AtulGawande

AtulGawande https://www.dailykos.com/news/AtulGawande News Community Action Copyright 2005 - Steal what you want Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:39:25 +0000 Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:39:25 +0000 Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Atul Gawande to Head New Amazon/Berkshire Hathaway/JPMorgan Chase Health Venture https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/6/23/1774717/-Atul-Gawande-to-Head-New-Amazon-Berkshire-Hathaway-JPMorgan-Chase-Health-Venture <a href="https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/898337" target="_blank">https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/898337</a> by Alicia Ault — June 20, 2018 Starting July 9, <blockquote> Celebrated surgeon and author <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande" target="_blank">Atul Gawande</a>, MD, MPH, has been chosen [to head a forthcoming as-yet-unnamed] health venture [based in Boston] put together by [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos" target="_blank">Jeff Bezos</a>/]Amazon, [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett">Warren Buffett</a>/] Berkshire Hathaway, and [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Dimon" target="_blank">Jamie Dimon</a>/] JPMorgan Chase. <figure class="image-captioned width-lg align-right"><img alt="319px-Atul-Gawande_%28cropped%29.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/556835/large/319px-Atul-Gawande_%28cropped%29.jpg?1529731894" title="319px-Atul-Gawande_%28cropped%29.jpg"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> ...The [venture] will be focused on employee healthcare and will operate independently of its three parent companies and of any profit motive, according to a <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180620005747/en/Amazon-Berkshire-Hathaway-JPMorgan-Chase-appoint-Dr">joint statement</a>. [It] will initially focus on using data and technology to provide "simplified, high-quality and transparent healthcare at a reasonable cost" for their 500,000 American workers. ..."I have devoted my public health career to building scalable solutions for better healthcare delivery that are saving lives, reducing suffering, and eliminating wasteful spending both in the US and across the world," Gawande said in the joint statement. "Now I have the backing of these remarkable organizations to pursue this mission with even greater impact for more than a million people, and in doing so incubate better models of care for all," he added. "This work will take time but must be done. The system is broken, and better is possible." </blockquote> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande" target="_blank">Wik</a>: <blockquote> As an undergraduate, Gawande was a volunteer for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Hart">Gary Hart</a>'s campaign. After graduating, he joined <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore">Al Gore</a>'s 1988 presidential campaign. He worked as a health-care researcher for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress">Rep</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Cooper">Jim Cooper</a> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)">D</a>-<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee">TN</a>), who was author of a "managed competition" health care proposal for the Conservative Democratic Forum. He entered medical school in 1990 — leaving after two years to become <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton">Bill Clinton</a>'s healthcare lieutenant during the 1992 campaign. He later became a senior advisor in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Health_and_Human_Services">Department of Health and Human Services</a> after Clinton's inauguration. He directed one of the three committees of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Clinton_health_care_plan#Task_Force">Clinton Health Care Task Force</a>, supervising 75 people and defined the benefits packages for Americans and subsidies and requirements for employers.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande#cite_note-8">[8]</a> He returned to medical school in 1993 and earned a medical degree in 1995.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande#cite_note-9">[9]</a> </blockquote> His career has emphasized scrutinizing inefficiencies in US healthcare, often with articles for the New Yorker and in best-selling books, including The Checklist Manifesto and Being Mortal. (see wik’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande#Journalism" target="_blank" title="">Journalism</a> section) <blockquote> Gawande is also executive director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally. In addition, Gawande was the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" award in 2006. </blockquote> In personalities, aims and backing, this is quite a diverse endeavor. Should be interesting... <hr> Related: <a href="https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/898376" target="_blank" title="">Reuters via https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/898376</a> By Caroline Humer — June 22, 2018 <blockquote> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Health" target="_blank" title="">Oscar Health</a>, which began selling individual health insurance in New York for the 2014 launch of the Obamacare exchanges, on Thursday announced plans to expand into Florida, Michigan and Arizona next year, even as the Trump administration seeks to undercut that marketplace with cheaper insurance products. On Tuesday, the U.S. government issued a final rule that will allow small companies to band together as associations to buy healthcare that does not comply with many of the same rules as the plans sold on the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare. Oscar Chief Executive Officer Mario Schlosser said there is always change happening in the individual insurance market and that the company is confident it [has the experience to] adjust…. Oscar, which raised $165 million in funding earlier this year from companies including San Francisco venture capital firm Founders Fund and two units of Alphabet Inc, also sells small business plans and will continue to expand that business, Schlosser said. It has 240,000 total members in the six states where it currently operates individual and small group plans. It grew that membership by 250 percent in 2018 from 2017... </blockquote> rss@dailykos.com (mettle fatigue) AffordableCareAct Amazon AtulGawande BerkshireHathaway HealthCare JeffBezos JPMorganChase MedicalInsurance NonProfit OscarHealth WarrenBuffett _1774717 Sat, 23 Jun 2018 15:00:10 +0000 Thinking Even Slower https://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/8/29/1416163/-Thinking-Even-Slower Daniel Kahneman (who is not to be confused with Dan Kahan, but good luck with that) is the author of a book called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow">Thinking, Fast and Slow</a> which, among other things, discusses the way we all have two ways of understanding and making decisions, intuition and reason, which he refers to by the (somewhat) standard jargon "System 1" and "System 2".  System 1 is fast, but unreliable, System 2 is much more thorough, but slow. Kahneman's research in human understanding, following the usual practice of psychologists, has typically focused on individual behavior.  There are many important aspects of human understanding that have to do with group behavior, though.  Human beings working together have the potential to be smarter than human beings in isolation (and unfortunately, they also have the potential to be stupider). I suggest that if each human being is working with a "System 1" and a "System 2", groups of human beings can have something you might call "System 3": when we get a System 3 that works well, groups of human beings can understand things in greater depth than could be achieved by individuals in isolation, though this overall process is frequently even even slower than an individual's reason ("System 2").... rss@dailykos.com (doomvox) AtulGawande collectiveintelligence CosmaShalizi CulturalCognition DanielKahneman dankahan EdwinHutchins HenryFarrell JonahLehrer KeithSawyer KevinKelly SocialEpistemology StuartKauffman susancain ThinkingFastandSlow TobySegaran _1416163 Sun, 30 Aug 2015 06:59:05 +0000 On "Being Mortal" & Dealing with Cancer (Revised) https://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/6/1/1389690/-On-Being-Mortal-Dealing-with-Cancer Every day we live, we are each one day closer to our own death. A truism, of course, but one that we tend to suppress in the rush and tumult of other demands on our attention and time. Until, one day, we can no longer pretend it away. It's sheer coincidence that WisePiper posted his <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/01/1389498/-GBCW">poignant GBCW today</a>, on a day when I was planning to write a brief review of Atul Gawande's latest book, <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780805095159">Being Mortal</a>. (If you haven't already read WisePiper's diary, I urge you to do so, and to leave a comment there if you are so inclined.) But if, as my daughter and many others will tell me, there are no sheer coincidences--then it is indeed an opportune moment to talk about this book and its themes. Please join me after the curlicue for more discussion of this book. rss@dailykos.com (peregrine kate) AtulGawande BeingMortal Cancer Community CommunitySpotlight Monday Night Cancer Club MondayNightCancerClub Mortality Recommended Rescued RescuedtoRecommended _1389690 Tue, 02 Jun 2015 01:37:19 +0000 TDS / Colbert https://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/6/1334704/-TDS-Colbert <center><a href="http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/22/517f.jpg"><img src="http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/22/517f.jpg" /></a></center> Tonight's guests are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande">Atul Gawande</a> on The Daily Show and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_M._McPherson">James McPherson</a> on The Colbert Report. <a href="http://atulgawande.com/">Atul Gawande</a> is a surgeon, public health researcher and author. His latest book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/0805095152">Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End</a>. <blockquote>In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering. Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession’s ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified. Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end. </blockquote> <blockquote><a href="http://artery.wbur.org/2014/10/06/atul-gawande-being-mortal">Atul Gawande Asks: How Do We Want To Die?</a> <blockquote>As old age has been transformed by medical technology, elderly citizens are often robbed of a humane end to their lives—living their final months in clinical settings, spending more time with professional caregivers than with loved ones.</blockquote> <blockquote>Further highlighting the difficult choices faced by today’s families, Gawande does not romanticize having an elderly parent live with adult children. In our hyper-medical culture, the “burdens for today’s [family] caregiver have actually increased from what they would have been a century ago.” An adult child, often still raising her own family, must monitor a vast array of prescriptions; drive to endless doctor, specialist and lab appointments; cook separate meals for restricted diets. “Being Mortal” chronicles nursing home successes, like that of Dr. Bill Thomas, who created an entirely new social structure in nursing homes to combat what he calls the “Three Plagues” of nursing home life: “boredom, loneliness, helplessness.” There are profiles of senior communities that offer innovative options for independent and assisted living, including Newbridge on the Charles in Dedham, Orchard Cove in Canton and Beacon Hill Villages in Boston. </blockquote> </blockquote> This sounds like a good book. When I was little, a friend of the family had to go to a nursing home. The bleach smell and overall atmosphere creeped me out any time we would visit. When my Grandmother had to go into one, I thought as an adult now it would be better. It wasn't. My grandmother had frontal lobe dementia and we cared for her as long as we could at home but eventually she needed around the clock professional care.  Even though it was one of the best facilities in the region it still was a very sad place. There has to be a better way of providing the care that people need. <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/history/people/display_person.xml?netid=jmcphers">James McPherson</a> is the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor Emeritus of American History at Princeton University.  He is an American Civil War historian and his latest book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594204977">Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief</a> <blockquote>History has not been kind to Jefferson Davis. His cause went down in disastrous defeat and left the South impoverished for generations. If that cause had succeeded, it would have torn the United States in two and preserved the institution of slavery. Many Americans in Davis’s own time and in later generations considered him an incompetent leader, if not a traitor. Not so, argues James M. McPherson. In Embattled Rebel, McPherson shows us that Davis might have been on the wrong side of history, but it is too easy to diminish him because of his cause’s failure. In order to understand the Civil War and its outcome, it is essential to give Davis his due as a military leader and as the president of an aspiring Confederate nation. Davis did not make it easy on himself. His subordinates and enemies alike considered him difficult, egotistical, and cold. He was gravely ill throughout much of the war, often working from home and even from his sickbed. Nonetheless, McPherson argues, Davis shaped and articulated the principal policy of the Confederacy with clarity and force: the quest for independent nationhood. Although he had not been a fire-breathing secessionist, once he committed himself to a Confederate nation he never deviated from this goal. In a sense, Davis was the last Confederate left standing in 1865. As president of the Confederacy, Davis devoted most of his waking hours to military strategy and operations, along with Commander Robert E. Lee, and delegated the economic and diplomatic functions of strategy to his subordinates. Davis was present on several battlefields with Lee and even took part in some tactical planning; indeed, their close relationship stands as one of the great military-civilian partnerships in history. Most critical appraisals of Davis emphasize his choices in and management of generals rather than his strategies, but no other chief executive in American history exercised such tenacious hands-on influence in the shaping of military strategy. And while he was imprisoned for two years after the Confederacy’s surrender awaiting a trial for treason that never came, and lived for another twenty-four years, he never once recanted the cause for which he had fought and lost. McPherson gives us Jefferson Davis as the commander in chief he really was, showing persuasively that while Davis did not win the war for the South, he was scarcely responsible for losing it. </blockquote> <blockquote><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-embattled-rebel-jefferson-davis-by-james-m-mcphersona-leader-in-defeat/2014/10/02/7b1180ec-3e69-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html">Book review: ‘Embattled Rebel’ Jefferson Davis, by James M. McPhersonA Leader in Defeat</a> <blockquote>To this day it is difficult for many Americans to view Davis with dispassion, but McPherson has made a noble attempt to do so. Though his “sympathies lie with the Union side in the Civil War,” in this book he has “sought to transcend my convictions and to understand Jefferson Davis as a product of his time and circumstances.” Davis himself does not make that easy. “He did not suffer fools gladly,” McPherson writes, “and he let them know it. He did not practice the skillful politician’s art of telling others what they wanted to hear. He did not flatter their egos, and he sometimes asserted his own. He did not hesitate to criticize others but was often thin-skinned about their criticisms of him. Davis could be austere, humorless and tediously argumentative.”</blockquote> <blockquote>What it all comes down to is that a reasonably convincing case can be made for Davis. He was not a military genius, but he was a better strategist than many of his generals. He had the wisdom to put Lee in charge of the Confederate armed forces. As McPherson says in conclusion: “While the Lincoln-Grant team eventually won the war, this does not mean that the Davis-Lee team was responsible for losing it. For in the final analysis, the salient truth about the American Civil War is not that the Confederacy lost but that the Union won.”</blockquote> </blockquote> The entire Washington Post article is worth reading.   I liked this part <blockquote>Then as ever after, armchair generals in newspaper editorial offices decided they knew more about how to conduct the war than those in actual power, and they turned on Davis (who brought to the position of commander in chief a West Point diploma and extensive military service) and let him have it with both barrels</blockquote> The only difference today is that our media is so partisan that Fox would never rip into a Republican for doing the same exact things they rip Obama for doing. As for the book, it is different since it is so difficult to remove the color of ideology from a person and just focus on their actions when it was their ideology that helped drive those actions. <blockquote> <center> <h2>This Week's Guests</h2> THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART <tt> Tu 10/7: Bill O'Reilly We 10/8: Leon Panetta Th 10/9: Jeremy Renner</tt> THE COLBERT REPORT <tt> Tu 10/7: Leon Wieseltier We 10/8: Carol Burnett Th 10/9: Robert Plant</tt> </center> </blockquote> Somebody else is going to have to post for the week of October 20 if you want a diary. I will be in Boston that week helping homeless people. rss@dailykos.com (pgm 01) AtulGawande Community JamesMcPherson Jon Stewart JonStewart SausageGrinderofSnark StephenColbert The Colbert Report The Daily Show TheColbertReport TheDailyShow _1334704 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 02:50:02 +0000 The Daily Show/Colbert Report Late-night Teatime 07.30.13 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/7/30/1227851/--The-Daily-Show-Colbert-Report-Late-night-Teatime-07-30-13 <table> <tr> <td><a target="_top" href="http://www.comedycentral.com/index.jhtml"><img src="http://i688.photobucket.com/albums/vv246/tiarachel/tds%20and%20tcr%20boxes/JohnOliverlogo3_zps1f8343e0.png" border="0" width="150" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" /></a></td> <td>Tonight on TDS, Tim Gunn,  Project Runway; and on TCR,  Atul Gawande, about his New Yorker article Slow Ideas (and probably his Better Birth project).</td> </tr> </table> <table> <tr> <td></td> <td><img alt="sausage grinder of snark" src="http://i688.photobucket.com/albums/vv246/tiarachel/Collages/Beachgrinde2r.jpg" width="250" /> </td> <td><img src="http://i688.photobucket.com/albums/vv246/tiarachel/Collages/gonefishin2.jpg" width="250" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2">Can't watch the shows live? Me either. <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/BruinKid">Bruinkid's</a> got next-day videos & transcripts.</td> </tr> </table> rss@dailykos.com (TiaRachel) AtulGawande BetterBirth Community India JohnOliver Jon Stewart JonStewart Medicine NewYorker ProjectRunway SausageGrinderofSnark Series Slowideas StephenColbert The Colbert Report The Daily Show TheColbertReport TheDailyShow TimGunn _1227851 Wed, 31 Jul 2013 02:55:11 +0000 Monday Night Cancer Club: "The Fix for Cancer Care" https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/3/25/1196938/-Monday-Night-Cancer-Club-The-Fix-for-Cancer-Care Regular readers of the MNCC will know that we rarely write about “news” in the world of cancer care, but today I am making a bit of an exception. An entry published over the weekend in the “Opinionator” blog of the New York Times promoting a <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/23/a-plan-to-fix-cancer-care/">“plan to fix cancer care”</a> caught my eye, and I thought after reading the column that the topics covered therein would provide plenty of fodder for our discussion here tonight. It seems especially appropriate given the conversation we had <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/18/1195138/-Monday-Night-Cancer-Club-What-Are-We-Getting-for-Our-Money?showAll=yes">last week at the MNCC</a>. I’ll summarize the points made by the author, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, after providing a few details of his biography. Emanuel is an MD who has practiced in oncology; he is also a Ph.D. bioethicist and a <a href="http://www.thehastingscenter.org/About/Default.aspx?id=902">fellow at the Hastings Center</a>. Currently he holds a position at the NIH and still serves (from what I can tell) as a special adviser to the Director of the OMB on Health Policy. Interestingly, though I’m not sure it pertains to this particular discussion, he is Rahm Emanuel’s oldest brother. Emanuel also had over 20 medical reviewers of this post, including Otis W. Brawley of the American Cancer Society among the other MDs and PhDs listed. Emanuel opens by asserting that the cost of providing treatment to people with cancer is unsustainable: currently, 0.5 of the U.S. population is under treatment for cancer, for a share of 5% (and growing) of total U. S. health care expenditures in doing so. Then he quickly lists the five major components of his plan with brief descriptions of each. Number one is shifting from a fee-for-service model to a bundled payment model—that is, setting a flat fee for certain cancers, presumably depending on their stages and treatments. The second is to require insurers to document and report back to the physicians on the costs of the treatments they prescribe, in large part to allow doctors to compare costs and effectiveness. “Armed with better data,” he says, “physicians can learn how to improve care at lower cost.” “Third,” he continues, “any change in payment methods must be accompanied by rigorous quality monitoring to ensure that there is neither under- nor over-utilization of care.” The fourth component is to move toward more of a “high touch” model of health care because it can help minimize unnecessary treatment expenditures. This is was not a familiar term to me, but I gather that it is intended to contrast with “high tech,” and here he uses it to recommend more routine interactions between medical providers and patients (though his examples strike me as somewhat oddly chosen). Fifth and last, he says we need “better incentives for research….[because once] interventions are paid for, the incentive for research disappears.” He concludes by recommending that <blockquote>The secretary of health and human services should organize a working group representing Medicare, private insurers, oncologists, quality experts and patients to figure out how to develop these proposals — with no increase in costs — and start implementing them by the end of 2015.</blockquote> It would probably aid our mutual understanding if you would be so kind as to read <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/23/a-plan-to-fix-cancer-care/">the original post</a>, which is quite short, as well as some of the comments that follow it, many of which are well-argued and instructive. I’ll lay out the questions I’d like us to consider after the jump. <blockquote>Monday Night Cancer Club is a Daily Kos group focused on dealing with cancer, primarily for cancer survivors and caregivers, though clinicians, researchers, and others with a special interest are also welcome. Volunteer diarists post Monday evenings between 7-8 PM ET on topics related to living with cancer, which is very broadly defined to include physical, spiritual, emotional and cognitive aspects. Mindful of the controversies endemic to cancer prevention and treatment, we ask that both diarists and commenters keep an open mind regarding strategies for surviving cancer, whether based in traditional, Eastern, Western, allopathic or other medical practices. This is a club no one wants to join, in truth, and compassion will help us make it through the challenge together.</blockquote> rss@dailykos.com (peregrine kate) AtulGawande Cancer cancercost cancercostcontainment Community EzekielEmanuel Monday Night Cancer Club MondayNightCancerClub _1196938 Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:21:14 +0000 Sanders & Vermont: Socialization vs. $600-Billion-a-Year Medical Corruption https://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/3/25/959917/-Sanders-Vermont-Socialization-vs-600-Billion-a-Year-Medical-Corruption Socialization is the opposite of privatization. What, you don't like greed ? We took a look at what Bernie was up to back in December, 2009: <blockquote><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/22/818060/-This-HCR-Bill:-45,000,000-Get-CHC-Single-Payer-Vermont-Health-Care">This HCR Bill: 45,000,000 Get CHC-Single-Payer Vermont Health Care</a> </blockquote> The battlefield: <a href="http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/8585/uspatienttreatmentcosts.gif"><img src="http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/8585/uspatienttreatmentcosts.gif" /></a> Easily 40% of the chronic care bill is theft. "Dr. Bernie Madoff" works as a scam model. "Give this patient more prescriptions. Give her more referrals. She's family." Same psychology as a Ponzi. Supply-side cost-control, banging theft, is where the money is. CC costs doubled in a decade, where Everything Else moved with inflation plus a point. That $600-billion haul is why doctors and their enablers give so much money to the GOP. Up toDecember, 2009, Left-Center energies were wasted pushing for the Public Option insurance boondoggle. Bernie saved the day by focusing 100% on supply-side cost control. He got Harry Reid to pop in a massive expansion to the Kennedy Community Health Care Centers. 14,000 Centers, whipped in on the last day of the Senate's HCR wrangle. Today the CHC's are the F-16s in an all-out war on medical corruption. Vermont is combining single-payer billing/payables socialization with CHC Referrals Killer tactics. How's this work for your state ? FOLLOW THE MONEY below the fold ::: rss@dailykos.com (vets74) AtulGawande Barack Obama BarackObama BenCardin Bernie Sanders BernieSanders CHC clinic dentalcoverage dentistry dentists Doctors drugcost Drugs freeclinic Harry Reid HarryReid HealthCareReform InsuranceReform medicaltests Nancy Pelosi NancyPelosi Nurses Nursing primarycaredoctors Privatization Public Option PublicOption RobertByrd ruralmedicine Single Payer SinglePayer Socialism socialization TedKennedy _959917 Fri, 25 Mar 2011 23:11:01 +0000 Torture in Ohio: Prisoners Launch Hunger Strike https://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1/6/933753/-Torture-in-Ohio-Prisoners-Launch-Hunger-Strike You know something is deeply wrong when people want to be transferred to death row. <blockquote> Four prisoners in the supermax Ohio State Penitentiary have launched a hunger strike to protest what they call their harsh mistreatment under solitary confinement. The prisoners—Bomani Shakur, Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Jason Robb and Namir Abdul Mateen—were sentenced to death for their involvement in the 1993 prison uprising in Lucasville, Ohio. For over 17 years, they have been held in 23-hours-a-day solitary lockdown. On Monday, the four began refusing to eat meals until they are moved out of solitary confinement and onto death row, where they say they will get better treatment. </blockquote> rss@dailykos.com (david mizner) AtulGawande BomaniShakur BradleyManning JasonRobb NamirAbdulMateen ohioprisons Recommended SiddiqueAbdullahHasan Torture _933753 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:46:14 +0000 The Daily Show/Colbert Report Chat thread 01.05.11 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1/5/933706/-The-Daily-Show-Colbert-Report-Chat-thread-01-05-11 <table><tr><td><a target="_top" href="http://www.comedycentral.com/index.jhtml"><img width="150" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" src="http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/2285/keithlesslogo.jpg" border /></a></td><td>Tonight on TDS, Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales; and on TCR, Atul Gawande, author of The Checklist Manifesto . Meanwhile, <a href="http://teamcoco.com/schedule">Conan's got</a> reruns. </td></tr></table> <table><tr><td>'s cold. Especially if you don't have heat. <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/1/3/933064/-Band-Aid-for-the-Lakotas:-But-a-directly-applied-one">Can you help out?</a> <img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/internetz/web_badge.gif" />  </td><td><img alt="sausage grinder of snark" src="http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/6194/wintergrinderschristmas.jpg" border /></td></tr></table> rss@dailykos.com (TiaRachel) AtulGawande Community JimmyWales Jon Stewart JonStewart SausageGrinderofSnark Series StephenColbert The Colbert Report The Daily Show TheColbertReport TheDailyShow _933706 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 03:54:44 +0000 Greenwald: Bradley Manning Held Under Inhumane Conditions https://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/12/15/929185/-Greenwald-Bradley-Manning-Held-Under-Inhumane-Conditions Today Glenn Greenwald <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning/index.html">exposed</a>the inhumane conditions under which alleged leaker Bradley Manning is being held at the Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia. I recommend clicking over to read the whole piece, but I will post a few excerpts so that we may discuss it here. I know that Bradley Manning <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/12/14/929047/-On-Bradley-Manning-and-Heroism">isn't necessarily the most popular person</a> around here, but I hope that, after reading the Greenwald piece, even those at Daily Kos who hate him with a passion may agree that the current conditions of his detention are unwarranted. Greenwald's piece on Manning is mostly based on original reporting and has been mainly confirmed on-the-record by an official from Quantico. Greenwald <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning/index.html">describes</a>the detention conditions for his five months at Quantico like this: rss@dailykos.com (Lost Left Coaster) AtulGawande BradleyManning CruelandUnusualPunishment Glenn Greenwald GlennGreenwald Quantico Recommended SolitaryConfinement Wikileaks _929185 Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:59:23 +0000 The real truth about the Senate HCR bill https://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/13/836553/-The-real-truth-about-the-Senate-HCR-bill For those of you who don't know who Paul Starr is, here's a thumbnail biography: He is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. He and Robert Kuttner are the co-editors and co-founders(with Robert Reich) of The American Prospect. In 1984, Paul Starr won a Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize for his book The Social Transformation of American Medicine In 1993,he was the senior advisor for President Bill Clinton's proposed health care reform plan. Basically, nobody knows the ins and outs of healthcare policy and the politics of healthcare policy better than Prof. Starr, whose biography and associations should, give him a lot of credibility with the progressive community. Here's what Prof. Starr has to say recently about the Senate Healthcare Reform Bill: rss@dailykos.com (seanwright) AtulGawande EzraKlein HCR individualmandates jonathancohn JonathanGruber PaulKrugman PaulStarr Public Option PublicOption Senate Healthcare Reform Bill SenateHealthcareReformBill _836553 Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:00:47 +0000 The Daily Show/Colbert Report Chat thread 02.03.10 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/3/833654/-The-Daily-Show-Colbert-Report-Chat-thread-02-03-10 <table><tr><td><a target="_top" href="http://www.comedycentral.com/index.jhtml"><img width="150" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" src="http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/2285/keithlesslogo.jpg" border /></a></td><td>Tonight on TDS, Atul Gawande, Author of  The Checklist Manifesto ("his new book about revolutionizing how we work"); and on TCR,   John Durant, Founder of Hunter-Gatherer.com.</td></tr></table> <table><tr><td>  </td><td><img alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" src="http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/3944/grinderandfriendsatston.jpg" /></td></tr></table> rss@dailykos.com (TiaRachel) AtulGawande Community JohnDurant Jon Stewart JonStewart PaleoDiet PeterCove SausageGrinderofSnark Series StephenColbert The Colbert Report The Daily Show TheColbertReport TheDailyShow _833654 Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:52:52 +0000 The Grand Junction model - cost control & quality https://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/7/822778/-The-Grand-Junction-model-cost-control-quality Back in August when the teabaggers were raging and protesting at various town hall meetings around the country, the President stopped in Grand Junction, CO to have a town hall forum of his own - on health care. He picked Grand Junction for a reason - they have some of the lowest cost and highest quality of care in the country. Grand Junction is proof that lower cost ≠ fewer benefits & poorer care. Looking at the health care debate, it's clear that the White House has been pushing the Grand Junction model. The final bill will likely include several elements of the Grand Junction model - the goal being lowest cost and highest quality of care possible. You can see Obama's speech <a href="http://thisweekwithbarackobama.blogspot.com/2009/08/president-obamas-speech-in-grand.html">here.</a> (h/t to icebergslim's blog) rss@dailykos.com (Elise) AtulGawande grandjunction HealthCareReform _822778 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:48:06 +0000 Dr Atul Gawande for interim Senator from Massachusetts https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/21/784883/-Dr-Atul-Gawande-for-interim-Senator-from-Massachusetts <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/18/gawande-for-senate/comment-page-1/#comment-5812091">New Yorker and Thinkprogress.com have a great idea for interim senate replacement for Ted Kennedy - Dr. Atul Gawande</a> rss@dailykos.com (roger25) AtulGawande MA-Sen Massachusetts Senator _784883 Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:28:18 +0000 "Changing Health Care" Powerful New Yorker Article https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/13/781094/--Changing-Health-Care-Powerful-New-Yorker-Article Health Care Reform, the issue that is consuming and dividing our country  is primarily health insurance expansion, and only tangentially addresses the fundamental dysfunctions in the American Health Care system.  Without going deeper into the culture of health care, the extremes of profit contrasted with efficacy, any reform will cause entrenchment of a non viable, wasteful and unhealthy existing system.   The most effective presentation of this disjuncture was written by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande">Dr. Atul Gawande</a> in the current New Yorker Magazine, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande">The Cost Conundrum</a> Dr. Gawande, with credentials including being himself a physician, a Rhodes scholar and having been deeply involved in all aspects of public health, also has the rare skill of writing clear compelling prose.   rss@dailykos.com (arodb) AtulGawande HealthDeliverySystems MayoClinic McAllenTexas _781094 Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:42:18 +0000 SHAME ON YOU, Senator Grassley https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/17/768118/-SHAME-ON-YOU-Senator-Grassley I Faxed this letter to Grassley's Washington office, 202-224-6020 You have said some stupid things lately. 1. You claim to be worried about death panels and healthcare reform. You know that’s not true. You and many Republicans voted for the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill. That bill included counseling for end-of-life issues. It says, "Covered services are: evaluating the beneficiary's need for pain and symptom management, including the individual's need for hospice care; counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options ..." rss@dailykos.com (maracucho) AtulGawande fearofchange InsuranceProfits MayoClinic MedicalCosts publicignorance puttinghealthaheadofprofits RepublicanLies VAHospitals ZekeEmmanuel _768118 Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:25:12 +0000 Health Care Reform Is About More Than The Public Option: A Debate https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/29/748141/-Health-Care-Reform-Is-About-More-Than-The-Public-Option-A-Debate The battle over including a public insurance option in health care reform has become a proxy fight between progressives and moderates over how best to use the popular mandate of the 2008 election.  That alone is an important fight.  <a href="http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treatment/archive/2009/06/27/the-public-option-is-important-but-how-important.aspx">Jon Cohn</a> has an interesting column questioning the singular primacy of that public option in health care reform generally. rss@dailykos.com (dday) AtulGawande Co-ops Doctors Health Care HealthCare InsuranceIndustry ProgressiveMovement Public Option PublicOption Rescued _748141 Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:04:18 +0000 An Alternative to the AMA https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/4/738843/-An-Alternative-to-the-AMA There's an article by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker captures exactly why we need an alternative to the American Medical Association.   The author visits regions of the country where healthcare is very expensive, and places where it's very cheap. He hunts for sleazy healthcare executives who are intentionally over-utilizing, but he doesn't find them (or not too many of them). What he does find is lots of doctors: "Health-care costs ultimately arise from the accumulation of individual decisions doctors make about which services and treatments to write an order for. The most expensive piece of medical equipment, as the saying goes, is a doctor’s pen. And, as a rule, hospital executives don’t own the pen caps. Doctors do." This is a wake-up call for doctors. Those of us (and I'm looking in the mirror here) who like to blame insurance companies and drug companies for sky-rocketing healthcare costs --- we need to reread that paragraph above. He's absolutely right. We can blame PhRMA for making expensive drugs, but we can't blame them for writing the prescriptions. We can blame HMOs for denying the needed CAT scan, but we can't blame them for ordering the unnecessary scan. rss@dailykos.com (campage) AtulGawande Health Insurance Healthcare Reform HealthCareReform HealthInsurance HMO NewYorker pharmaceutical Public Option PublicHealthInsuranceOption PublicOption publicplan Uninsured _738843 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:18:46 +0000 The ultimate fix to the American healthcare system https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/29/736889/-The-ultimate-fix-to-the-American-healthcare-system One of the priorities of the new Obama administration is to reform the healthcare system in the United States. Statistics show that while the US spends the most per patient, the quality of that care is less than in those countries that spend less than we do. An article in the New Yorker magazine discusses what can be done to fix our broken system and the answer might surprise many people on both sides of the issue. rss@dailykos.com (cadfile) AtulGawande BarackObama Health Insurance HealthCareReform HealthInsurance Medicare NewYorkerMagazine President Barack Obama singlepayerinsurance _736889 Sat, 30 May 2009 06:12:08 +0000 New Yorker article on health care costs https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/28/736304/-New-Yorker-article-on-health-care-costs Apologies if this has been diaried already, but I was a little surprised not to see it mentioned yet. In the latest edition of the New Yorker, Atul Gawande has written a piece under the "Annals of Medicine" heading, entitled <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande?yrail">The Cost Conundrum.</a> I am not an expert on health care by any means. It's not even a topic that I particularly follow or get hot under the collar about. The discussion often gets too ideological for me. My suspicion is that the best answers don't fall cleanly in one political party or another or one set of tactics or another. rss@dailykos.com (JMS) AtulGawande Health Care HealthCare healthcarecosts TheCostConundrum TheNewYorker _736304 Thu, 28 May 2009 17:48:19 +0000 Cure the Healthcare System https://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/4/354056/-Cure-the-Healthcare-System This is another cross-post of one of my entries at my blog on May 10, 2007. This is my response to Atul Gawande's column on the New York Times editorial page two months ago called <a href="http://select.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/opinion/19gawande.html">Curing the System</a>.  First a quote from his column: <blockquote> There are two causes of human fallibility — ignorance and ineptitude — and health system change is at risk of both. We could err from ignorance, because we have never done anything remotely as ambitious as changing out a system that now involves 16 percent of our economy and every one of our lives. And we could err from ineptitude, underestimating the difficulties of even the most mundane tasks after reform — like handling all the confused phone calls from those whose coverage has changed; ensuring that doctor’s appointments and prescriptions don’t fall through; avoiding disastrous cost overruns. </blockquote> rss@dailykos.com (OkieLawyer) AtulGawande Health Care HealthCare Sicko _354056 Wed, 04 Jul 2007 21:05:21 +0000 So we do nothing... https://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/6/331827/-So-we-do-nothing <blockquote> We are adaptable creatures, and while that is generally good, sometimes it’s a problem. We have no difficulty taking prompt action when faced with a sudden calamity, like a bleeding head wound, say, or a terrorist attack. But we are not good at moving against the creeping, more insidious threats — whether a slow-growing tumor, waistline or debt. It’s as true of societies as of individuals. We did not muster the will to reform our long-broken banking system, for example, until it actually collapsed in the Great Depression. This is, in a nutshell, the trouble with our health care crisis. Our health care system has eroded badly, but it has not collapsed. So we do nothing... </blockquote> more after the jump... rss@dailykos.com (anju) AtulGawande California Health Health Care Health Insurance HealthCare HealthInsurance PublicHealth _331827 Mon, 07 May 2007 01:09:09 +0000