Words Matter in Health Reform: Part III – Voters And Health Reform.

Mike Magee Republican’s decade long attempt to torpedo the Affordable Care Act has largely failed, except in serving as a teaching tool for the American public which in majorities now supports universal access to health care and greater government oversight and planning. But to advance to the next step as a nation, we need to […]

Words Matter in Health Reform: Part II – “Single Payer” or “Single Oversight”

Mike Magee In Part I of this 3 part series, “Words Matter”, we learned that the Canadian system is not technically a “single payer” system, in that provision of insurance (set to national standards) and the delivery of the care is the responsibility of individual provinces, not the national government. A more accurate label for […]

Words Matter When It Comes To Health Reform: Part I.

Mike Magee Americans views on healthcare reform are evolving. The decade long battle by Republicans to “repeal and replace” Obamacare is fading slowly into the background. Now those same voices who worked so diligently to destroy the plan pledge undying support to prevent denials based on prior conditions, even as they pick away with “skinny […]

Optum-izing Paul Ellwood’s HMOs.

Paul Ellwood and Richard Burke Mike Magee According to Paul Ellwood, often labeled “The Father of the HMO”, the seeds of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) were buried in a report that he delivered to the 34-year-old Assistant Secretary of Health, Phil Lee, in 1969. As Ellwood recalled in 2010, […]

A Disturbing Pattern: From OxyContin to Vitamin D

Mike Magee Winter is fast approaching, a time to bundle up and a grim reminder for many to load up on Vitamin D. Osteoporosis, osteomalacia, rickets, fragile fractures – there’s no end to the misery awaiting you if you fail to take this supplement. Or so we’ve been told, by many every-day doctors with the […]