Jeff Kaplan, MD

The health and economic costs of poor lifestyle choices, poor health care planning, and misaligned incentives for care are the themes this week.

Could high-deductible insurance control rising health care costs and ensure access to care for more patients? Or does it come with its own problems?

When the focus is on medical loss ratios and cost shifting instead of on access to patient-centered care, doctors and patients lose.

In which the author offers a 10-item to-do list for making health care more affordable.

More than a decade after the landmark IOM report on health care quality and patient safety, preventable adverse events are still a major problem.

Patients' clinical characteristics and demographics have a significant effect on pay for performance outcomes.

Each year, tens of thousands of patients die from hospital-acquired infections, preventable medical errors, and diagnostic errors.

Robert Reich and others have noted that, compared with the impact that Medicare had on the lives of every senior in American, the current healthcare reform legislation will affect comparatively fewer Americans. Which is all well and good, but the bill does not help me be a better doctor.