Penn LDI – Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics

In his latest New York Times column, Ezekiel Emanuel notes that suddenly, everybody is talking about turning Medicare into a voucher program. "Truth be told," he writes, "I am not opposed to the government's providing Americans vouchers with which to buy health insurance. In 2005, Victor Fuchs, a health economist…

The growing practice of searching for organ donors on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube raises ethical questions, said LDI Senior Fellow Art Caplan in an interview with ABC-TV. "Some people are just shy or they are not going to have the money and are just not willing to beat the bushes…

Featured in an American Medical News article about the national drug shortage, Penn's Ezekiel Emanuel says one of the causes may be Medicare's current price controls. He said prices for some generic shortage drugs aren't increasing enough to encourage more manufacturers to produce them and the price controls need to be…

A group of Penn Medicine researchers headed by LDI Senior Fellow Raina Merchant is offering a $10,000 prize as part of a month-long contest marking the launch of their new MyHeartMap smartphone app. The project's goal is to create a crowd-sourced photo-and-map directory of all the automated external defibrillators in the…

A Philadelphia Inquirer article about the Pennsylvania legislature's deliberation on a new bill to upgrade the state's prescription drug-tracking database, features comments by LDI Senior Fellow Michael Ashburn. The professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the Perelman School of Medicine backs the effort. "It has excellent provisions to protect patient…

A commentary on MBNBC.com by Penn bioethicist and LDI Senior Fellow Art Caplan, faults the Department of Health and Human Services for blocking over-the-counter sales of the 'Plan B' morning-after pill to teenagers. Caplan, who directs Penn's Center for Bioethics, said HHS had trumped good science with bad politics. 

LDI Senior Fellow Karin Rhodes' research on children's health care access disparities was the subject of an article on WHYY Radio's website. The piece focused on Rhodes' new research into how academic medical centers respond to appointment requests for children insured by Medicaid/CHIP. Her team found that those children's wait time…

The court ruling that opens the way for bone marrow donors to collect fees may unintentionally support campaigns to pay donors in other areas of medicine, said LDI Senior Fellow Art Caplan in an Associated Press story. Last week's ninth U.S. Circuit Court ruling overturned a decades-old law making such…

LDI Senior Fellow and Penn Bioethicist Art Caplan is quoted in an ABC News story about a dentist's threat to sue a patient for posting a negative review of treatment on the web. The piece details the battle between a New York dentist and a patient who, before being treated, signed…

A Philadelphia Inquirer editorial spotlights a Penn study by LDI Senior Fellow Charles Branas on local vacant lot cleanup efforts. The work detailed how turning junk-strewn inner-city lots into landscaped parks lowered those neighborhood's gun crime rate. Some residents also reported experiencing less stress and exercising more. Branas, PhD, is Associate…

American foreign aid has made a significant dent in the global rates of HIV treatment and child mortality, according to the latest New York Times column of Ezekiel Emanuel. The former White House health care advisor and Penn's current Vice Provost for Global Initiatives and chair of the Department of Medical…

Four LDI Senior Fellows have been appointed to Penn Nursing term chairs, according to the University of Pennsylvania Almanac. Kathryn H. Bowles, PhD, RN, FAAN, was named to the Ralston House Endowed Term Chair in Gerontological Nursing; Patricia D'Antonio, PhD, FAAN, RN, to the Killebrew-Censits Chair in Undergraduate…

It was wrong for officials to take a 200-pound boy away from his mother for obesity-related neglect, says LDI Senior Fellow Art Caplan in an MSNBC.com article. Caplan, PhD and director of the Penn Center for Bioethics, advocates working with the child’s family to improve behavior. "The problem with an…

Do state legislatures really have sufficient resources, training and experience to review scientific literature and determine if a drug like medical marijuana is safe and effective? That controversial question is the pivot of a Philadelphia Daily News story featuring LDI Senior Fellow Michael Ashburn, director of Penn's Pain Medicine & Palliative…

LDI Senior Fellow and Penn emergency physician Zachary Meisel is featured in an eight-minute Discovery TV video feature about the IT systems used in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's Emergency Department.

A study led by LDI Senior Fellow Charles Branas has found that a Philadelphia cleanup campaign that turned junk-strewn inner-city vacant lots into tree-lined parks also reduced the level of gun crime in those areas. The researchers also found that residents in neighborhoods where lots had been "cleaned and greened" reported…

Despite the heavily publicized exhortations of cancer-victim celebrities like Lance Armstrong, positive thinking has no real effect on the progress, remission or treatment of cancer, according to University of Pennsylvania psychiatry professor, health care researcher, and LDI Senior Fellow James Coyne. Featured in a larger CBS News story about the power…