Where people live and work influences how long and how well they live. Supporting community investments can diminish risk, improve outcomes, and reduce costs.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(3):E262-268. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.262.
Physicians new to a case might object to an established care plan. Practice variation, clinical momentum, and how value is assigned by different parties to acute care and comfort measures can each contribute to conflict in these cases.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E699-707. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.699.
Because health systems with high-functioning primary care services have decreased mortality and improved health outcomes, the sector can be classified as a public good, like police and fire services and public education.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(7):637-646. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.7.stas1-1507.
Patients seeking IVF are highly motivated to become parents and may wish to preserve financial resources for surrogacy or adoption should IVF not succeed, so risk sharing appeals to them, which makes its high cost especially problematic.
The Department of Health and Human Service's decision to include a religious exemption to its requirement that private health plans cover contraception without patient cost-sharing raises questions about whether such an exemption appropriately balances the needs, beliefs, rights, and obligations of all affected.
Restrictions on employer-based health insurance coverage of medical services or treatments, whether motivated by religious prohibitions, political objections, or concerns about cost, degrade quality of care and undermine the patient-clinician relationship.
Review of an article that takes the position that the hospital/physician-employee relationship can work if it is built on the socially directed ideals both parties share.
Qualifying conscience protections for institutions with requirements that they minimize hardship caused to the patient would prevent religious institutions from acting as a choke point on the path to services.
The most controversial component of the ACA has arguably been the mandate that group health plans cover contraception costs, which has elicited backlash from religious and conservative groups who believe it violates certain employers' religious freedoms.