Stanley Goldfarb is a physician and professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in nephrology and medical education. He contributed frequently to The Weekly Standard between 2005 and 2010, writing about health care policy, Medicare, and the economics of the American medical system. His articles often provided expert analysis of government health care proposals and spending.
“[H]ealth care system is coming apart at the seams….On the ground, there is too often a glaring lack of execution: long waits, bed shortages, unequal access to medication. Those failures are compounded by the fact that the ever-rising medicare bill is squeezing out education and other social…
The FDA, acting on a recommendation to be made by a task force of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, is about to take the unprecedented step of regulating the salt content of processed foods. There actually is a scientific rationale for this. Numerous studies have shown…
Gary Locke, the Secretary of Commerce, has now weighed in on the impact of Obamacare on health care costs by pointing out that since there will no longer be uninsured individuals, “this law reduces the hidden tax of about $1,000 for family coverage that those with insurance pay to cover the cost of…
Do you want to know what our new health care system means? All you need to know is that the price of Tenet Healthcare Corporation’s stock, one of the largest for-profit hospital systems, was up 9 percent two days ago. So much for bending the cost curve.
The only way to control the cost of health care is to spend less on health care, not less on health care insurance. The only thing that lowering health care insurance costs will accomplish is to reduce overall access to care as providers of care will not be able to afford to treat as many patients…
The Urban Institute, a prominent liberal think tank, has come out with a report that proposes that the best reason for a strong public option is that it will actually strengthen the power of private insurance companies to bargain with the local powerful medical groups and hospitals as the latter…
Here we are half way to an overhaul of health insurance and nowhere on a path to actually controlling health care costs. A question rarely asked is whether such costs really should be controlled--for such controls could result in very serious unintended consequences.
A new proposal from Medicare has been published in the Federal Registry and it provides a window on how medical care will be delivered in the future under a government-run system. Medicare is proposing to provide a fixed budget for the medical care of dialysis patients and the details of the plan…
The extra imaging study, the extra day in hospital at the end of an admission, the repetitive laboratory testing, the admission to the hospital to be "sure" about the diagnosis are all inherent in the culture of American medical care. The avoidance of litigation has become ingrained into all…
Intrinsic to the legislative plans now under debate is the idea that we will constrain the growth in health care costs by cutting insurance premiums. This is like reducing automobile accidents by reducing auto insurance payments. It makes no sense at all. Reducing health care costs by reducing…
Did you ever wonder why there are so many elements of the health-care industry supporting Democratic health-care proposals? Doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, academic medical centers, and Bill Frist are all pro- â reform. â Certainly there can be truly admirable instincts at work here:…
Did you ever wonder why there are so many elements of the health-care industry supporting Democratic health-care proposals? Doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, academic medical centers, and Bill Frist are all pro-"reform." Certainly there can be truly admirable instincts at work here:…
The president vows to pay for health care reform in large part by rooting out WFA (waste, fraud, and abuse) in Medicare and then in the rest of the health care system. It would be helpful for him to tell us what he thinks is wasteful and abusive.
The White House has pointedly refused to say whether President Obama will read the 1,000+ page health care bill--HR3200--now pending before the House of Representatives. If Obama does read the bill, he will find it full of densely technical terminology and proposals that were clearly constructed by…
The president's plan to reduce health-care costs mostly depends on reducing the cost of the premiums of those "villainous" insurance companies. This plan is premised on the idea that insurance companies have large profits and administrative expenses that can be pared down without any real impact on…
Primary care medicine: An empty promise in health care reform? There is an article of faith among proponents of health care reform that expanding the primary care workforce, particularly at the expense of medical and surgical specialists, is a critical component of "bending the cost curve" and…
A surprising European approach to health-care reform. The Netherlands is a liberal country. It has legalized drugs and euthanasia is an accepted social policy. Yet, to solve its health care dilemma of rising costs and inefficiency, it has turned to a health care system that sounds much more like…
That the American health care system needs reform is conventional wisdom. We are told anecdotally that having an appendectomy in France is performed efficiently and no bills ever appear. Ask someone in the United States with appendicitis and you probably will hear that it was performed efficiently…
HOW MANY TIMES have you seen a young woman toting around a large plastic container filled with pure spring water--a commodity more precious than fuel at the pump--from the hills of Colorado, Pennsylvania, the Alps or some such high elevation? Is she really constantly thirsty? Is her need for water…