Taxing Cigarettes Reduces Heart Disease

Evidence Behind Targeted Therapies Called Inadequate
How solid is the evidence behind the new targeted therapies for fighting cancer? Not very, according to a new technology assessment from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. read more

CBO's Latest Estimate of the House Bill
Congressional Budget Office director Doug Elmendorf has posted his shop's latest analysis of the House version of the health care reform bill. It says the legislation will: Generate a surplus of $129 billion over the next decade and slightly smaller surpluses thereafter; Insure about 36 million additional Americans, bringing the total to 96 percent of the overall population; and Leave about 18 million American uninsured, a third of whom will be illegal immigrants. The increased coverage in the House bill will be financed largely through efficiencies in Medicare and a surtax on high-in

Single-Payer Advocates Denied Vote
Rep. Anthony Wiener of New York has backed off offering a single-payer amendment to the health care reform bill, House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman's announced earlier today. This will be a severe disappointment to single-payer advocates, who had mobilized a major campaign to pressure legislators to vote in favor of the amendment (full disclosure: I'm on their email list; I support single-payer). It wasn't going to win, but it deserved a vote. When a substantial share of the electorate favors an approach that was sytematically excluded from this year's debate, it seems only right that they be offered a roll call vote so they know which legislato

Evidence-Based Medicine Gets Boost
The New York Times magazine this weekend has an excellent article touting the benefits of evidence-based medicine and showing how it can lead to better and more cost-effective care. A must read by David Leonhardt that you can see online now.

Left to Their Own Devices
Memo to the antitrust division of the Justice Department: In selling products, device companies have required hospitals to sign contracts that contain confidentiality clauses under which facilities agree not to disclose what they paid for the product. It's just one of the legal inanities contained in an excellent medical device overview story in today's New York Times that reveals how industry lobbyists have: Kept prices opaque; Avoided the establishment of databases or registries that would allow comparisons between competing technologies or devices; Paid surgeons to maintain brand