- Healthier is wealthier: “We find that the intervention [to prevent heart disease] significantly increased earnings by 3 percent and family income by 4 percent with no concurrent effect on labor force participation.”
- Can Public Choice explain why health care has been relatively unaffected by inflation? Speculative.
- Your health data might be for sale.
- After learning that McKinsey urged Purdue to “turbocharge” sales of OxyContin (widely blamed for the opioid crisis), we now learn that it has been urging Endo to aggressively market a painkiller that is twice as potent.
- NY Health Department advises users to consume fentanyl “safely.”
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Tuesday Links
- 1 in 5 adults say they have received an unexpected medical bill this year, even though surprise billing has been illegal since January.
- Pregnant woman ticketed for driving alone in an HOV lane claims her fetus was the second passenger.
- Two more studies find that giving people money doesn’t work: “getting the money reminded recipients that they were poor, without doing much to change that long-term condition, which in turn led to worse psychological health and lower happiness among recipients.”
- Arnold Kling on the studies: “There are even worse results than that. It turns out that getting a windfall and ending up back where you started makes you feel worse than you did before getting the windfall.”
- Did the Black Plague have beneficial economic effects? Tyler Cowen reviews James Belich’s The World the Plague Made.
- Circadian medicine: “There’s a skin clock and a liver clock and an immune system clock; there’s a clock for the kidney, heart, lungs, muscles and reproductive system.”
Pfizer’s View of its Own Vaccine
Turns out, it is very positive. But in a review of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla’s book, Moonshot, Robert Kaplan asks:
How transparent has Pfizer been? In the book’s more than 200 pages, one topic is not explored in any real depth—side effects. Although the vaccine is generally regarded as safe, side effects do appear to be more common—and perhaps more severe—than for other widely used vaccines. In the 2020 clinical trial that provided the basis for FDA emergency-use authorization, more than 83% of 18- to 55-year-old participants (in comparison with 14% of those injected with a placebo) reported arm pain after their first shot, and approximately a third had a fever in reaction to their second (in contrast to less than 1% for a placebo).
Medicare Advantage: Lawmakers Say it’s Pretty Good but Could be Improved
Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations met on Tuesday to beat up on Medicare Advantage plans. Chairwoman Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) claimed seniors are “required to jump through numerous hoops” to get the care they need.