News

When the HealthCare.gov rollout did not quite go according to plan, much was made about the absence of “testing.” There have been myriad newspaper columns, cable talk show segments, even exchanges at congressional hearings dedicated to the topic. Though the attention is gratifying to a software guy like me, implicit in the discussion is the premise that testing is a monolithic activity to be performed once development is complete. Read More »

A six-month investigation by the Austin American-Statesman of Texas’ Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who died after leaving the military found that an alarmingly high percentage died from prescription drug overdoses, toxic drug combinations, suicide and single-car crashes — a largely unseen pattern of early death that federal authorities are failing to adequately track. Read More »

Slavery is illegal, yet it is driving Thailand's growth – so why are retailers, producers and governments alike turning a blind eye? Read More »

Veterans Affairs Chief Information Officer Roger Baker held his last monthly media call today, a free flowing back-and-forth unprecedented in the 28 years I have covered the federal government. Read More »

Don Reichmuth survived prostate cancer once before, back in 2007, so his physician was concerned when tests recently revealed the cancer had returned. Reichmuth's physician prescribed a drug called enzalutamide, marketed by the Japanese company Astellas Pharma, Inc. under the brand name Xtandi. But when the physician sent the prescription to the pharmacy, the managers of Reichmuth's insurance plan sent back an immediate refusal to approve it. Reichmuth, a retired teacher who lives in Washington State, was puzzled by the logic. Then he learned the price of the Xtandi prescription: over $9,700 each month...

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Not all digital tools are created equal, and some of these tools are detrimental to patient care. This was the message James Madara, MD, executive vice president and CEO of the American Medical Association, expressed in his address at the 2016 AMA Annual Meeting. Dr. Madara compared the current digital health landscape, "something I might call our digital dystopia", to the "quackery" of snake oil remedies.Here are four thoughts from Dr. Madara's address...

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Remember how Obamacare was going to "Bend the cost curve" for health care spending? That was OMB director Peter Orszag, back when Obamacare was being debated.  There were a number of theories about how it would accomplish this... Read More »