- The liberal plantation? Washington, D.C., has the largest gap in racial economic equality, compared to the 50 states. The capital also has the largest median income, homelessness rate, unemployment rate, and labor force participation gaps. Study.
- Why has health care been relatively unimpacted by general inflation?
- Poll: One in ten men would like to be cloned
- Why did Biden agree to let China (and other “developing countries”) steal our intellectual property with respect to Covid vaccines?
- A column by New York Times’ David Leonhardt made a bold claim: “The death rate for white Americans has recently exceeded the rates for Black, Latino and Asian Americans.” The claim is almost assuredly wrong.
Category: Direct Primary Care
What Sweden Got Right
Swedish students under the age of 16 didn’t miss a single day of school to COVID closure and were never masked. According to this study:
- No COVID-19 related learning loss in reading in Swedish primary school students.
- The proportion of students with weak reading skills did not increase during the pandemic.
- Students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds were not especially affected.
HT: Committee to Unleash Prosperity
Aging Colons a Goldmine for Private Equity Investors
Private equity investors are increasingly buying gastroenterology practices. Around 1,400 of the nation’s gastroenterologists are employees or partners in practices backed by private equity. According to a recent whitepaper, acquisitions of gastroenterology practices by private equity grew by 28% last year. As one investment manager noted:
We are in the Golden Age of older rectums—from a supply side, at least. Elderly people will make up 20% of the population by 2030, and health care costs are projected to approach 20% of the nation’s gross domestic product—the highest in the world, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It would seem a boom time for gastroenterologists.
Obamacare’s Free Preventive Services are a Minefield of Surprise Bills
An article in Kaiser Health News described how people who receive preventive medical services often billed for services that were supposed to be free. This is especially interesting since I will probably schedule a colonoscopy this year. Colonoscopies are supposed to be a (free) preventive service under the Affordable Care Act.