For Health Care to Transform, Must the Status Quo Be Viewed As A Disaster?

“Our only mistake would be to give up and accept defeat” By Mike Magee, MD A recent article by Richard MacLean, Executive Director of the Center for Environmental Innovation, titled “Ignoring Impending Disasters: Why Do the Warning Signs Go Unheaded?” finishes with these summary remarks: “Human nature and organizational dynamics are what they are. You […]

From Each According to His Ability, to Each According to His Gene

Imagine a day when a genetic test not only will determine your risk for a particular disease, but also the ideal medication and the ideal dose to treat that disease. For those who receive a blood-thinning agent called warfarin, that day has already arrived. One third of people who receive warfarin, known by the trade […]

Tiny Tim Health Care

Dickens’ Christmas Carol carries a health care message for all of us Every year at this time, millions of Americans turn their attention to a much-beloved story about health care reform. I refer, of course, to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. While this is not the traditional plot summary, it aptly describes a story rooted […]

Taxes, Health Care and S-CHIP Funding

How much does it cost to run a society? By Mike Magee If you were following the news this fall, you saw an intense battle over future of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP for short. At the center of the debate was whether to continue and possibly expand this program — which […]

Bad Medicine

How the AMA undermined primary care in America On last Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal website, Dr. Benjamin Brewer describes physicians’ reactions to the 10.1% cut in Medicare physician payments that will take effect January 1. He argues that the onus will fall, once again, disproportionately on primary care physicians, who are already losing the struggle […]

Contributing to the Global Family

Holiday season is a good time to reflect on how we can improve the environment By Mike Magee, MD As the Holiday Season arrives, we are inevitably drawn to each other, and to exploring how best to contribute to solutions, small and large, to the challenges of our global family. One participant in Health Commentary, […]

Social Leadership and the Internet

It comes in all shapes and sizes By Mike Magee Connectivity. That’s the power of the Internet – to bring people and information together, ignoring geographic boundaries, and organizing a response fueled by mutual interest and social capital. At Health Commentary, we’re advancing health populism and self-determination, while simultaneously promoting environmental health and unique early […]

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