Articles of Interest

By Fred Rotondaro and Christopher J. Hale | TIME Magazine
Now that the initial shouting and -— at times -— vitriol from both sides has subsided after Monday’s Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, it’s time to take a sober look at what the ruling says about the future of health care reform in the United States. The majority’s ruling was an imperfect solution to a complicated case involving the reach of religious liberty to exempt organizations from providing certain medical benefits that they find morally objectionable to their employees.

By Daniel J. Schaffer, M.D. | The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.)
The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case points out yet another flaw in the employer-based health insurance model of paying for health care.

By Emily Dalton, M.D.
When inquired if Godzilla was “good or bad,” producer Shogo Tomiyama likened it to a Shinto “God of Destruction” which lacks moral agency and cannot be held to human standards of good and evil. “He totally destroys everything and then there is a rebirth; something new and fresh can begin,” he said.

By Ellen Oxfeld | Rutland (Vt.) Herald
In his recent column on health care (June 29), John McClaughry criticizes Vermont’s road map to universal health care as laid out in Act 48. This road map hopes to create a publicly financed health care system, in which health care is a guaranteed public good for all Vermonters The target date for implementation is 2017.

By Michael Hiltzik | Los Angeles Times
Is there anything more absurd than the American way of delivering healthcare coverage?

By Jack Bernard | The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville)
Even if all 8 million had been uninsured, tens of millions are still without insurance and will be for the near future. This fact is especially true in red states like ours that have inexplicably chosen to turn back federal money to expand Medicaid, a purely political decision.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
One of the major flaws in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is also one of the reasons it was able to pass: It accommodated, and in some ways enhanced, the role of for-profit insurance companies.

By Robert Lowes | Medscape Medical News
Arnold "Bud" Relman, MD, a pace-setting former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), died June 17 of cancer at the age of 91, just weeks after another journal published his latest call for physicians to press for healthcare reform in the name of patient-centered care and professionalism. (Includes links to three additional obituaries.)

By Fred Schulte, David Donald, Erin Durkin | The Center for Public Integrity
PNHP note: This is the first of a series of articles on the Medicare Advantage program published by The Center for Public Integrity this month. Links to other articles in the series are provided at the end.