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.
Category: News and Events
Wednesday Links
- California opens Medicaid to illegal aliens.
- CDC looked at fake numbers in deciding whether children should get the Covid vaccine.
- Government run health care: In jails and prisons its awful.
- Gene editing can alter plants and fight cancer in humans – are designer babies next?
- Krugman completely loses it: compares the GOP to the KKK. (Hmm, wasn’t the KKK a Democratic organization?)
Book: Regulations Hinder Legal Cannabis Suppliers (Just Like Other Industries)
A new book coauthored by two economists explains the economics of legalized marijuana are not very lucrative. The regulations for selling legal weed are so onerous that illegal marijuana sells for half the price of the highly regulated legal product when competing for the same customers. In fact, the regulatory maze is such that in most states where cannabis is legal aspiring distributors hire consultants to assist with the application process. Indeed, the people in the cannabis industry making the most (legal) money are the consultants and lobbyists.
The Battle of Waterloo Created a Public Health Crisis: the Solution was Fertilizer
Last Saturday was the 207th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, fought on Sunday, June 18, 1815. It was the decisive battle that ended Napoleon Bonaparte’s imperial ambitions for good. The battle was the culmination of nearly 20 years of conflict in Europe. As you would imagine, it created a public health crisis. An estimated 50,000 casualties, dead, dying and wounded were left on the battlefield when it was over. Some diseases can be transmitted from the dead to the living. According to the World Health Organization:
- Tuberculosis can be acquired if the bacillus is aerosolized – residual air in lungs exhaled, fluid from lungs spurted up through the nose or mouth during handling of the corpse.
- Bloodborne viruses can be transmitted via direct contact of non-intact skin or mucous membrane from splashing of blood or body fluid or from injury from bone fragments and needles.
- Gastrointestinal (GI) infections can easily be transmitted from faeces leaked from dead bodies. Transmission occurs via the faecal–oral route through direct contact with the body, soiled clothes or contaminated vehicles or equipment. GI infections can also be spread as a result of contamination of the water supply with dead bodies.