MICHAEL MILLENSON Struggling to break free from Obamacare oppression, Idaho is offering low-cost health plans that achieve this goal by avoiding covering anyone who’s been sick in the past and skimping on coverage for any diseases that might make you sick in the future. These strategies are, inconveniently, explicitly banned by the Affordable Care Act.

MICHAEL MILLENSON Struggling to break free from Obamacare oppression, Idaho is offering low-cost health plans that achieve this goal by avoiding covering anyone who’s been sick in the past and skimping onContinue reading…

By MICHAEL MILLENSON Baseball, like medicine, is deeply imbued with a sense of tradition, and no team more so than the New York Yankees, disdainful of innovations like placing players’ names on the backs of their jerseys and resistant to eroding strict standards related to haircuts and beards. It’s why doctors and patients alike should

By MICHAEL MILLENSON Could OpenNotes help push predictive analytics from paternalism to partnership? As new payment incentives make it profitable to prevent illness as well as treat it, new technology is offering the tantalizing prospect of accurately targeting pre-emptive interventions. At the recent Health 2.0 Annual Fall Conference, for example, companies like Cardinal Analytx Solutions and Base Health spoke of

By MICHAEL MILLENSON You (or a loved one) has cancer, but the latest round of chemotherapy has unfortunately had only a modest impact. While you’re acutely aware of the “wretchedness of life that becomes worn to the nub by [ chemotherapy’s] adverse effects” you’re also a fighter. How do you decide whether to continue with

By MICHAEL L. MILLENSON “We are now contemplating, Heaven save the mark, a bill that would tax the well for the benefit of the ill.” Although the quote reads like it could be part of the Republican repeal-and-replace assault against the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it’s actually from a 1949 editorial in The New York

By MICHAEL MILLENSON Your employer sends out an email saying they want to make sure you’re getting enough sleep and physical activity, are eating well and feeling creative and, finally, have a sense of “mindfulness.” So they’re providing a free app designed to facilitate finding your “anchoring purpose in life.” Sound like a nice perk?