Articles by Joseph Jenkins

Sugar has had a bad year or two. Several US cities have implemented so called “soft drink” taxes. Recent research by a UCSF team uncovered records revealing the sugar industry’s secret payoffs to academic scientists tasked with determining sugar’s...

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As much as anything, this is a personal story of a very small group of people. As you know from experience, any journey can be unpredictable. Often we end up at a destination we didn’t foresee.

Let me begin with a personal example of my own. I entered...

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News journalism is a mess. "Alternative facts" render truth-seeking almost impossible. But journalists have compounded the problems by abandoning their educational roots. As my Medill School of Journalism educated wife reminds me, the news should be...

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Okay. Okay. Maybe a little too cute in using the French term for “no exit”. But the constant reports about the opioid crisis in America has me wondering if I am living in a foreign land. Yahoo’s banner article just reminded us of how insidiously narcotics...

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It wasn’t unusual for patients to ask me, "If it were you, Doctor, what would you do?" After telling them that they had prostate or kidney cancer or that they had a large kidney stone that needed treatment, it was a natural question. And a wise one.

After all, if I would not follow my own advice, why should my patient?

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When your employer offers you health care insurance, one of your options is to simply not sign up. Millions of Americans have made that choice, even as the Affordable Care Act has been fully implemented. Why?

In 1988, the average individual health...

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Waiting for a delayed flight in Chicago's O'Hare Airport, I decided to walk the concourses. Challenging myself to do two things at once, I began to think. And that is when I ran smack dab into a quandary: why are we trying to change the world of health insurance for employers? Not even Don Quixote would be so foolish, would he?

Perhaps the three most powerful lobbying groups in the US are the insurance industry, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. Taking on one of these giants, much less all three simultaneously, would seem to fall into the "insane" category. Particularly for a small group of individuals with relatively light pockets and no groundswell of support from the very people they are trying to help. Yet someone has to try to do something to slow the cost curve growth that employers all across the country are facing, don't they?

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