The Health Care Blog

POLICY: Health costs and the road to Armageddon

Since I wrote about the Center for Practical Health Reform and their intention to head off a perceived collapse in private sector health insurance at the pass, a little more attention has been focused on the whole issue. How bad...

NEWS/BLOGGING: FierceHealthcare is back

After a one month hiatus, the daily digest newsletter FierceHealthcare is back. There were lots of nice things said about it during its absence and it's going to be slightly refocusing on the processes building the 21st century health care...

PHARMA: FDA stonewalls FOIA requests. by Blunter

Veteran FDA observer Blunter is back with more accusations about the FDA's unwillingness to let the public know what it knows. When I last blogged about the utter incompetence and disarray in the FDA establishment, I emphasized the "transparency" and...

HEALTH PLANS: Kaiser will combine "systemness" with high-deductible plans, maybe.

There's a pretty interesting interview with Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson in the San Francisco Business Times. The tag line is that "Moving Kaiser beyond one-size-fits-all health coverage and 'Dark Ages' record-keeping, CEO George Halvorson reshapes a health-care giant for...

POLICY: 60 Companies Plan to Sponsor Health Coverage for Uninsured

I'm beyond baffled by this NY Times report: 60 Companies Plan to Sponsor Health Coverage for Uninsured. I'm taking 2 aspirin and will comment in the morning.

INDUSTRY: The Birmingham kid is innocent!

As the trial begins of Healthsouth CEO Richard Scrushy for the largest outright health care fraud ever, it's good to know that in America you can start a huge company from nothing, be totally responsible for all its success, pay...

QUALITY: Pawelski's out of line in accusing the NCI by Oren Grad

Oren Grad, a physicians and an independent consultant whose work focuses on policy and strategy in the health sciences, didn't think much of what Greg Pawelski said yesterday on THCB about cancer research being aimed at the wrong things. Nor...

POLICY: Florida solves Medicaid cost problem (well, not really)

As you'd expect from the most efficient, transparent, clean-government minded state in the nation, Florida has figured out how to solve its Medicaid cost problem. It's planning on privatizing Medicaid and making recipients buy in with a voucher into managed...

QUALITY: Now cancer is top killer, let's attack it using common sense, by Greg Pawelski

Greg Pawelski has posted frequently on THCB about cancer care. On the occasion of cancer becoming the nation's biggest killer for those under 85, he appeals for sensible use of scientific funding to go after the process behind metastasis. The...

POLICY: The VA is showing the way to better chronic care

The Washington Monthly has an excellent article on care quality in the VA health system. It's well worth reading. There's also an excellent analysis of that article by John Rodat at Health Signals New York. I won't say too much...

TECHNOLOGY/CONSUMERS: Body-Scanning Clinics didn't make it

Amazingly enough even the American public eventually couldn't produce enough marks interested in generating a false positive using cash out of their own pocket to keep the body-scanning clinic business in operation. It was apparent from some consumer data IFTF...

QUALITY: Diabetes and the modern disease management girl

So I spent the last couple of days at a disease management conference that focused on diabetes care. There is general agreement that -- at least 15 years since everyone has understood the problem -- the health care system suffers...

PHARMA: Viagra apparently good for your heart

And in today's cheap shot Viagra post... Apparently the main ingredient in Viagra is showing potential for reducing the chance of some heart diseases. In mice it's been shown to "reverse the growth associated with heart failure, a chronic heart...

PHARMA: NY Times reports on the apparent demise of Merck

The NY Times has an article which essentially forecasts the demise of Merck. Other bloggers here at THCB, over at Business Word and at In The Pipeline have all written various versions of the same story but none of us...

POLICY: Are we heading for a crash and can we turn the wheel?

I've been at a conference on disease management for diabetes where there was an interesting talk from Brian Klepper at the Center for Practical Health Reform. I don't know much about the Center, (here's a PDF) but it's positioning itself...

POLICY: Of confirmations, inaugurations, obfuscations, and Medicaid

In my less than glowing reviews of the Bush Administration as a whole I reserve a special place of opprobrium for Condi Rice. This is partly not really her fault. I turned up at Stanford in 1989 to do a...

BLOG NOTES: Comments coming

After 18 months of fearing first no readers, then obscenities, then spam, comments will be turned on at TCHB soon. I've been persuaded to do this by my new blogmeister John Pluenneke. So when they appear, please comment away. However,...

TECHNOLOGY: Road Map to a Digital System of Health Records

Otherwise known as Blackford Middleton wants to take your money! The NY Times reports on the latest reports to Brailer about how to create inter-operability in the brave new world of health records. I'm somewhat hopeful but I'm not holding...

PHARMA/POLICY: FDAWeb puts up whistleblower page

The online site FDAweb has put up a page for FDA employees who want to whistleblow on their agency. This follows the negative experience of David Graham among others who's story is told in the initial posting. Reg required): In...

HOSPITALS/POLICY: King-Drew in context, part II

Late last year there was a five part series in the LA Times about the problems at King-Drew Medical Center, and in a blog piece I tried to put it in a little context. I promised then that I would...

PHARMA/POLICY: FDAWeb puts up whistleblower page

The online site FDAweb has put up a page for FDA employees who want to whistleblow on their agency. This follows the negative experience of David Graham among others who's story is told in the initial posting (Reg required): In...

PHARMA/TERRORISM: Cox-2s as the solution to finish off Al-Qaeda

Andy Borowitz's daily Borowitz report is the funniest thing in my in-box. And never a truer word was said about the real capability of pharma DTC to change the world than today's report which I reprint below. CIA ATTACKS AL-QAEDA...

PHARMA: The Industry Veteran on the chances of rational moderation from Pharma

On Friday I commented on the proposal to withdraw liability from punitive damages from pharma products approved by the FDA, and (probably vainly) appealed to responsible people in pharma-land to take at least look this gift horse closely in the...

HOSPITALS/POLICY: King-Drew in context, part II, with Tuesday UPDATE

Late last year there was a five part series in the LA Times about the problems at King-Drew Medical Center, and in a blog piece I tried to put it in a little context. I promised then that I would...

PHARMA: Quick blog trawl, with UPDATE

A quick trawl of the blogs this morning finds me catching up on an excellent article on the present and future of DTC from John Mack at the Pharma Marketing Blog, and discovering a new anti-pharma blog called Pharmopoly. Obviously...

PHARMA: Herbert on the legal protection measure for big pharma

In a NY Times op-ed piece called A Gift for Drug Makers, Bob Herbert writes that: Tucked like a gleaming diamond in proposed legislation to curb malpractice lawsuits is a provision that would give an unconscionable degree of protection to...

PHARMA: The FDA can only be saved by new leadership, by Blunter

There's a new contributor today on THCB. Blunter worked at the FDA for many, many years and understands from the inside many of the problems with the agency that have been documented in many places, such as this Forbes article....

TECHNOLOGY/CONSUMERS: iHealthBuzz--new site for community messaging

There's a relatively new site for patients called iHealthBuzz. It's in the mix with the social networking sites that I keep the odd tabs on, and looks to try to take the disease specific list-servs up a level, although obviously...

PHARMA: The FDA can only be saved by new leadership, by Blunter

There's a new contributor today on THCB. Blunter worked at the FDA for many, many years and understands from the inside many of the problems with the agency that have been documented in many places, such as this Forbes article....

PHARMA: Herbert on the legal protection measure for big pharma

In a NY Times op-ed piece called A Gift for Drug Makers, Bob Herbert writes that: Tucked like a gleaming diamond in proposed legislation to curb malpractice lawsuits is a provision that would give an unconscionable degree of protection to...

PHARMA: Quick blog trawl, with UPDATE

A quick trawl of the blogs this morning finds me catching up on an excellent article on the present and future of DTC from John Mack at the Pharma Marketing Blog, and discovering a new anti-pharma blog called Pharmopoly. Obviously...

POLICY: Social Security "reform" as a health care issue

Ever since Bush claimed his "mandate" (meaning he actually got more votes than the other guy in this election), we've been hearing a little too much about social security reform. As San Francisco standalone journalist Chris Nolan points out in...

TECHNOLOGY/CONSUMERS: iHealthBuzz--new site for community messaging

There's a relatively new site for patients called iHealthBuzz. It's in the mix with the social networking sites that I keep the odd tabs on, and looks to try to take the disease specific list-servs up a level, although obviously...

POLICY: Social Security "reform" as a health care issue

Ever since Bush claimed his "mandate" (meaning he actually got more votes than the other guy in this election), we've been hearing a little too much about social security reform. As San Francisco standalone journalist Chris Nolan points out in...

POLICY/PHARMA/OTHER: Places to go find interesting stuff

Apologies to faithful THCB readers. The crunch continues (yesterday was the first day I've skipped in quite a while) and I can't spend much time today writing up the blog, but there are lots of interesting pieces for me to...

TECHNOLOGY: iPod as the new must-have for radiologists, with UPDATE

I must go on record as not getting the iPod. Why you would want to lock into a proprietary format when there are a gazillion (free) MP3s and MP3 players out there--and pay over the odds for the privilege--is beyond...

PHARMA: Crestor briefly revisited

It's been a long while since anything was said about Crestor in this scandal sheet, but I noticed a report today that a Crestor patient died of severe muscle wasting. Crestor is the statin that The Lancet attacked so publicly...

POLICY: Experts believe uninsured are a priority....but for whom?

The Commonwealth Fund has sponsored one of Harris Interactive's periodic surveys of health care experts and influencers (and no they didn't ask me what I thought!). I have yet to dig into the survey but the experts believe that the...

POLICY: As I've always suspected, Health Care = Communism + Frappuccinos

Those of you who think I'm an unreconstructed commie will correctly suspect that I've always discussed Marxism in my health care talks. You'd be amazed at how many audiences of hospital administrators in the mid-west know nothing about the integral...

TECHNOLOGY: The BitTorrent Effect

The next really disruptive technology is already here, but most people don't know about it. Torrents were mentioned at a health care IT conference I went to last June and no one there other than the geek presenting knew what...

HOSPITALS: Uncharitable?

I owe THCB readers a follow-up piece on King-Drew Medical Center and have had it in the queue since Christmas, but I'm crunched with other work and the blog pieces are suffering as a consequence. So meanwhile please go read...

PHARMA: 3 Quickies

Following up on yesterdays forecast of issues for 2005, Melissa David in The Street.com has a good article about how the Merck Mess Shows FDA's Flaws. The key takeaway is that the FDA has been fast-tracking drugs that aren't really...

2005 FORECAST: What to look out for this year

Given that at one point in my life I was a futurist and that I still claim to know something about forecasting, let me start 2005 at THCB by telling you what I think may be the big trends to...

PERSONAL: My end of year letter

Happy New Year and Welcome to 2005! Every year I put out an email to my friends and family about what I've been up to, and what charities and causes I'm supporting. If you'd like to read it, it's posted...

THCB Media Packet Want to reach a weekly audience of thousands of health care industry insiders and watchers? THCB is read by more than a thousand visitors a day, including industry analysts, physicians, investors, Wall Street insiders and executives from...

THCBs Greatest Hits

THIS IS A BRIEF COLLECTION of twenty-five posts written for THCB in the nearly two years since I started this project . You'll find essays on a wide range of topics in health care policy and health care economics. You...

Featured Posts

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To contact Matthew Holt at THCB please email matthew@matthewholt.net For more information see my consulting site www.matthewholt.net

About THCB

The Health Care Blog (THCB) has acquired a reputation as one of the most respected independent voices in the healthcare industry. The Wall Street Journal calls us "among the most widely read insider publications in the field. Web MD calls...

Matthew Holt

Musings about the goings-on in American health care from a general health care consultant. Topics can include policy, health insurers, technology and eHealth, physicians, pharma and anything else that grips my fancy. Although my opinions shine through, this blog tries...