A few weeks ago, a decision by a federal district court judge stunned the healthcare community when he ruled the Affordable Care Act to be unconstitutional. 

The ruling is being appealed and will not be affecting the status of the law until it is reviewed the Supreme Court. But it was interesting to observe the reaction of various parties…

The American Medical Association (AMA), which claims to speak for all doctors, tweeted that the ruling would “strip health care from tens of millions of Americans and sow chaos into the healthcare system.”

Similarly, the American Hospital Association issued a press release saying that the ruling “puts health coverage at risk for tens of millions of Americans.”

Now, I can understand a reaction of shock among patients who are dependent on health insurance subsidies without which they would be unable to afford the exorbitantly expensive care currently being provided in most healthcare venues.

But doesn’t it seem a bit disingenuous for the most powerful physician and hospital lobbying groups to lament the financial harm that the ACA rollback could have on patients? Isn’t it their institutions that are not only setting the prices for healthcare at stratospheric levels, but also obscuring them so that no one can know with any real certainty how much the care is going to cost?

UPDATE March 20, 2019:  The results of the “Apple Heart Study” were just released at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.  Read my comment at the end of this post for an update.

Today, Apple released its ECG app and irregular heart rhythm notification feature.

The announcement about the technology was made with great fanfare a couple of months ago, when Apple also revealed that the device had received approval by the FDA.  This raised some eyebrows because—according to some—the technology was being approved and released to the public without evidence of effectiveness or harm.

What is so unique and novel about the product is that it claims to be able to detect atrial fibrillation, or “a.fib,” which is a common irregularity of the heart rhythm.  A.fib is not usually fatal but it can be a problem for two reasons.

First, the arrhythmia causes and irregularity and rapidity of the pulse that can provoke palpitations and also impair the pumping capacity of the heart.  This typically causes symptoms, so that people who develop a.fib typically become aware of the problem and seek medical attention relatively promptly.

But not everybody is necessarily aware that they have a.fib.Read more