Tags: politics
Blog Posts (77)
Apr 10, 2012
Caplan on Prescription Drug Abuse
Today Art Caplan, in his MSNBC column, discusses the epidemic of prescription drug abuse in this country. But his conclusions would have a chilling effect upon physicians.…
Feb 01, 2012
Gingrich on IVF: Bad for Families, Bad for Bioethics
Scientists, reproductive specialists and andrologists had better prepare. If Newt Gingrich has his way (and wins the Presidency), he will have a whole new world in store for science and medicine.…
Oct 10, 2011
Saving the USPS by Cutting Healthcare Costs?
What does the postal service have to do with healthcare? Sure, the USPS delivers medical supplies to individuals and organizations. But that is not the connection that the nation’s postmaster general is making between healthcare and the viability of the postal service.…
Oct 03, 2011
Doth My Doctor Protest Too Much?
Is there a limit to how far physicians can go in their social or political activism? Ford Vox, writing in The Atlantic, suggests that perhaps there is.…
Apr 07, 2011
Women's Health Shouldn't Be Partisan--But It Is!
As Donna Shalala writes on the Huffington Post today: “health of our women should not be a partisan preference”, but as we all know the politics of women’s health continues to plague access to reproductive health services, equitable access to health services generally, and more broadly remind us that there is still a critical gap between males and females in regard to health in our country.…
Oct 26, 2010
Zeke Emanuel Takes the Cake
When he’s not changing the face of U.S health policy or being a provocateur in the academic literature, can you guess what Ezekiel Emanuel is doing in his down time?…
Apr 08, 2010
The Presidential Commission: The Member Analysis
The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (PCSBI) had its membership announced yesterday–and frankly, I am apprehensive about the future of the commission.…
Mar 23, 2010
Tucked Inside National Health Care Reform is National Menu Reform
And just when you were beginning to worry that national health care reform might not effect you have no fear. Nicely tucked away inside the health reform bill in Section 2572 is the mandate that chain restaurants with more than 20 locations display nutritional and caloric information for all of their consumers, says WSJ Health Blog.…
Dec 16, 2009
Nurses, Doctors Rank Among The Most Trusted Professionals in Society. Who's At The Bottom? You Guessed It. Joseph Lieberman and the Gang.
You might be surprised to learn that nurses (and healthcare professionals generally) are among the most trusted members of society, according to the annual Gallup “Honesty and Ethics of Professions” poll.…
Oct 13, 2009
Yes, Today. Snowe, Tomorrow?
According to the WSJ Health Blog, Senator Olympia Snowe of Washington State is making no promises as to whether she will continue to back the Senate Finance bill for health care reform.…
News (27)
Apr 30, 2012
Healthcare’s foreign invasion (Salon)
Approximately 15 percent of all healthcare workers and 25 percent of all physicians in the United States were born and educated elsewhere. This means that 1.5 million healthcare jobs are “insourced,” occupied by foreign-born, foreign-trained workers brought into the United States on special visas earmarked for healthcare jobs. This number is 50 percent greater than the total number of jobs in the U.S. auto-manufacturing industry.
Apr 25, 2012
Obamacare collapse would put employers in charge (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
If the Supreme Court strikes down President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, don’t look to government for what comes next. Employers and insurance companies will take charge. They’ll borrow some ideas from Obamacare, ditch others, and push even harder to cut costs.
Apr 23, 2012
Assisted human reproduction and the law (CBC News)
An air of confusion surrounds Canada’s rules governing fertility issues, such as assisted human reproduction. Although the federal government passed a law in 2004 that tackled a wide swath of the socially and ethically controversial issues surrounding reproduction, covering everything from human cloning to payment for sperm, the law hasn’t lived up to expectations.
Apr 18, 2012
The U.S.'s Tragic Role in Guatemala and a Chance to Make Amends (Huffington Post)
In a February 14, 2012 letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, scores of individuals and organizations (such as the AFL-CIO, Center for Constitutional Rights, CWA, Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, the National Lawyers Guild, the SEIU and the Washington Office on Latin America) implored the U.S. government to withdraw its motion to dismiss the Garcia v. Sebilius case, and to “seek a fair and amicable settement” with the victims of these grisly experiments. Bioethicists also agree that individual victims deserve a remedy for the harm they individually suffered.
Apr 18, 2012
Unusual Alliances Form In Nebraska's Prenatal Care Debate (NPR)
In Republican-dominated Nebraska, government leaders often line up together, but lately a political tornado has ripped through this orderly scene. A political showdown over taxpayer funding of prenatal care for illegal immigrants has produced some unusual political splits and alliances in the statehouse of the Cornhusker State.
Apr 17, 2012
It's Not About Broccoli!: The False Case Against Health Care (The Atlantic)
The challengers of the health insurance mandate have focused on the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. As conservative Judge Silberman held, the text giving Congress the power to “regulate commerce” does seem to include a power to mandate purchases, given 1780s dictionary definitions of “regulate.” The challengers argue that this plain meaning should nonetheless be resisted because otherwise the clause would lack any “limiting principle,” and thus could be used to force us to buy GM cars, cell phones, burial insurance, or — their favorite bugaboo — broccoli.
Apr 16, 2012
Can the Innovator Class Save Healthcare? (The Atlantic)
Perched on the banks of the Potomac River, the TEDMED gathering weighed in last week on what it considered the greatest challenges facing healthcare. A meeting closely associated with the high tech-optimism of Silicon Valley and other outposts of America’s innovator class, TEDMED came east this year from it’s previous home in San Diego. The idea was to bring the gathering’s ethos and its troupe of entrepreneurs, thinkers, futurists, doers, and artists to our nation’s political capital.
Apr 16, 2012
Stay Awake, Comrades (Science Progress)
Are you losing sleep over America’s competition with China for global dominance? Not to worry. The People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, has a pill that will keep you feeling well, alert and comfortable for 72 hours. So at least while you’re not sleeping you can be productive.
Apr 12, 2012
Confusion Reigns in Tennessee (Science Insider)
Teaching science in Tennessee may become more confusing now that an antievolution bill has been added to the state’s statutes. Governor Bill Haslam yesterday declined to either sign or veto HR 368, which prohibits school officials from stopping a teacher from helping students understand so-called controversial subjects such as evolution and global warming. Never mind that teachers say they need no such protection, or that thousands of educators and scientific societies (including AAAS, which publishes ScienceInsider) had urged Haslam to veto the bill because it wrongly suggests that the scientific community is divided on these issues.
Apr 09, 2012
Obama gets new bioethics chief (The Hill)
The new executive director of President Obama’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues began work Monday. Lisa Lee, a 14-year employee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, takes over from National Institutes of Health lawyer Valerie Bonham.