Health Care

Budget Battles

  • How Sugar Daddy Lobbyists Killed the War on Obesity

    By Reuters

    Food and beverage companies have dominated policymaking in Washington by doubling their lobbying expenditures during the past three years and defeating government proposals aimed at changing the...

  • Dying for a Burger? Try the Heart Attack Grill

    By Maureen Mackey, The Fiscal Times

    A second customer in less than a year has collapsed at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas (yes, that’s its real name). Why? For starters, the 40-something-year-old woman was indulging in one of the...

  • $182,000 to Remove an Appendix

    By Merrill Goozner, The Fiscal Times

    Thus began her research into pricing variability in the state, which was published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The prices ranged from $1,529 to $182,955 with the median hospital...

  • From Near Death to Healthy For $10,000

    By Maureen Mackey, The Fiscal Times

    Imagine A. J. Jacobs’s shock and horror when his wife turned to him one day and, gazing at his protuding belly, said, “OK, that’s it. You’ve gotta shape up. I don’t want to be a widow at 45.” The...

  • Cancer Screenings Stoke the Overdiagnosis Debate

    By FREDERIK JOELVING, Reuters

    Screening for rare but deadly esophageal cancer is typically a laborious and costly procedure, requiring sedation and a day off from work. New technology makes it a cinch. That's why the few minutes...