- Sen. Cassidy white paper: a one-size-fits all approach for regulating AI will not work and will stifle innovation.
- Cato paper: Remove barriers to primary care practitioners prescribing methadone.
- AMA criticizes the FDA for not banning menthol cigarettes more rapidly. Hard to understand this. If menthol is not harmful and it’s only vice is that of appealing more to Black youth than White youth, isn’t banning it rank discrimination?
- Study: Biden boosted food stamps by 27%, without regard to income, and that caused 2.4 million Americans to leave work.
- Britain has a minister for loneliness. (NYT)
- Fewer than one in five nursing home residents with Covid received antiviral treatment during the pandemic. (JAMA)
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Thursday Links
- Research bias: Gender disparities generally matter only if they work against women.
- AI can even reportedly “taste wine” with 95% accuracy.
- There is “no money to be made in finding ways to reduce costs in health care.” Peter Coy reviews Why Not Better and Cheaper?: Healthcare and Innovation.
- Judge rules Louisiana cops can be sued for raiding the home of a man who joked about pandemic on Facebook.
- Physician quality regulation: There are more than 2,200 metrics and we have spent more than over $1.3 billion measuring them.
Portland Back-Peddles on Public Drug Use
There is an odd theory that making illicit drugs easier to use will make them safer, such as needle exchanges and safe injection sites. Other reformers argue that decriminalizing small quantities will avoid court costs and incarceration costs. Moreover, the proponents of the above theories believe the policy known as The War on Drugs has been ineffective and even racist.
There is another theory, one that is grounded in reason, common sense as well as backed by empirical testing, that demand curves are downward sloping. Similar there is an economic truism that posits if governments wish to encourage some activity, then subsidize it. If government wishes to discourage some activity, then tax it.
Wednesday Links
- Should the government be able to monitor (in real time) patients who get opioid prescriptions?
- There are now 3 times as many non-faculty as there are faculty per student at the best schools in the U.S. HT: Arnold Kling
- RAND report: Mainstream news coverage is geared towards upholding pre-established narratives. Actual reporting has become exceedingly rare.
- Study: Hospice care saves money.
- Why nurses matter.
- Study: two years after unionization, nursing homes were more than 30 percentage points more likely than nonunion nursing homes to report an illness or injury to OSHA.