Health Care Policy
December 4, 2025
Vaccine Availability at Risk From RFK Jr. Actions
RFK Jr is narrowing the CDC recommendations for Covid-19 vaccines and has announced his intentions to do the same with many other childhood vaccines. This likely will result in sharply reduced insurance coverage for the vaccines and much higher cost, as well as resurgence of those diseases.
November 7, 2025
Traditional Medicare Is Safer Choice, Medicare Advantage May Not Be
Traditional Medicare with a Medigap secondary insurer is the better choice for complete and more flexible coverage with no deductible surprises compared to Medicare Advantage plans, which appear slightly cheaper but are likely not if you actually have significant illness.
July 17, 2025
Defunding Science — What’s Trump’s Goal?
The Trump administration is revoking billions of dollars of NIH grants and drastically reducing funding at CDC, FDA, and EPA. American scientific leadership and world health are being gravely harmed. What's the goal?
February 28, 2025
Unionizing Doctors Might Save Primary Care
Primary care physicians at Mass General Brigham facilities moved to unionize last fall. I totally support this. Unionization may allow for a revival of primary care, which has barely been functional for the past two decades.
February 28, 2025
Keep an Eye on Bird Flu and MPox
Bird flu has spread to cows and infected some humans. Fear of human-to-human transmission is real, though has not yet occurred. With drastically reduced funding for CDC, NIH and related agencies, our risk of an epidemic is much greater. Pay attention.
December 23, 2024
Where Does Health Care Money Go? Look at DME!
Durable medical equipment prices paid by Medicare may be 3-4 times that for same device online.
October 20, 2024
Steward Greed, Bankruptcy — Madoff-Style Clawbacks, Anyone?
Massachusetts taxpayers are paying for Ralph de la Torre's yachts and bloated legal fees that result from the Steward bankruptcy. We should not be.
October 3, 2024
Why Health Care and Not Healthcare?
Healthcare is what we have now. Health care is what we want.
October 3, 2021
Quick Updates: Covid-19 and Flu
The Covid-19 pandemic continues. Immunization remains critical to individual health and suppressing the epidemic. A third dose of Pfizer vaccine suggested for those over 65 or younger people at higher risk. Moderna vaccine maintains its effectiveness. Breakthrough infections occur but hospitalizations and death largely occur in unvaccinated. OHC plans flu clinics beginning Wednesday October 13…
January 4, 2021
Calculating the Risk of Asymptomatic But Infectious Person in a Group
We use available state Covid-19 infection rates and other published data together with the binomial distribution to calculate the risk of unsuspected infections in small group gatherings. With our current high level of infections (20 times higher than summer) the risk is 5-10% for groups of 10 or 20. You DON'T want to gather indoors…
August 16, 2020
C19: Updated Self-Care and Risk Advice
We are still in the midst of a pandemic that has subsided in Massachusetts but is still very much with us and could easily rebound. We need to remain vigilant in our self care. No real good news. US infections and deaths are at high levels and increasing. An effective and proven vaccine is not…
June 8, 2020
Staying Safe Out of Quarantine, Clarified
We are beginning to leave quarantine. Covid-19 risks are much lower, but still present. We have to keep up our self protection appropriate to the risk, where greater intensity and duration of exposure increase risk. Use of handwashing, appropriate masks, social distancing, avoiding lingering in groups indoors, and home sanitization are all self-protection techniques. It…