Innovation, influence and business in America's medical cities.

Highlights of the important and the interesting in the world of health care:

Pfizer CEO warns of “real and legitimate” public anger at corporations: Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler is apparently a man who “gets it,” and it only took the largest criminal fine in U.S. history, $1.2 billion, for that to happen. Speaking in Boston to a group of fellow chief executives, Kindler warned that the American public is mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more, so to speak, when it comes to corporate malfeasance.

“People have had enough, and the backlash is real. It’s fueling demands for more restrictions on business and governments,” Kindler said. “Sometimes, this criticism is warranted. Sometimes, it’s not. But when the majority of people don’t trust you, they’ll find a way to force you to change.”

Amen to that. While Kindler correctly admits he’s an unlikely candidate to champion ethics in business, the more business leaders who speak out against Corporate America’s culture of “Maximize profits and all else be damned,” the better.

Dropping “the hammer”: First it was “the trigger,” then the “opt out” and now we have “the hammer” (and there were probably a few other iterations in there that we missed.) Whatever you call it, it’s a watering down of the ”public option” – a government-run type of health insurance plan that proponents insist would force health insurers to hold the line on costs — to make it more acceptable to self-styled moderate Democrats like Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln and Nebraska’s Ben Nelson.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has tapped Delaware Sen. Tom Carper to design a new type of public option. The Hill reports that “the hammer” is the name for that new version. So what does that mean? This new version of the public option “would kick in for states where insurance companies fail to meet standards of availability and affordability of plans.” Even if the public option is included in the final health overhaul legislation, whenever we get there, it’s destined to be so weak and toothless that only a few million people will enroll anyway, the Congressional Budget Office has projected.

What can EMRs do for you? Not much, according to widely read medical blogger Kevin Pho, better known as KevinMD. Pho cites a study that compared 3,000 hospitals in various stages of electronical medical records adoption and found EMRs had little effect on the quality or cost of care. Considering the federal government plans to spend about $19 billion encouraging physicans to adopt EMRs, that’s just a bit discouraging.

Pho also complains that many EMRs have poor user interfaces, which he compares to the now-archaic Windows 95. It seems that the federal government’s push to adopt EMRs won’t benefit doctors or patients, but it’s destined to put new Porsches in the garage for plenty of EMR executives.

You better shop around: One of the recession’s many effects is that health-care consumers are becoming increasingly cost-conscious. About 30 states have laws requiring hospitals and other providers to publish fees online, which in theory should make cost comparisons easier for consumers, the Associated Press reports. But it still isn’t easy:

Combing through often confusing and overlapping Web sites set up by doctors, hospitals, insurers and state officials can be daunting. And even when patients think they know exactly what they’ll be paying, unexpected fees can quickly inflate medical bills.

A visit to Ohio’s repository of public health information, certainly confirmed the “confusing” and “daunting” parts of the previous statement.