Catherine DeAngelis resign or not?

there is a investigates,should Catherine DeAngelis resign?
The water engulfing JAMA’s editor-in-chief Catherine DeAngelis is getting hotter.
A recap is here, but the Jonathan Leo flap, and subsequent response, is not going away as JAMA hoped it would.The WSJ reports that AMA, which normally does not interfere in the editorial decisions of the journal, has asked its Journal Oversight Committee to look into the matter.
Over at Respectful Insulance, academic surgeon-blogger Orac has a pretty harsh critique on the proceedings. He writes that, “thuggish behavior such as that demonstrated by Catherine DeAngelis. coupled with her hypocrisy in bragging about how well JAMA polices its COI [conflict of interest] policy while leaning on an investigator who expressed legitimate concern about it is unacceptable. Worse, this appears to be a pattern of abusive behavior that risks completely undermining all the good she’s done in terms of pushing for more openness in reporting COIs.”
As I wrote before, an apology from both JAMA and Dr. DeAngelis would have stemmed the tide, and that, “like how hospitals have dealt with medical errors, they could have used this event to improve their conflict of interest policies, and make their reviews more transparent.”
Instead, their response was wholly inadequate, and only reinforced the misguided notion that JAMA was immune to criticism, and worse, sought to preempt any future dissent.Is it too late for an apology? Maybe, but the longer this drags on, the stronger the calls will be for Dr. DeAngelis to resign.
but how do you to call it?

Health Proposal Reflects Consensus

  The proposal is consistent with plans outlined by President Obama and key congressional Democrats, said three people familiar with the report, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report isn’t yet public. That reflects a broad consensus on the big picture approach to the problem and could give the legislation some extra juice.
  Still, the effort shows just how difficult it will be to overhaul the health care system. It sidesteps the most controversial questions in the debate, people familiar with the report said. Those tough issues include whether a government-run public program should compete with private health insurance companies to offer coverage, and whether employers should face consequences if they do not offer insurance to their workers.
  One person said the recommendations are largely items that enjoy widespread support, such as efforts to improve quality and support wellness–”lowest common denominator stuff.”
  The Healthcare Reform Dialogue includes representatives from a broad coalition, including insurance companies, consumer groups and business associations. Two labor unions pulled out of the discussions, leaving 18 participating groups.
  The idea was for organizations with sometimes opposing interests to discuss the underlying issues and come up with consensus recommendations. According to two people familiar with the final report, the result is somewhat vague, with mostly general statements about how to solve health care problems.
  Part of the problem, one person said, is that nobody wanted to give on any issues because this was not a real negotiation with people actually writing legislation. Another person said there was some effort to adopt a longer, more-detailed report, but there was not sufficient consensus for that move.

The Budget of The President

I suppose if we are going to spend money that isn’t there, we may as well spend insane amounts of it….

President Obama’s budget reinforces the message. His ten-year $634-billion plan for funding healthcare reform depends on “asking the wealthy to pitch in a bit more” (budget director Peter Orszag’s happy phrase), wringing some of the waste out of Medicare and Medicaid (cuts that are needed, but that will not be popular ); and strong-arming drug makers to raise discounts on Medicare drugs from 15 percent to 21 percent. About half of the money will come from changes in government programs, half from tax increases.

This is an administration that is based in reality (in contrast to the faith-based governance that we enjoyed for the past eight years.) The Washington Monthly’s, Steve Benen notes “The administration seems well aware of the fact that a $634 billion over 10 years would not cover literally everyone. Neera Tanden, a top Obama health adviser, acknowledged , ‘We know that this is not enough to achieve our overall goal of getting health care for every American, but it is a significant down payment.’”

remember in spite of the rationing, European healthcare costs are rising essentially as fast as ours are. The cost containment problem is not solved. Even with dispondent, alienated medical staffs (or because of?), European healthcare inflation remains a problem. In Europe, you can’t get what you want medically, and guess what?, it is still very expensive.The avergage doctor doesn’t have the resourses to comply with dozens of ad hoc inititives designed to “improve” his behavior. The real objective is to make it so onerous to do anything, that less is done in the end. Not rationing by age as in Europe, not rationing by money, as in the sixties (supposedly), but rationing by hassle.

plaintiffs have gone on to medical school

“Given the attempt to recover bonus payments to AIG, can you envision a scenarios where CMS attempts to recover payments from physicians health that they retroactively deem too high? What if a new national standards board establishes a rate for hip replacements that is lower than what it is today? Similar situation? Not at all? I’d like to see a discussion on this.”JR wrote an interesting question.

I had the opportunity to work with David Blumenthal recently when I served on an expert panel for the health IT adoption studies. He has a deep understanding of applied health IT and, even more important, how clinicians interact with these systems in the real world. This is great news for everyone interested in advancing the use of health IT to improve quality, safety, and cost efficiency.

The body that administers the test has to straddle a delicate line, in granting extra time to a broadening definition of the disabled student versus maintaining the overall fairness and integrity of the high stakes test.
Despite the ruling, three of the four plaintiffs have gone on to medical school, with two scoring in the 70th percentile or higher.I suspect that this will become more of an issue in the coming years, as a greater proportion of the current generation of students have been diagnosed with ADD.