The Employee Retirement Income and Security Act (ERISA) has created a loophole through which managed care organizations can escape liability for full compensatory damages solely because the patient is insured by his or her employer.

Despite exclusion of cost from the definition of comparative effectiveness research from the recent health care reform legislation, it will feed into cost-benefit analyses.

Many health professionals harbor negative biases toward individuals who are obese. Cultivating an awareness of our own biases is the best way to avoid acting on them.

A breastfed infant in a high weight-for-length percentile is not necessarily at greater risk for future health problems than a leaner infant; a physician would be justified in advocating for such a child to receive insurance coverage.

There are four key elements of health system reform that medical educators must endeavor to implement.

An undercurrent in all debates about allocation of health care resources to the poor is the matter of access to and coverage of health care for immigrants, particularly low-income and undocumented ones.

Well designed and effectively implemented ACOs should help those who deliver primary care become trusted elicitors of informed patient preferences and knowledgeable coordinators of care.

When the tension between solidarity and individualism hardens into entrenched oppositional politics, attempts to widen health care coverage are stymied.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The individual mandates and the optional Medicaid expansion will begin on January 1, 2014.

Those charged by the ACA health reform act to identify best clinical practices that are evidence-based and applicable across diverse populations can learn much from the experience of the Medicare-funded End Stage Renal Disease Program.