- Gorman and Goodman: Texas was right not to expand Medicaid.
- Schaeffer Center: Medicare Advantage enrolls lower-spending people, leading to large overpayments.
- Why DC is so dangerous: “the overwhelming preponderance of lethal violence is carried out with illegal weapons” and “most gun arrests don’t lead to charges.”
- Prenatal tests: Very accurate for common genetic disorders like Down syndrome. But for rare diseases, the positive results were wrong 80 percent to 93 percent of the time
- Janitor cut the power to a lab freezer, destroying decades’ worth of research materials valued at nearly $1 million.
Category: Consumer-Driven Health Care
Study: Physician-Owed Hospitals Have Lower Prices, Boosts Competition
The Affordable Care Act, a misnomer if there ever was one, has been the law of the land for 13 years now. One of the many ill-thought-out provisions was one that banned further development of hospitals owned by physicians.
“The Affordable Care Act (ACA) imposed severe restrictions on physician-owned hospitals, such as prohibiting the development of new physician-owned hospitals and the expansion of existing ones,” Ge Bai, a professor of accounting and health policy at Johns Hopkins University and one of the coauthors of the study, said.
Monday Links
- New diabetic wonder drugs come from two ugly predators: Angler fish and Gila monsters. (NYT)
- Tyler Cowen on the lab leak. (Should we hope it’s true?)
- Casey Mulligan on the household burden of green policies: a poor household pays almost 9% of its income to pay for green policies whereas the rich pay 1.5%.
- Dr. Marty Makary: Ten reasons why we know Covid-19 leaked from the Wuhan lab.
- AMA: BMI standards are racist.
Many Doctors Dislike Working for The Man
The practice of medicine has changed tremendously within my lifetime. A retired physician came to my office years ago lamenting that his esteemed profession had turned into a business over the course of his career. That raises something of an ethical dilemma: doctors want to practice medicine but some feel like they’re being forced to practice in ways they find objectionable.
The New York Times explained, “The corporatization of health care has changed the practice of medicine, causing many physicians to feel alienated from their work.”