all David Himmelstein stories

Dramatic increase in ER waiting time for seriously ill patients

404132862 — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:21:19 -0500

Patients of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic status are facing ever-increasing waits for care in emergency rooms, according to a study published online today by the journal Health Affairs. The problem is particularly acute for those who are severely ill, Harvard Medical School researchers at Cambridge Health Alliance found.

Those least needy most likely to get free drug samples

404132862 — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:15:20 -0500

Most free drug samples are not used to ease the burden of the poor or the uninsured, but rather go to those most able to pay for their prescriptions, according to a study by physicians from Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School. The study, which is the first to look at the free drug samples pharmaceutical companies provide to physicians, will appear in the February 2008 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Almost two million veterans lack health coverage

404132862 — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:07:45 -0400

One in every eight (12.2 percent) of the 47 million Americans without health insurance is a veteran or member of a veteran's household, according to a study by Harvard Medical School researchers based at the Cambridge Health Alliance.

Survey: Med students ill prepared for ethical issues faced in wartime

404132862 — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 22:24:17 -0400

A new survey of U.S. medical students shows they receive little training about what they should or should not do in wartime, despite ethical questions over physician involvement in prisoner interrogation and a legal framework making a “doctor draft” possible.

Study shows U.S. health care paperwork cost $294.3 billion in 1999

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:31:37 -0400

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canada's quasi-official health statistics agency, analyzed the administrative costs of health insurers, employers' health benefit programs, hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies, physicians and other practitioners in the U.S. and Canada. They used data from regulatory agencies and surveys of doctors, and analyzed Census data and detailed cost reports filed by tens of thousands of health institutions in both nations. They found that health care bureaucracy cost Americans $294.3 billion in 1999. The $1,059 per capita spent on health care administration was more than three times the $307 per capita in paperwork costs under Canada's national health insurance system. The authors found that bureaucracy accounted for at least 31 percent of total U.S. health spending in 1999 vs. 16.7 percent in Canada. Cutting U.S. health bureaucracy costs to the Canadian level would have saved $209 billion in 1999. This study was conducted with grant support from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation does not endorse the analyses or findings of this report or those of any other independent research projects for which it provides financial support.