As April dawned in the war against COVID-19, the U.S. was still scrambling to create adequate information systems to track and trace exposure to the novel coronavirus.

The coronavirus couldn’t care less if you live in a red state or a blue state. Yet states across the U.S. are taking dramatically different approaches to controlling the spread of the highly contagious COVID-19.

Let’s be honest. Most American hospitals are unprepared to treat a sudden surge in very sick and contagious COVID-19 patients.

Is patient privacy a thing of the past? It's a fair question after HHS issued the new data sharing rules required by the 21st Century Cures Act, a bipartisan bill passed in the final month of the Obama administration.

It took a full-scale panic triggered by a stock market plunge to focus the president’s attention on the need for more resources to combat pandemics.

In light of recent actions by attorneys at both the U.S. Justice Department and HHS, healthcare’s white-collar criminals could be breathing a lot easier these days.

The kerfuffle over surprise bills has revealed the dysfunction at the heart of America’s fragmented reimbursement system.

President Donald Trump made numerous false claims about healthcare in his State of the Union address. It started right at the top when he said our nation is thriving.

Paying for healthcare will become more difficult for tens of thousands of disabled Americans if the Trump administration succeeds in subjecting people receiving disability benefits to stepped-up medical scrutiny.

Polls suggest most working-age Americans are satisfied with their employer-based health insurance. That could easily change when this deficit-fueled economic expansion ends, as it inevitably will.

It’s simply not realistic to expect a 180-day intervention that bolts on a few social services and home visits to immediately lower the healthcare costs of people with multiple chronic conditions.

In a divided country, effective leadership capable of knitting together diverse coalitions is essential to solving festering problems. In its absence, self-interest, not the public interest, prevails.

Every service line will see a continuing shift toward greater reliance on outpatient treatment, with some moving faster than others.

America needs a comprehensive and well-funded program that screens for and identifies people with substance use disorder, along with more programs providing prompt and effective medication-assisted treatment. 

Public health officials believe the best approach for preventing new HIV infections is a once-a-day pill approved by the FDA in 2012. But the drug’s price puts it out of reach for those who need it most.