Cutting Safety Net Sends Health Status Lower in U.S.

Mike Magee A Commonwealth Fund study in 2015 compared 13 nations on cost and quality. As most know by now, the U.S. finished near the bottom in quality measures and at the very top, by far, in cost. But the chart that drew my attention was the one above showing health expenditures vs. total spending […]

The Simplification Movement in American Healthcare

CDC Obesity Map Mike Magee As the debate over health care in America rages on, the great lie oft repeated but never defended is that our system is exceptional and too complex to wrestle to the ground. That is the breech, reinforced over half a century that has left our citizens and now our entire […]

Hiding In America’s “Deep Poverty Problem” is Health Care.

Mike Magee Angus Deaton, the Princeton professor and Nobel Laureate who documented the tie between America’s raging prescription opioid epidemic and the first multi-year decline in U.S. life expectancy in our history, has done it again. This time it’s America’s poor in a New York Times Op-ed title “The U.S. Can No Longer Hide From […]

2018 – The Year of Dr. King.

Mike Magee We awaken this morning, on this sacred day that honors Martin Luther King Jr., to the continued reverberation of racist and profane commentary days ago from his polar opposite, a man who adds insult to injury by bragging that his vile actions will help him in the polls. And yet 2018 has the […]

Is Our American Culture Sick?

Mike Magee Yesterday, for the first time ever, a UK Prime Minister openly criticized an American President. But is the problem just Trump, or is it our American culture? Earlier last month, conservative columnist, David Brooks, in the New York Times, suggested as much when he wrote, “The first step in launching our own revival […]

Global Burden of Disease Update – U.S. Mortality 58th.

Lancet Interactive HERE The Lancet just updated Christopher Murray’s longitudinal study on Global Burden of Disease. Now entering its 20th year, it continues to show the advance of chronic disease over communicable disease as a source of mortality and morbidity(in 3 out of 4 cases). In the latest rankings, the US finished 24th overall […]

California Dreaming – The World’s 8th Largest Economy Is Not Waiting Around For Trump.

Mike Magee Health policy experts generally agree that applying taxes to unhealthy products or behaviors can reliably deliver public health benefits. We have learned from the nation’s battle with tobacco that taxes not only discourage consumption but also provide funding for beneficial programs like public health education. In some states and locales, this approach has […]

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