Yesterday the state Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, moved to prohibit public employers from providing health care benefits to the partners of lesbian and gay employees. The court ruled that the amendment to the state constitution approved by voters in 2004 , which defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman, […]

It has come to my attention that Ezra makes an excellent point about the inefficacy of attacking universal health care as “socialized medicine” from the last polling data. Now HSPH has a new poll released comparing health care systems of the United States to others. Again, there’s a huge split among party lines:
Question 1: […]

The Harvard School of Public Health released a poll last month asking Americans what they thought about “socialized medicine.”
Question: So far as you understand the phrase, do you think that if we had socialized medicine in this country that the health care system would be better or worse than what we have now?

John Stossel came to the University of Michigan today to rant about “socialized medicine,” but seemed to turn the event into a rant against everything. I was so lucky as to attend. The Michigan Review gives their take reports on the visit here. My take? Slightly different. Stossel did do a decent job of building […]

A University of Alabama - Birmingham researcher found a significant drop in abnormal Pap results after women were given GARDASIL. From the article:
In testing GARDASIL reduced abnormal Pap test results by 43 percent compared to women not given the vaccine. The 43 percent reduction was for tests that found pre-cancerous changes called high-grade squamous […]

John Cohn of The New Republic has his review of McCain’s healthcare plan here. It’s not very pleasant.

Hillary Clinton blasts Barack Obama for his continued use of of a healthcare mailer.Ezra says “it’s really time he cut it out with these damn mailers;” Jon Cohn calls the tactics “disturbing.”
And while I agree with both of these guys, do we really need to leap to her defense every time she herself goes negative? […]

First Ezra Klein noted a Barack Obama mailer distributed slamming Hillary Clinton’s ad:

Now Hillary Clinton fires back with an ad of her own:

Clearly both sides are resorting to dirty attacks at what basically boils down to philosophical differences in building a healthcare system. Obama’s assertion is that health insurance mandates, just like car insurance […]

This week, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) announced a bill, entitled The Healthy Americans Act, that seeks to eliminate the blight of the uninsured in America. Of the many piecemeal or hopeless pieces of health care reform legislation that litter the political landscape, this one really gets me excited because it’s comprehensive, well-conceived, and most importantly, […]

If you know me in person, you’re probably already aware of my slight obsession with avian flu. I think it’s one of the most important public health crises facing the planet right now, and no amount of media coverage is too much. It was in consistently in the headlines earlier this year, but the story […]