“American medicine is facing an identity crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic brought renewed attention to socioeconomic health disparities and turned up the heat on the question of whether health care is a right or a privilege. The financial strain on …
Category: Public Health & Policy
We’ve had a single-payer health system all along
It’s one of the largest integrated health care systems in the United States. It takes care of over nine million patients in 170 hospitals within nearly every state. Its patients are on average, older, sicker, and more disadvantaged than the rest of the…
The unfair blame on primary care physicians
When plastic surgeon Dr. Robert Pearl published his Los Angeles Times op-ed, “How Doctor Culture Sinks U.S. Healthcare,” a polemic essay critical of primary care physicians like me, he set off a firestorm. While he made some valid points, Dr. Pearl als…
Behavioral health providers face challenges in value-based care
Value-based care (VBC) continues to be a popular expression across the health care landscape, but the challenges and opportunities it offers are quite different across specialties. Behavioral health (BH) providers are an important case in point. The op…
People with addiction belong in clinics — not jails
“Doc, I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m here right now.” Though in his mid-60s, my patient had the wide-eyed bewilderment more familiar of a child. He was late for our first visit together — but he was there and agai…
Cannabis is ground zero in the fight for racial justice in America
The American Medical Association (AMA) has become unmoored in history, seemingly unaware that both racism and the war on drugs are no longer tolerated by society. A confluence of recent activities and events having to do with their stance on medical ca…
How to avoid treatment you don’t need
An excerpt from Never Pay the First Bill: And Other Ways to Fight the Health Care System and Win. The American epidemic of unnecessary medical treatment is one of the reasons your health care costs keep going up. Experts estimate it’s wasting hun…
Our health care system may be failing, but It isn’t broken
Adapted from Rich & Dying: An Insider Calls Bullsh*t on America’s Healthcare Economy. I’ve stood in front of conferences before and made my case: our health care system is perfect. “A perfect system? Ours?” I’ll hear people in the audience mu…
Doctors: You can increase voting in the U.S.
A vital sign of U.S. democracy — voter participation — is very low, and health professionals providing holistic care can be part of the solution. Holistic care should be expanded to include civic health. U.S. voter participation ranks 28th among 35 nat…
COVID-19 proved that diverse voices make health care better
I’ve been reflecting on how the scientific world came together over the past 15-months to take on a viral pandemic. Despite unprecedented circumstances, the field achieved one of the most incredible feats of modern medicine, and for once, we achieved i…
