A couple weeks ago I wrote about whether physicians should counsel their patients about diet and lifestyle choices. It’s a little naïve to assume a 5-minute discussion with your doctor will change a lifetime of bad habits. It’s probably a conversation worth having though. However, does your doctor have time to discuss healthy behaviors? Are patients willing…
Category: Health Economics & Costs
Wednesday Links
- Meta study: unemployment and underemployment lead to (mainly psychological) ill health.
- Study: dual eligible MA “look alike” plans are threatening to undermine full service plans, even though they have only 1.4% of the market.
- “We may be on the cusp of an era of astonishing innovation — the limits of which aren’t even clear yet.” (NYT)
- In medicine, the source of junk science often comes from the medical journals themselves.
- ChatGPT-4 takes courses at Harvard. Gets a 3.34 GPA.
- JAMA study: the U.S. maternal mortality rate — already the highest among peer nations — has increased for all racial and ethnic groups.
Tuesday Links
- Is drug legalization the answer to the fentanyl crisis?
- Brazil recognizes a “right to be beautiful” and it subsidizes a half million cosmetic surgeries a year. (NYT)
- Trading places: In 2008 the EU’s economy was $16.2 trillion versus America’s $14.7 trillion. By 2022, the US economy had grown to $25 trillion, whereas the EU and the UK together had only reached $19.8 trillion. (Financial Times)
- One reason: Europe banned fracking, while Obama encouraged it.
- Study: The CDC used unreliable data to support masks.
Americans Mistrust the Health Care System… for Good Reason
More than 30 years ago when the cost of health care was much lower compared to the average wage of American workers. In the late 1980s, for example, the percent of GDP spent on health care was just over 10%. It’s nearly 20% today. Around that time a politically motivated attorney general began looking into the amount of charity care provided by nonprofit hospitals within the state to make sure hospitals were providing enough to justify their tax breaks. The investigation ultimately found hospitals in the state were providing enough charity care to avoid further investigation, but perhaps the question should have been why was the bar set so low?