Are Consolidation, Competition, and Innovation the Answer? Part 1

Are Consolidation, Competition, and Innovation the Answer? Part 1

Are systems consolidation, competition and innovation the triple play that will deliver quality care for everyone at a sustainable cost? Perhaps before we try to answer that question we should avail ourselves of the lessons learned over the efforts of the last fifty...
What’s Next in the Healthcare Debate?

What’s Next in the Healthcare Debate?

I was delightfully dazed and confused the morning after Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain launched us into the next phase of the healthcare debate by giving the ACA a last minute reprieve. In a mix of ecstasy and disbelief I watched the video of John...
Better Healthcare Requires A Bipartisan Expression of Reciprocal Altruism

Better Healthcare Requires A Bipartisan Expression of Reciprocal Altruism

A major event that changed the way I see the world occurred in 1995 when I read Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal: Why We Are The Way We Are: the New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. The book was so good that I immediately gobbled up Nonzero: The Logic of Human...
Contemplation and Action on the Road to the Triple Aim

Contemplation and Action on the Road to the Triple Aim

A few years ago Patty Gabow, the retired CEO of Denver Health and a master of using Lean to benefit the underserved, and I were enjoying a dinner together while we were attending a meeting. Our conversation had gotten to the level of sharing and openness where we were...
The Attack on Medicaid and the Spirit of the Fourth of July

The Attack on Medicaid and the Spirit of the Fourth of July

When I heard that Mitch McConnell had announced that he would not be seeking a vote in the Senate on the “Better Care and Reconciliation Act of 2017” before the July 4th recess I was upset because McConnell’s move seemed similar to the one Paul Ryan pulled in March...