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I thought one of the major pillars of health care reform and reduced health care spending was the elimination of waste and a new emphasis on effective treatments. Now, some legislators are moving in the opposite direction and working to allow coverage of sham medicine with taxpayer dollars.
I respect the right of people to pay [...]

Vampires are everywhere in pop culture today: books, TV, movies, and teenage girls’ dreams. Long before Robert Pattinson was sending 13 year-old girls into a state of blood lust, where did the mythology of the vampire begin? Perhaps, the myth of the undead blood-sucking beings was born of real-world illnesses. The article below covers a [...]

I couldn’t pick just one excerpt from this informative article by T.R. Reid, so I’ve included several. This article should be required reading before one is admitted to a town hall meeting.
I particularly stunned by the cost difference for MRIs in the US versus Japan: greater than an order of magnitude, which is to say, [...]

Oddly, I actually enjoyed hearing the results of this study. I think it’s good for people to learn about the reality of humanity’s relationship, and constant exposure, to bacteria. It’s not “bad” just because it’s bacteria, folks.
In fact, there is some concern that the deluge of antibacterial products sold today may have more negative side-effects [...]

Rev. Jim Rigby, pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, TX, asks a valuable question in a recent article.
Excerpt:
I can’t believe I am standing today in a Christian church defending the proposition that we should lessen the suffering of those who cannot afford health care in an economic system that often treats the poor [...]

This article on Steven Chu, the new Secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE) — note: I am a consultant for the DOE — provides an interesting perspective on China’s attitudes about climate change. Is it possible that, despite its rapid expansion of “dirty” coal power and its polluted cities, China is more serious about [...]

Sometimes I don’t think we have a new reporting industry in the US so much as we have a news manufacturing industry.
This should be good news for those bemoaning the decline of the industrial manufacturing segment of the American economy. We can replace the forging of automobiles with the forging of controversy by the media.
If [...]

I hate Swiss cheese (meaning, the stuff called “Swiss cheese” in America, not necessarily all cheese from Switzerland), but I would take the Swiss health care model over no reforms at all (I guess we call that American cheese, which is also terrible).
From the New York Times:

The Swiss Menace
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 16, 2009
It was [...]

This is a short blog post from SocialEdge.org, but a must-read.
It is important to also look at the concept of healthcare “rationing” from a global perspective.

Healthcare Rationing: What Price Is A Life?
Was Dick Cheney’s quadruple bypass surgery worth the money?
In the United States healthcare reform is policy wonk talk for changing up the way Americans [...]

Sounds like the wine industry is wising up and realizing that shipping millions of tons of glass around the country, or even the world, just to transport some Two Buck Chuck doesn’t make any economic or environmental sense. You will now be seeing more wine in plastic bottles. Good move!
Plastic reshaping wine trade — latimes.com.