Today’s OpEds: History And Health Reform; Medical Advances Drive Health Costs; Price Controls
How The New Health Care Law Will Impact Oklahoma Tulsa Today
At a time when we need to be lowering health care costs and shoring up Medicare and Social Security, Congress has decided to expand broken and bankrupt programs and create new burdens for families. ... I'm hopeful many of these dire consequences can be avoided if the American people demand that Congress repeal this foolish and reckless plan (Sen. Tom Coburn, M.D. 5/5).
Is History Relevant To Implementing Health Reform? The Journal Of The American Medical Association
Historians have too much respect for contingency to dare predict the future. Still, as the nation embarks on the long road of implementing the 2010 health reforms, historical research can be used to construct a checklist for measuring continuity and discontinuity with past attempts (Daniel Fox and Howard Markel, 5/5).
Health Care Price Controls Kaiser Health News
One might be tempted to think this is an area of the legislation which should have gotten some bipartisan support. After all, in the past, it's the Republicans who have pushed for these kinds of caps on entitlement costs (James Capretta, 5/6).
Medical Advances Are Arriving - But For A Price Newsday
The recent launch of a revolutionary prostate cancer vaccine, custom-made for each individual patient, marks an exciting advance in medical science. It also highlights some of the hardest problems in the effort to contain health care costs (5/5).
Competition Beats Regulation The Washington Times
[Under the new health law,] An insurer who aggressively and successfully negotiates health care cost savings below the 80 percent and 85 percent of premium thresholds will go unrewarded. So why work so hard? (Rexford Santerre, 5/6).
New Alarm Bells About Chemicals And Cancer The New York Times
The President's Cancer Panel is the Mount Everest of the medical mainstream, so it is astonishing to learn that it is poised to join ranks with the organic food movement and declare: chemicals threaten our bodies (Nicholas Kristof, 5/5).