The Justice Department announced criminal charges in a $1.2 billion telemedicine fraud scheme committed by numerous individuals across the United States. In some cases the owners of clinical labs are accused of paying kickbacks to marketers, who in turn paid bribes to telemedicine companies in return for physician orders.
Category: Authors
Concentrated Health Care Markets
Michael Cannon at Cato writes:
By 2017, in most markets, a single hospital system had more than a 50 percent market share of discharges. In 2016, markets for specialist physicians exhibited what federal antitrust authorities consider a high degree of concentration in 65 percent of metropolitan areas. Markets for primary‐care physicians exhibited high concentration in 39 percent of metropolitan areas…. In 2016, 57 percent of health insurance markets exhibited high concentration; in 2018, 75 percent did.
Wednesday Links
- Why doctors find it so difficult to treat monkeypox.
- Global backslide in vaccinations: The full three-dose coverage for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine (DTP) was 81 percent in 2021, a drop of five percentage points from 2019.
- The marriage tax: couples can lose as much as 20 years of income to higher taxes and reduced entitlements. (especially Medicaid)
- The attack on America’s best health plans.
- Learning loss from school closures during the the pandemic: the average for 20 countries is a half year of schooling.
Reefer Madness: Crashes Increased After Marijuana Legalized
A new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that auto accidents rose in states that legalized recreational marijuana. Car crashes with injuries jumped 6% while fatal auto accidents increased 4%. Comparison states that did not legalize recreational marijuana saw no increase in these types of accidents. The states that legalized recreational marijuana examined in the study were California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. The comparison states where cannabis is not legal were Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.