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Section: Blogs/Opinion

Nursing Error & Son’s Death

On Saturday, the 5th of November, 2011, my life fell apart when my only son Tyler left this world. One week before that, on the morning of the 28th of October, I received a phone call that no mother ever wants to receive. I was asked to go immediately to the hospital. And when I […]

April 3, 2017

Trump’s Attack on The Poor

Obamacare will be the law of the land for the “foreseeable future”, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, admitted in the aftermath of the abject failure of Donald Trump or the Republican party to “repeal or replace” Obama’s flagship Affordable Care Act (ACA) after seven years of bleating about it. The […]

March 29, 2017

The Stupidity of Killing Biomedical Research

Donald Trump proposed a budget this week that will cut funding to NIH by nearly $6 billion, or 20% of its $31 billion budget. A cut of this magnitude would be devastating for biomedical research, and for the health of the nation. This is colossally short-sighted, stupid and even cruel. The U.S. budget this year […]

March 28, 2017

How the Healthcare Bill Will Bankrupt Millennials

Young people with decent incomes and employment — especially those younger than 26 — won’t see too many immediate changes to health insurance.People who rely on Medicaid, however, could see health care losses without support from the federal government. People who buy health insurance individually would also see changes. The GOP plan keeps the rules […]

March 23, 2017

Single-Payer Possible in California

Could California have its own single-payer health insurance system providing coverage for all residents? A bill has been introduced in the state Legislature that would do just that — and its chances of success could be vastly improved by President Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress. Thanks, guys! First, a little history lesson. Stick with me […]

March 21, 2017

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Drain the Healthcare Swamp

In his Feb. 28 address to the Joint Session of Congress, President Trump called the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “ObamaCare”) an “imploding disaster.” His references to soaring premiums, contracting choices, and market collapse are all spot on. And of course everybody wants “reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs, and at the same […]

March 15, 2017

When Patients Mentor Doctors

It was a cold December morning in 2015, and Roger was slowly dying. With end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Roger had been in and out of the hospital for months, each episode worse than the last. Once a functional New Yorker who walked to his favorite corner store with an oxygen tank, Roger had […]

March 13, 2017

Making Healthcare Unaffordable for Millions

That’s not an ironic headline. Leading House Republicans have included a number of transformative and consequential reforms in their American Health Care Act, the full text of which was published Monday evening. But those reforms are overshadowed by the bill’s stubborn desire to make health insurance unaffordable for millions of Americans, and trap millions more […]

March 8, 2017

Empty Promises

Lost amid the pundits’ applause for President Trump’s calmer demeanor in his speech to Congress Tuesday was a key shift that received far less national attention: the abandonment of promises made by candidate and President-elect Trump on healthcare. “We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Trump said in press conference Jan. 11. “We’re going to […]

March 6, 2017

Healthcare Complicated? Who Knew?

If there’s one thing almost everybody across the political spectrum knows about health-care reform, it’s that it’s really hard. People who study the issue closely know it. People who don’t follow the issue know. (That’s why lots of smart people don’t follow the issue closely — it’s really hard!) But there is apparently a category […]

March 1, 2017

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Our $1 Million Medical Bill

Avoidable medical complications plague American families physically, emotionally — and economically. A poignant example of the damage caused not by accidents but by failures in the health care system was recently identified and carefully studied in the medical device space. An analysis by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined that physicians, hospitals and manufacturer failed […]

February 27, 2017

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What Obamacare’s Critics Won’t Admit

THOUSAND OAKS, California ― Maryann Hammers is likely to die from ovarian cancer someday. But she hopes someday won’t come anytime soon. Hammers, 61, received the diagnosis in late 2013, and doctors told her that it was stage 3-C, which meant that she could live for many years with the right treatment and a little […]

February 22, 2017

Message to Tom Price: Drop the Repeal Idea

Congratulations on your confirmation and the honor of serving the American people as head of the Health and Human Services Department. The decision over what to do about the Affordable Care Act is coming at you fast. Millions of Americans are waiting to understand if their health coverage and protections will continue, while insurance companies […]

February 20, 2017

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Why Changes Could Worsen Drug Epidemic

In a recent article, I made the case against “Trumpcare” for our general health care system. As a psychiatrist, I now focus on the impact that President Donald Trump’s health policies could have on individuals, families and communities affected by use and abuse of drugs, especially opioids (including prescription pills like OxyContin and Vicodin as […]

February 15, 2017

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Travel Ban’s Impact on Healthcare

(CNN) — The White House’s travel ban encompassing seven majority-Muslim countries is a blunt instrument that’s already wreaking havoc and the impact is already being disproportionately felt in American health care. The administration emphasizes it’s preventing only a “small percentage” of global travelers from entering or leaving the country, but our hospitals rely on a […]

February 13, 2017

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Doctors Speak Out Against Trump

On January 21st, the day of the Women’s March on Washington, I was working in the hospital as a resident physician assigned to the weekend shift. In some ways, it was like any other day on call. I rounded on patients in the morning, managed medical issues during the day, and evaluated new patients in […]

February 8, 2017

Another Casualty of Ban: Medical Training and Rural Healthcare

The chaos among immigrant families and at airports wreaked nationwide by President Trump’s executive order barring nationals of seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States has been well documented. Not as well understood are the effects his order will have on U.S. medical training and healthcare, especially in poor and rural neighborhoods. Ahmad Masri […]

February 6, 2017

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What Trump Can Do to Fix Healthcare

My friend Patrick Spain, a serial internet entrepreneur, now runs a tele-medicine company called First Stop Health to which I subscribe. In other words, all of the flus, backaches, rashes, passing infections, and 24-hour viruses, the stuff of most doctor visits, are, in my house, handled by a telephone call. Call a number, describe your […]

February 1, 2017