- Arnold Kling on “Price Discrimination Explains Everything,” (including hospital finance). Recommended.
- Biden suspends funding for the Wuhan Lab.
- How Fauci and NIH leaders worked to discredit the lab leak theory.
- Report by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic relies on more than 8,000 documents, including emails and other communications, plus nearly 25 hours of witness testimony.
- Bob Moffitt: the Biden administration is stonewalling an attempt to get at the origin of Covid.
- Douglas Hofstadter changes his mind: AI really is a risk. (David Brooks: NYT)
- Woke ideology is invading the mental health professions. (WSJ)
British NHS (“The Envy of the World”) Is Teetering
As it turns 75 this month, the N.H.S., a proud symbol of Britain’s welfare state, is in the deepest crisis of its history: flooded by aging, enfeebled patients; starved of investment in equipment and facilities; and understaffed by doctors and nurses, many of whom are so burned out that they are either joining strikes or leaving for jobs abroad….
More than 7.4 million people in England are waiting for medical procedures, everything from hip replacements to cancer surgery. That is up from 4.1 million before the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020.
Mortality data, exacerbated by long wait times, paints a bleak picture. In 2022, the number of excess deaths rose to one of the highest levels in the last 50 years, and those numbers have kept rising, even as the pandemic has ebbed.
Health & Wellness, Nutrition Counseling are Great Ideas (that Do Not Save Money)
A couple weeks ago I wrote about whether physicians should counsel their patients about diet and lifestyle choices. It’s a little naïve to assume a 5-minute discussion with your doctor will change a lifetime of bad habits. It’s probably a conversation worth having though. However, does your doctor have time to discuss healthy behaviors? Are patients willing…
Wednesday Links
- Meta study: unemployment and underemployment lead to (mainly psychological) ill health.
- Study: dual eligible MA “look alike” plans are threatening to undermine full service plans, even though they have only 1.4% of the market.
- “We may be on the cusp of an era of astonishing innovation — the limits of which aren’t even clear yet.” (NYT)
- In medicine, the source of junk science often comes from the medical journals themselves.
- ChatGPT-4 takes courses at Harvard. Gets a 3.34 GPA.
- JAMA study: the U.S. maternal mortality rate — already the highest among peer nations — has increased for all racial and ethnic groups.