We take to task healthcare policy wonks who lament that the government can no longer mandate hospital systems to participate in new "value-based" payment schemes.  These alternative payment plans have been a disaster from the get-go, but it seems that central planners never lose hope.

We have a fun and free-wheeling conversation with Dr. Saurabh Jha on the philosophical question of "what is normal."  Can "Big Data" help clinicians get a handle on the vexing problem of normal values?  We discuss the merits of that idea.

We discuss the chilling case of Alfie Evans and review in detail the rationale invoked by the courts to prevent Alfie's parents from transferring him out of the UK and to condemn the baby to death by withdrawing the life support on which he depended.

We discuss a “white paper” calling for some deregulation of the apparatus that rules the supply of physicians and their scope of work.  We touch on the question of safety, patient sovereignty, alternatives to licensing, and whether protectionism is ever a legitimate option.

We have a fun chat with Professor Darrel Francis, from Imperial College in London and the UK's National Heart and Lung Institute.  Dr. Francis takes the "pro" side and Michel the "con" side in regards to evidence-based medicine.

We discuss the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and doctors but place it in the context of broader conflicts of interest in health care that no one ever talks about.