. During that time, Mr.…

The difference between paychecks and premiums is simple: Your pay is taxed, but not your health benefits.
That could soon change, at least for some people with expensive health plans. A health reform bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last week…

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

America needs a strong shot of health care reform, but Sen. Max Baucus’ two-aspirin-and-call-me-the-morning measure won’t get the job done.
Mr. Baucus, D-Mont., who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, dithered for months trying to craft a compromise with…

In 1999, it cost about $5,800 to buy employer-provided family health insurance coverage. If premiums had increased at the same rate as inflation, that same policy today would cost $7,239.

Instead, it costs $13,375. That’s an increase of 131 percent — more than…

During a visit to an Alton hospital in 2005, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich signs a bill to cap pain-and-suffering awards in medical malpractice cases.

Plenty of reasons exist to support medical malpractice reform. Doing it to slow the dizzying growth in…

President Barack Obama will try to retake the initiative on health care reform this evening with a nationally televised address to Congress. Conventional wisdom holds that it will be among the most important speeches of his political career.
That’s entirely backward.
Whatever…