Recently my colleague Adam Linker and I had the opportunity from our friends up in DC at the Georgetown Center for Children and Families and Atlantic Philanthropies to leave the North Carolina Justice Center and travel to other state capitols around the country.   Packing our bags and braving airport security lines, we visited several state collaborations of organizations working on improving the health and well-being of children.  Our mission was to share our success at making short videos and give our fellow advocates the fancy equipment and basic knowledge to do the same – but we came away with much more.  Read the full story at my guest blog at CCF.

Our good friends at Florida Chain – the widely-respected health advocacy group in Florida – just produced a great new video showcasing a veterinary office that is benefiting from President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.  Well worth watching:

I’ve always been amazed that anyone who does health care policy could take Newt Gingrich seriously.

But back in 2005 Newt Gingrich bestowed his wisdom on health care in North Carolina at the NC State Emerging Issues Forum on health care.  Paid $40,000 for his appearance, Gingrich’s main point was that the “health-care system can’t be fixed.”  Plugging his industry-funded group (health insurers and other health businesses pay $20,000 to $200,000 to be members), the Center for Health Transformation, Gingrich extolled the virtues of high-deductible health plans.

A few years later, all these high-dollar speaking appearances and corporate donations were starting to pay off.  Speculation in 2009 was swirling about a possible run for President, but Newt tamped down that idea, arguing he was busy with a pair of think tanks – “American Solutions and the Center for Health Transformation.”  Said he:  “I really love trying to solve problems. I get very excited about it.”

Sadly today, all the $40,000 speaking fees and corporate largesse couldn’t prevent the Center for Health Transformation from declaring bankruptcy.   Observed one commentator:

“While health-care costs have bankrupted many without insurance, Gingrich may be the first to go broke studying health-care delivery.”

Here’s hoping the employees at the Center don’t lose their health insurance.

Over at the Huff Post, Ron Pollack recently pointed out the irony in the fact that one of the lead plaintiffs in the Supreme Court suit seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act is bankrupt in part because of medical expenses and how her experience shows that health care is fundamentally different than the endlessly repeated GOPer “broccoli analogy.”  The best line:

Justice may be blind, but it should still be able to tell the difference between an MRI and a vegetable.

We’ve talked with and featured our friend Dr. Nortin Hadler here on the blog for years.  Hadler has been writing great books for a long time on the subject of unnecessary and often harmful overtreatment and how we can get our health system to deliver better care.  His latest book is Rethinking Aging.  As the subtitle says, it’s about growing old and living well in an overtreated society where for many people any deviation from how you felt at 20 years of age means months of doctors and tests.  In a recent interview with Kaiser Health News (the N+O featured it last weekend with photos of him on his bike) Hadler reiterated his simple approach – don’t use medical treatments that have been shown through years of rigorous evidence not to work or be any better than what we already do now.

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