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, […]

Contrasting the AAMC Endorsement of Tom Price with Jordan Cohen’s Support of Humanism and Professionalism.

Mike Magee The decision by the AAMC to aggressively endorse Tom Price’s candidacy for HHS Secretary has confused and concerned more than a few of my academic colleagues. In light of the organization’s work on reinforcing social consciousness and empathy in medical students, it struck a remarkably discordant note. In 2002, I approached the AAMC […]

Emory’s Center for Ethics, Tom Price, and AMA &AAMC 990’s: An Imagined Senior Seminar Class

Mike Magee The recent endorsements by the AMA and AAMC of Tom Price to head HHS should provide a remarkable future senior seminar in situational ethics for Emory’s Center for Ethics and their much lauded “Health, Science & Ethics Pillar”. The case study’s syllabus will most likely include the recent AMA endorsement, the AAMC press […]

“The AMA (and the AAMC) Does Not Speak For Us.” – Oh, Yes They Do!

Mike Magee President-Elect Trump’s nomination of Rep. Tom Price for HHS Secretary has been ethically compromised from the start. The NEJM article last week, penned by the current and former department heads for HHS, simply defined the myriad of issues that undermine his candidacy in black and white. The AMA and AAMC’s bullish recommendations of […]

Why Did The AMA Support Tom Price?

Mike Magee Not a few health professionals have been asking themselves, “Why did the AMA support Tom Price for head of HHS”? Their concerns took voice in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine in a piece titled “Care for the Vulnerable vs. Cash for the Powerful – Trump’s Pick for HHS”. In the article, […]

Why Hillary Clinton’s Private Email Matters: Transparency and Health.

Mike Magee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to avoid the transparency that was assured by the Freedom of Information Act should be of concern to all Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike. If this is true for the general public, it goes doubly for anyone concerned with improving the health of our […]

Sex, Coverage and Gender Bias: Being “Hobby-Lobbied”!

David and Barbara Green/Hobby Lobby Mike Magee In its 5-4 decision in favor of Evangelical Christian purveyor of all things crafty, Hobby Lobby, the conservative male contingency of the Supreme Court managed to both engage and enrage all sides in the culture wars of a half century past. With the decision, “closely held” (whatever that […]

keep looking »