Before a Trump executive order, employers could not provide free or subsidized insulin to their diabetic employees without sacrificing the employees’ right to have a Health Savings Account. This meant that employees had to spend their entire health insurance deductible out of pocket before any employer cost sharing took effect. The Trump administration’s change leaves employers and employees free to engage in the kind of cost-sharing arrangements that make economic and health care sense.
Category: John C. Goodman
Friday Links
What is it like to continuously monitor your blood sugar? You can see the effects of a smoothie or a Cadbury Creme Egg in real time. (They are about the same.)
During Covid, the Flu was virtually nonexistent. The latest flue vaccine is only 16% effective.
Geoengineering can cool the planet, as man-produced sulfur dioxide in the sky reflects the sun. The downside: one billion people could be at greater risk of malaria.
Myanmar targets doctors: They are arrested in their homes and in hospitals; 30 have been killed.
The jury system works. Doctor acquitted of murdering 14 end-of-life patients by prescribing pain killers to hasten and comfort their death.
Time to free the nurses? In half of U.S. states, nurse practitioners cannot treat patients directly without a physician’s supervision.
Managed Competition Exposed
You can find competing private health insurance plans with community rated premiums and government sponsored risk adjustment in Belgium, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands and Switzerland – where participation is mandatory. Ireland and Australia have voluntary enrollment, as does Medicare Advantage and the (Obamacare) marketplaces in the United States.
Wokeness Invades the Doctor’s Office
This is Dr. Stanley Goldfarb in the Wall Street Journal:
The National Library of Medicine database shows more than 2,700 recent papers on “racism and medicine,” which generally purport to show physician bias leading to racial disparities in health outcomes. Yet the most commonly cited studies are shoddily designed, ignore such critical factors as pre-existing conditions, or reach predetermined and sensationalized conclusions that aren’t supported by reported results. These papers in turn are used to source even more shoddy research.