[Reuters] The U.S. healthcare system is more effective at delivering high costs than quality care, according to a new study that found first-rate treatment for cancer but insufficient primary care for other ailments.
The study, released on Wednesday by the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, said [...]

[NY Times] Federal officials and lawmakers, along with the drug industry and doctors’ groups, are rushing to find remedies for critical shortages of drugs to treat a number of life-threatening illnesses, including bacterial infection and several forms of cancer.
Multimedia
The proposed solutions, which include a national stockpile of cancer medicines and a nonprofit company that will [...]

[NY Times] Medicaid gets much deeper discounts on many prescription drugs than Medicare, in part because Medicaid discounts are set by law whereas Medicare prices are negotiated by private insurers and drug companies, federal investigators said Monday in a new report.
The report, from the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, could [...]

[Post-Gazette] The boards that lead Highmark Inc. and West Penn Allegheny Health System have unanimously approved a “capital partnership” in which the area’s dominant health insurer will invest up to $475 million into the region’s second largest health system, including an up-front $50 million payment that will rescue Bloomfield’s West Penn Hospital from what would [...]

[USA Today]- An estimated 15,000 Medicare patients die each month in part because of care they receive in the hospital, says a government study released today.
The study is the first of its kind aimed at understanding “adverse events” in hospitals — essentially, any medical care that causes harm to a patient, according to the Department [...]

[Yahoo]- End-of-life care falls short of what the average person wants, says a new study that compares palliative care in the U.S. and Ontario.
While most patients prefer supportive measures that avoid a hospital death, U.S. patients received more chemotherapy. Ontario patients have more days in hospital, have more use of emergency rooms, and were much [...]

Above: Testing a G.M. vehicle. The Transportation Department says each life saved is worth $6 million.
[NYTimes] — As the players here remake the nation’s vast regulatory system, they have beengrappling with a subject that is more the province of poets and philosophers than bureaucrats: what is the value of a human life?
The answer determines [...]

[WSJ] Christopher G. Wayne doesn’t look like a typical family-practice doctor. Known to admirers as the “Rock Doc,” he wears his hair spiked, punk style, and festoons himself with chains, bangles and leather bracelets.
He uses his upscale Miami Beach home as a production studio for Playboy photo spreads, and his MySpace page shows him posing [...]

[NPR] ROBERT SIEGEL, host:  In 1978, the phrase in-vitro fertilization was something the experts said.�The rest of the world spoke of test-tube babies. Newspaper columnists and editorial writers invoked Aldous Huxley’s image of baby hatcheries in his dystopian novel “Brave New World.”
Jeffrey Kahn directs the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota Medical School. [...]

[aboutlawsuits - blog] A new study has found that the combined costs of medical malpractice and so-called defensive medicine make up only 2.4% of the total costs of health care in the United States. 
The study was conducted by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and was published in the September issue of the journal [...]