[Recent years have seen significant developments in the protection of privacy at general law in common law jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Although the general law protection of privacy in Australia is uncertain, there has been a proliferation of information privacy laws at both federal and state levels. This article contends that the future development of privacy l...

In medical practice, ethical conflicts frequently occur between the principle of beneficence and the principle of non-maleficence, and if we accept these two principles without any modification, it is impossible for us to comply with both simultaneously in many cases. Thus, in order to make the two principles consistent, it is necessary to provide a means of interpretation, or a set of rules, t...

Few social issues in the U.S. are as contentious as the legal status of induced abortion. Thirty years after the Supreme Court declared state laws restricting abortion unconstitutional in Roe v. Wade, 93 S.Ct. 705, poll results suggest that the U.S. population is almost evenly split over whether the next nominee to the Supreme Court should support or oppose legal abortion in most or all context...

In this paper we address the ethics of adopting delusional beliefs and we apply consequentialist and deontological considerations to the epistemic evaluation of delusions. Delusions are characterised by their epistemic shortcomings and they are often defined as false and irrational beliefs. Despite this, when agents are overwhelmed by negative emotions due to the effects of trauma or previous a...

IMPORTANCE Take-up of the Medicare Part D low-income subsidy (LIS) by eligible beneficiaries has been low despite the attractive drug coverage it offers at no cost to beneficiaries and outreach efforts by the Social Security Administration. OBJECTIVE To examine the role of beneficiaries' cognitive abilities in explaining this puzzle. DESIGN AND SETTING Analysis of survey data from the natio...

OBJECTIVES To examine the association of medication adherence with healthcare use and costs among Medicaid beneficiaries with congestive heart failure (CHF), to investigate whether the association was a graded one, and to estimate the potential savings due to improved adherence. STUDY DESIGN Using Medicare and Medicaid data for 4 states, adherence was estimated using the medication possession...

CONTEXT Emerging technologies, changing diagnostic and treatment patterns, and changes in Medicare reimbursement are contributing to increasing use of imaging in cancer. Imaging is the fastest growing expense for Medicare but has not been examined among beneficiaries with cancer. OBJECTIVE To examine changes in the use of imaging and how those changes contribute to the overall cost of cancer ...

The Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) is a longitudinal survey of a nationally representative sample of Medicare enrollees. The survey collects information on a variety of topics including beneficiaries' health status. This information is collected from two groups of beneficiaries: those living in the community and those living in facilities. Information is obtained on specific medical...