Some consumers and businesses might see a little extra cash this summer as a result of the 2010 health care law. The Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported an estimated $1.3 billion in rebates will be delivered from health insurers who spent more than the law allotted on administrative expenses and profits.

The US food system is widely recognized as one of the safest in the world. Nevertheless, about one in every six American is sick every year from eating a contaminated food product. Food safety incidents often make the news and many perceive the US food system as vulnerable.

Reviewing "The Myth of The Paperless Office" for the New Yorker in 2002, Malcolm Gladwell argued that if the computer had come first, and paper didn't exist, someone would have had to invent it.  Paper, it turns out, is a lot more useful than we typically appreciate.

Of the many factors that make improving the health system difficult, few challenges are greater than the misty-eyed recollection – often from genuinely distinguished practitioners – of how great things used to be.  Doctors were highly regarded authority figures, pure and beloved, while patients were meek and grateful in the presence of such brilliance and expertise.

The push for President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act sparked one of the most acrimonious policy debates in American history. Two years later, the misconceptions distorting the debate persist. That's what makes the arrival of Christopher J. Conover's new book, "American Health Economy Illustrated," so valuable.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg likes the Indian Health Care Improvement Act and other ingredients of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare.” Why, she asked toward the end of three days of hearings, shouldn’t the court keep the good stuff in Obamacare and just dump the unconstitutional bits?

Does increased use of technology in itself cause more rapid growth in US health care expenditures as a share of the economy, compared to other countries?

By next year, about two-thirds of American physicians will be working as salaried employees of large groups and hospitals. This movement has been underway for years. Over the last decade, the number of independent physicians was falling by about 2% a year. But these trends are now accelerating.