Loose Lips

"I understand that this is not a fix. This is a Band-Aid. But it's a good Band-Aid."
-Mark Thomas, chief of staff and special counsel for Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration, referring to an effort in Palm Beach County to increase the number of specialists providing coverage to hospital emergency departments by posting hospital call schedules online.

"Lung cancer is a cheap disease to treat because people don't survive very long."
-Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands' National Institute for Public Health and the Environment and lead author of a study that found that the healthcare costs of thin and healthy adults are more expensive than smokers or obese adults who often don't live as long.

"This is the death spiral of American medicine, if we don't figure out what to do."
-Arthur Kellermann, MD, professor and chairman of emergency medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, on overcrowding in hospital emergency departments nationwide.