[nytimes] This could be one glimpse of the future of health insurance.  The UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, is teaming up with the Y.M.C.A. and retail pharmacies to try a new approach to one of the nation’s most serious and expensive medical problems: Type 2 diabetes.
Rather than simply continuing to pay [...]

In 1951, doctors removed Henrietta Lacks’s cells without her consent. More than half a century later, companies have made millions from her cell culture, while few of Lacks’s descendants can even afford insurance.
[Newsweek] The unsettling story of Henrietta Lacks begins with an everyday occurrence: a trip to the doctor’s office. The 30-year-old African-American’s 1951 diagnosis [...]

[medscape] As healthcare reform legislation grinds its way through Congress, 2 articles published online January 6 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) advocate for one of its touchiest provisions — comparative-effectiveness research (CER).
In theory, CER sounds like a calm, academic subject: evaluate different treatment options for a given illness — drug A vs [...]

While the U.S. has the most expensive health care in the world, the results are not even close to the best. What nation offers the best health care on the globe? Answer: Not the United States.

The U.S. health care delivery system is by far the costliest on the planet, but comparison studies consistently show Americans [...]

[TribStar] Have you been feeling over the past several years that the patient is being overlooked in the health care process? You may want to join a growing number of citizens in saying it’s time for that to change. During the 2009 session, the Indiana Legislature passed House Resolution 91. This is a resolution that [...]

[NPR] Larry Harbour is celebrated in Nebraska as a model entrepreneur. But the 33-year-old owner of LB Custom Chrome and Detail in rural Broken Bow, Neb., is an illness or injury away from losing his business.
“If anything were to happen to my wife and I, the business is sunk,” Harbour said, standing in the shop he [...]

[Monterey Herald] At 82, retired engineer Leonard Thompson is out to show he still has a few good years left. Years? What’s this bunk about mere years, sonny? More like decades. Why the heck not?
Thompson, after all, exercises body and mind daily, even developing his own workout program for seniors that emphasizes stretching, deep breathing, [...]

Capital Region residents should take steps to ensure that the presidential candidates’ current focus on the economy does not detract from a critically necessary national discussion about health care. The two are inexorably linked.
The connection between a sound American economy and health care was recognized as long ago as 1945, when President Truman observed that [...]

Providing proportionate medical care is crucial – a balance between overtreating and undertreating patients – but I worry that ’slow medicine’ may be linked more with saving money than providing quality patient care, per the below NYT article.
Edie Gieg, 85, strides ahead of people half her age and plays a fast-paced game of tennis. But when [...]

When I train doctors to deliver ‘person-centered’ healthcare, concierge practices are not exactly what I had in mind. NBC’s article highlights potential disparities in resource allocation and access resulting from the use of boutique medicine. –
Concierge practice — also known as boutique medicine — is a new a model of medical service emphasizing easy access, [...]