We always hope for the easy fix: the one simple change that will erase a problem in a stroke. But few things in life work this way. Instead, success requires making a hundred small steps go right - one after the other, no slipups, no goofs, everyone pitching in.

We now have 30 percent, for example, of Medicare patients who are seeing doctors who are rewarded for doing this kind of work, like high blood pressure control. So, the Affordable Care Act has pushed this direction down the road.

Man is fallible, but maybe men are less so.

Outsiders tend to be the first to recognize the inadequacies of our social institutions. But, precisely because they are outsiders, they are usually in a poor position to fix them.

If I became just a brain in a jar - as long as I can communicate back and forth with people, that would be okay with me.

You know, 97 percent of the time, if you come into a hospital, everything goes well. But three percent of the time, we have major complications.

The evidence is that people who enter hospice don't have shorter lives. In many cases they are longer.