- 93% of cancer centers report a shortage of carboplatin and 70% report shortages for cisplatin.
- Up to 500,000 U.S. cancer patients could be at risk of having their treatment disrupted. (WSJ)
- WHO is about to declare that Aspartame, a common artificial sweetener, is “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” The back and forth on this issue never seems to end.
- Expected lifetime out-of-pocket spending by Medicare enrollees: $157,500 (Fidelity) to $197,000 (Employee Benefit Research Institute). (NYT)
- A single year with a grossly ineffective teacher can cost a classroom of students $1.4 million in lifetime earnings. Yet it can take 10 years and $250,000 to $450,000 to fire a lousy California teacher, and fewer than 0.002% are dismissed for unprofessional conduct or poor performance. (WSJ)
Category: Cost of Healthcare
What the Medical Schools Get Wrong About Affirmative Action
It took no time at all for establishment medicine to react to the Supreme Court ruling that race-based admissions were unconstitutional. “Today’s decision demonstrates a lack of understanding of the critical benefits of racial and ethnic diversity in educational settings and a failure to recognize the urgent need to address health inequities in our country,” said a statement Association of American Medical Colleges. “We need more health workers, especially those who look like and share the experiences of the people they serve,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
See Medical Schools Denounce Affirmative Action Ruling
Saturday Links
- Top NIH official, Fauci adviser admits hiding emails regarding COVID origins
- One-fourth of 40-year-olds in the US have never been married.
- What’s wrong with price transparency? It’s tied to insurance billing codes instead of meaningful bundles of services patients can understand.
- Reason for more wealth inequality: longer life spans. (WSJ)
- Study: estimated cost of CMS delay in approving the new Alzheimer’s drug: $13.1 billion to $545.6 billion.
- Does cold immersion therapy really work? Probably not.
Update on Amazon’s Health Care Initiative: A Mixed Bag, Both Convenient and Convoluted
A reporter for Health Care News emailed me asking about Amazon’s health care initiative so I decided to take another look. Earlier this year I wrote about Amazon entering the health care space. One Medical is its membership-based medical service. One Medical features virtual clinical visits along with 125+ physical locations in 25 cities. It claims to break the mold for…