Monday, January 31, 2022

Excellent analysis of SB 8 online at JAMA

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The litigation history of Texas's abortion statute ( SB 8 ) is a sorry tangle of "hot potato" from federal courts to state sup...
Thursday, January 20, 2022

"It’s time for Texas to abolish Confederate Heroes Day"

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Yep. That's the title of an op-ed in today's Washington Post . That we have this "partial holiday" at all is contemptible....

Don't Deny COVID Care to the Unvaccinated

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1. It's bad policy. 2. It's not feasible. 3. It's unethical. These are the messages from Ed Yong's latest piece in The Atlan...
Thursday, January 06, 2022

Advance Directives: 1. Do They Work? 2. Is There Something Better?

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Answers: 1. Not particularly well, except in the few cases where they do. 2. Talking is an essential, and often overlooked, aspect of advanc...
Tuesday, December 07, 2021

Bad news for transgender kids: Genecis program is no more

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A story in the Dallas Morning News (Dec. 6) by reporters Marin Wolf and Lauren McGaughy provides extremely useful details and context for t...
Wednesday, December 01, 2021

Texas and Mississippi Abortion Laws: A "Lack of Empathy and Hubris"

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SCOTUS holds  oral argument this morning in the Mississippi case that involves a law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and t...
Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Billions (and Chevron?) at Stake in SCOTUS's Medicaid Case

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It's a health-law-heavy docket this year over at SCOTUS. Next up for oral argument (Nov. 29) is  Becerra v. Empire Health Foundation (N...
Saturday, November 06, 2021

SCOTUS Grants Cert. in Three Health Law Cases

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From SCOTUSBlog (with additional cites and links): Ruan and Kahn In Ruan v. United States  (20-1410; opinion below ) and Kahn v. United Stat...
Monday, November 01, 2021

Vaccines and Religious Exemptions

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Prof. Wendy Parmet had an excellent guest column in the NY Times on 10/31 concerning religious exemptions from vaccination mandates during ...
Sunday, October 24, 2021

How to Save a Quarter-Trillion Dollars a Year in Health Care (Hint: It's Not as Easy as It Sounds)

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The consulting firm McKinsey & Co. has a new report ( full , executive summary ) that identifies the sorts of administrative simplificat...
Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Teenaged and pregnant in Texas after SB8

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In yesterday's N.Y. Times,  columnist Michelle Goldberg has a powerful up-ed describing the situation created by SB 8 -- Texas's s...

Unvaccinated patients added $5.7 billion to June-August healthcare expenditures

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It's not surprising, but it is still staggering. As reported by Health Affairs : "A surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations among people...
Tuesday, September 07, 2021

The latest surge: It's real and it was avoidable

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Paul Krugman's N.Y. Times newsletter today ( not posted yet , but it should be soon) has two altogether unsurprising but very revealing...
Sunday, July 25, 2021

DFW's COVID-19 Hospitalizations Have Tripled in the Past Month

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This is today's dispatch from Steve Love, the CEO of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council: We have 1,126 COVID-19 patients in our hosp...
Friday, July 16, 2021

Massive HHS settlements & judgments in 2020 for false and fraudulent claims

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The gory details are contained in a report of the Inspector General released this month. Becker's Hospital CFO Report has a summary (em...
Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Atul Gawande Nominated for Global Health Role at USAID

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Good news for fans of Atul Gawande (books: Amazon author's page ) who will be pleased to know Pres. Biden has nominated the author/surg...
Tuesday, July 13, 2021

The High Costs of Non-Beneficial Treatments in the ICU

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Thad Pope has a useful post on this subject. There are direct medical costs (estimated at $2,700/day (Ottawa study) to $4,000/day (UCLA stu...
Monday, July 05, 2021

Happy Independence Day (almost)

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Today (July 5th) is the day of the federal holiday celebrating the Second Continental Congress 's adoption of the text of the Declarati...
Saturday, July 03, 2021

New Book: A political history of the Affordable Care Act

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There is one scholar whose knowledge and understanding of the PPACA is second to none: Tim Jost. His book review of Jonathan Cohn's  The...
Friday, July 02, 2021

SCOTUS grants review in 4 health law cases

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The 2021 Term will be a lively one for health lawyers in light of yesterday's grant of four petitions for review (two Medicare cases, on...