America has a collective drinking problem. And an eating problem. This is all made worse by Americans propensity to sit at home watching TV or playing video games. A recent study has found that deaths from alcoholic cirrhosis have more than tripled in 20 years. In 1999 alcoholic cirrhosis killed 6,007 Americans or about 3.3 per 100,000 adults. By 2019 the death rate had risen to 10.6 per 100,000. Keep in mind this is only for adults aged 25 to 85+
Category: Doctors & Hospitals
Do Higher Priced Hospitals Deliver Higher Quality Care?
This NBER Working Paper says it depends on whether there is competition.
In markets with more hospital competition, going to higher-priced hospitals raises spending by approximately 53 percent and lowers mortality by 47 percent. By contrast, in concentrated hospital markets receiving care from a high-priced hospital also raises spending by 54 percent, but has no impact on patient outcomes.
And the higher spending in competitive markets is worth it:
Such hospitals spend approximately $1 million per life saved. Assuming that the individuals in the research sample live for another nine years, this is cost effective relative to the Environmental Protection Agency’s $8.7 million benchmark estimate of the value of a statistical life.
Unfortunately, the trend in the overall market is for more concentration and less competition.
Why “Testing to Treat” for Covid Isn’t Working
This is Larry Kotlikoff at Forbes:
We now have wonderful new drugs to treat COVID. Paxlovid, produced by Pfizer, is an example. But half of these medications aren’t being prescribed. Indeed, many go to waste, sitting on the shelves of pharmacies until their expiration dates.
Open Borders and Lax Drug Policies Are Contributing to Fatal Drug Overdoses
Most of the additional fatal overdoses post-Covid involve methamphetamine and fentanyl made in Mexico, China and India. For each overdose death, more than 100 people struggle with debilitating addictions to these dangerous substances.
Coincident with policy changes advertised as civil-rights progress, the comparatively low drug-overdose rate for blacks began to accelerate. It reached the white rate by 2019 and then surged past it during the pandemic to reach 43 annually per 100,000 of the black population by last September.