As a journalist and a health advocate, I have a professional interest in health care reform. But as the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act this week, I had a personal interest as well. Last fall, after three decades as a salaried employee with health benefits, I became a self-employed consultant with none. And [...]

Four years ago the Obama administration offered up $19 billion in stimulus funds to help get health care IT (including electronic health records, or EHRs) in the pink—or at least in the black. Better information technology throughout the health care system would save money, improve care and bring the health care industry into the 21st [...]

Medicaid provides benefits to more than 60 million Americans, including millions of children, who might not otherwise be able to afford medical care. This sizable government program has been sheltered from large federal cuts but is now vulnerable because of the ongoing talks in Washington to close the budget gap and avoid the fiscal cliff. [...]

Since last August, I’ve been counting down the days until my 30th birthday this Wednesday. You see, I’ve got money coming my way—not just in the form of birthday checks from my grandmother and aunts—but an even larger chunk of change, spread out over the entire year. Starting August 1, I, along with millions of [...]

If I had to sum up everything that is wrong with the US health care system in one-word sound bites, I would start with “fragmentation.” There are just too many ways for patients to fall through the cracks.* Last week’s ruling by the Supreme Court upholding the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) does [...]

Some people can’t wait for the U.S. Supreme Court announcement of its ruling on the Obama Administration’s Affordable Care Act (aka health care reform law), so they are betting on the outcome. Intrade, a popular online trading exchange, provides a platform for people to wager on whether or not future events will happen. More than [...]

The U.S. Constitution does not support a provision of the landmark health care law passed this year that would require most people to get health insurance, according to a Monday ruling by a federal judge in Virginia. Lack of health insurance leads to 44,789 excess deaths in the U.S. each year, a 2009 study estimated. [...]

WASHINGTON—Many doctors and medical researchers applauded a new federal focus on comparative effectiveness research that was boosted through the 2009 stimulus package and codified with the signing of the health care reform bill in March. This shift will support—and in many cases require—work to establish which treatments work best. The changing policies, however, present "a [...]