By establishing a dozen industrial product development institutes connected with research universities -- and perhaps one connected with the National Institutes of Health -- "serial entrepreneur" Alfred E. Mann is attempting to increase what he sees as the disturbingly low number of potentially valuable biomedical innovations that make it through the "Valley of Death," from basic research to start-up product.

In the March/April Health Affairs, Dartmouth's David Goodman and colleagues question the belief that the United States faces an impending physician shortage. As evidence, Goodman and colleagues offer a threefold variation in the amount of physician care given to patients at different academic medical centers in the last six months of life. They write that this variation is related to regional differences in physician supply, rather than any effects on the well-being of the patient. They assert that we should use our resources on replicating the efficient care offered by interdisciplinary practices such as the Mayo Clinic, rather than training more physicians who will only generate increased costs for the health system.

Also in the March/April Health Affairs, the World Bank's Aaditya Mattoo argues that the failure of U.S. health insurance policies to cover care received abroad is preventing the substantial savings that could come with freer trade in health care. Mattoo and Randeep Rathindran of HDR/HLB Decision Economics say that savings could amount to $1.4 billion annually if only one in ten U.S. patients chose to receive treatment abroad for one of fifteen relatively straightforward procedures, such as knee surgeries, hysterectomies, and cataract extractions.