The Hill has an interesting blog post by National Community Pharmacists Association VP for Public Affairs Kevin Schweers that looks at problems with mail-order prescription services. Such problems include late and misdirected pharmacy shipments and exposure of sensitive pharmaceutical products to extreme heat…
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…
President Barack Obama will talk about health care reform in a nationally televised press conference tonight and at a town hall-style meeting in Cleveland on Thursday.
His speech comes as a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows declining confidence in Mr.…
Post-Dispatch file photo.
What’s the difference between a senior citizen in St. Louis and another in Kansas City? About $700, as far as Medicare is concerned.
In 2006, Medicare spent an average of $702 more per patient in St. Louis than it…
Copies of the trustees
This week, Social Security and Medicare trustees reported on financial problems facing their programs (as they do every year).
There are no similar summaries for the nation’s private health and retirement plans. What would it look like if there…
If you paid for expensive auto repairs and the same problem recurred a few weeks later, you’d probably refuse to pony up for a second fix.
But what about medical care? What if you had surgery and, a few days after…
American taxpayers already have spent more than $2 trillion bailing out banks and insurance companies. Can we afford to reform health care, too?
It’s an understandable question, one that will be at center stage today when the White House hosts a…
Smokers and Medicaid recipients in Missouri
This map shows Missouri Medicaid enrollment and smoking rates by county. The darker the color, the greater the percentage of people in Medicaid. Counties with cross-hatching have the highest smoking rates, followed by those with…
Post-Dispatch file photo.
Private health insurance plans were supposed to control costs and improve the quality of care delivered to millions of elderly Americans under Medicare.
But that’s not the way things have worked out. Three new studies, published last week in…
Barack Obama serves lunch to a patient during a visit to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in June.
A few days before the historic election that swept him into the presidency, Barack Obama was asked to name his top priorities for 2009. They were,…
Premiums for stand-alone Medicare prescription drug plans in Missouri and Illinois will jump by an average of 18 percent next year.
In Missouri, that means average monthly premiums will rise to a little more than $48 per month from the current…
On the campaign trail and during their convention, Republicans have touted private enterprise as the solution to America’s health care crisis — despite evidence that within the government’s Medicare program, private enterprise is causing more problems than it’s solving.
Exhibit A…
Whatever else is said or done in the next 18 months about reforming the American health care system, tectonic shifts already are well underway.
The latest evidence comes from a new Census Bureau report released last week. It found that the number…
Moving a parent or sibling into a nursing home is emotionally and financially difficult. Keeping them there may be getting even harder.
The Wall Street Journal reports that increasing numbers of frail and sick residents are being forced out of nursing…
By a very wide margin, Americans believe that the nation’s health care system requires a major overhaul, according to a new survey by the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund. An overwhelming 82 percent of respondents said the system should be fundamentally changed or…
Amid the hoopla of the presidential campaign last week, as candidates were delivering their hopeful economic messages, a dull missive from the government’s bean counters landed with a thud:
The White House Budget Office said it expects next year’s federal deficit to…
Congress did the right thing last week by overriding a presidential veto of some modest Medicare reforms. But as welcome as it was, the quick and decisive response highlights a long-standing inequity in federal spending.
The measure will prevent a 10…
In Spain, Pamplona has its annual running of the bulls. Sweetwater, Tex., has its Rattlesnake Roundup. And Washington has the annual farce of the physicians’ Medicare fee cuts.
Not familiar with that last one? It plays out when an increase in spending…
The world’s premier drug regulator, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has an almost impossible job. Before a new drug can go on the market, the FDA must assess its safety, and its only guide are studies involving at most…
