It is often observed wryly that Americans have more interest in the well-being of their automobiles and pets than their own health. The challenges of activating patients to manage diet, lifestyle, and chronic conditions are well documented, and the accompanying costs of chronic illness are even more thoroughly characterized. The threats these pose to health [...]

Health reform tops the most-read list for April on the Health Affairs Blog. A series of posts on health IT looked at building the new technology into the delivery system, effect on patient-physician relationships, and more. Additional commenting is always welcome.

No Direction Home: A Primary Care Physician Questions The Medical Home Model by Caroline Poplin
Health [...]

The most-read posts on Health Affairs Blog this January included much health reform advice to the Obama Administration and calls to action on health IT and rebuilding primary care. Additional commenting is always welcome.

Top 20 Health Affairs Journal Articles For 2008
by Jane Hiebert-White

Complete The Work On Health Information Technology
by David Brailer

Daschle: What Can We Expect [...]

A recent book, CRITICAL – What We Can Do About The Health-Care Crisis, authored by incoming “Health Czar” Tom Daschle, calls for the creation of a Federal Health Board (FHB). Among other proposed board functions, the FHB would “promote ‘high value’ medical care by recommending coverage of those drugs and procedures backed by solid evidence.”
This role sounds reminiscent of [...]

Economist Uwe Reinhardt once likened the payment system for U.S. health care to a fictional employer-sponsored “clothes benefit program.” Companies would reimburse workers for 80 percent of the “reasonable cost” of attire that was “necessary and appropriate” for the job. The catch: although employees could choose whatever they wanted from the racks of any department [...]

Editor’s Note: The post by Dennis Cotter below addresses the way in which Medicare should incorporate erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (epoetin) into its composite-rate payment for end-stage renal disease treatment. Watch for subsequent posts on this topic from Amgen and others. 
Statement of the problem. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) mandates that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) [...]

As a nation, we have engaged in many debates and much discourse on how to improve America’s health care system. There has been an understandable focus on the well-trod issues, such as health costs, access, and the specifics of a number of health reform plans. Let me offer one more issue that I believe deserves [...]

Editor’s Note: This post concludes a series on health information technology (IT). It follows posts by Mark Leavitt and Nancy Davenport-Ennis. This blog series appears in tandem with new papers on the Health Affairs Web site [2-week free access], including a lead article on why we need to expand beyond narrowly focused standard setting to unlock the potential of health IT by the [...]

Editor’s Note: This post continues a series on health information technology (IT). Yesterday Mark Leavitt rated health IT’s progress. Next up, a post by Esther Dyson. This blog series appears in tandem with new papers on the Health Affairs Web site [2-week free access], including a lead article on why we need to expand beyond narrowly focused standard setting to [...]

Editor’s Note: Mark Leavitt’s post below is the first in a series concerning the package of articles on health IT published today on the Health Affairs Web site. Additional posts include tech guru Esther Dyson and consumer advocate Nancy Davenport-Ennis. In the lead article, the Markle Foundation’s Carol Diamond and New York University’s Clay Shirky [...]

Today’s edition of the Health Wonk Review features a post on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s economic assessment of health care presented at last week’s Senate Finance Committee Health Reform Summit. While rising U.S. health care costs pose a strain on the economy, there are positive aspects of new health care technology, says Bernanke:
“Although the high cost of health [...]

Editor’s Note: In an interview published this week, Health Affairs Contributing Editor Barbara Culliton asks Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Associate Commissioner For Science, Norris Alderson, about his agency’s regulation of nanomedicine and the potential for health care cost savings. Here’s an excerpt of their conversation:
Barbara Culliton: Nanomedicine is the “next big thing” in medicine, [...]

Editor’s Note: Should drugmakers and medical device manufacturers be allowed to provide physicians with medical and scientific journal articles concerning uses of their products that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration? Recently, the FDA issued draft guidance that would permit this practice with certain regulatory restraints. In the post below, Jerome [...]

Editor’s Note: Should drugmakers and medical device manufacturers be allowed to provide physicians with medical and scientific journal articles concerning uses of their products that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration? Recently, the FDA issued draft guidance that would permit this practice within certain regulatory restraints. In the post below, Scott [...]

For your Leap Day reading pleasure, we offer here the list of Top 10 most-read Health Affairs Blog Posts of 2007. Next up—Top 10 for January-February 2008. Additional commenting always welcome.

INSURANCE: A Closer Look At HSAs
by Uwe Reinhardt
REFORM: Musings On SiCKO, July 4th, and Visions of America
by Sarah Dine
HEALTH REFORM: Redefining Health Care
by Michael E. [...]

Last week, Health Affairs published three interviews [one-week free access] that I conducted with leading cancer oncologists. As Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science, and I wrote in an introduction to these interviews:
“An intellectual chasm exists between those who do innovative research and those who deliver it. Researchers and physician-scientists read different journals than their counterparts in health policy or [...]

Editor’s Note: The following letter from Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) was originally published in the September/October 2007 issue of Health Affairs. The letter describes Sen. Brownback’s use of a Health Affairs paper as the basis for his Elimination of Neglected Diseases (END) amendment to the FDA Revitalization Act. President Bush signed a version of the [...]