Articles of Interest

By Stephen B. Kemble, M.D. | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
I attended the recent Hawaii 2013 Healthcare Summit, on how Hawaii is implementing the Affordable Care Act and transforming health care. The keynote address by Dr. Abraham Verghese was inspiring — all about the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship and how health care should be focused on the living patient, not the “iPatient” in the computer.

By Evan Soltas | Bloomberg
For an industry that's supposed to be burdened by the launch of Obamacare, the health-care business is doing pretty well. Stocks of health-care companies are up almost 40 percent this year, the strongest performance of any sector in the S&P 500.

By Nancy Folbre | The New York Times
A single-payer insurance system, whether based on an extension of Medicare or on the Canadian model, promises many profoundly important benefits. Right off the mark, it promises simplicity.

By the Editorial Board | San Francisco Bay Guardian
We're sorry to see all the problems surrounding President Obama's Affordable Care Act, which has made some important improvements to the country's healthcare system, such as helping those with preexisting conditions get coverage and preventing those who do have coverage from being arbitrarily dropped. Given a break from being exploited by the insurance industry, there's no way this country's citizens will want to go back to how things were.

By Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., and David Himmelstein, M.D.
Virtually all single-payer supporters aspire to a nationwide reform. Absent a national solution, many regions with the gravest problems in access to care will lag further and further behind. Living in New York or Massachusetts doesn’t lessen our sense of responsibility for millions in the Deep South and other “red state” areas for whom national legislation is the only realistic option for health care progress.

By Miranda Rosenberg | The Hartford Courant
While most Americans have been focusing on the recent problems surrounding the rollout of the new healthcare.gov website, another health insurance story has been largely overlooked. Last month, just as Medicare's open enrollment period was set to begin, UnitedHealthcare dropped thousands of physicians nation-wide, including thousands in Connecticut, from its Medicare Advantage programs without an explanation.

By Caroline Poplin, M.D. | Newsday
The Obama administration has once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. After successfully holding off Republican efforts to destroy Obamacare by shutting down the government and threatening default, the administration badly bungled the rollout of the crown jewel of health reform: the insurance exchanges.

By Donald Broder, M.D. | The New York Times
Nicholas D. Kristof points out that without universal health care, many of us die prematurely. But before we solve this terrible problem, we have to grapple with our confusion and ambivalence as to what, if any, responsibilities we have for one another.

By David Sirota | Salon
Whenever scandal arises in Washington, D.C., the fight between the two parties typically ends up being a competition to identify a concise message in the chaos — or, as scientists might say, a signal in all the noise. This week confirms that truism, as glitches plagued the new Obamacare website and as insurance companies canceled policies for many customers on the individual market.