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The Goodman Institute Health Blog

Author: Devon Herrick

Smartphones are Creating a Public Health Emergency

Posted on May 31, 2023 by Devon Herrick

I read a lot. If I’m away from my computer I read on my iPhone. My wife sometimes complains when I’m paying too much attention to my phone and not enough to what she’s saying. Come to find out that is very common. A couples therapist with 25-years of experience reports that the biggest new cause of friction in relationships is the smart phone.

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Just Say “No!” to Hospital Bailouts

Posted on May 30, 2023 by Devon Herrick

More health care dollars are spent in hospitals than any other health care sector. Nearly one-third (31%) of the $4.255 trillion in health care expenditures are spent on hospital care. Physician care is 14.9%, while drugs are 8.9%. Thirty years ago, presidential candidate Ross Perot described a “giant sucking sound” due to jobs being sucked abroad by the North American Free Trade Agreement. Nowadays the giant sucking sound is the sound of workers’ and taxpayers’ income being sucked into hospitals due to price gouging and high hospital prices.

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Are Weight-Loss Drugs Right for Medicare?

Posted on May 26, 2023 by Devon Herrick

Should Medicare cover weight-loss drugs under Part D plans? Currently Medicare drug plans do not cover drugs for weight-loss.

Medicare coverage of obesity services and treatments currently includes obesity screening, behavioral counseling, and bariatric surgery, but not drugs that are prescribed for weight loss. The 2003 law that established the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit explicitly prohibits Part D plans from covering drugs used for weight loss, along with some other types of drugs, including agents used for cosmetic purposes or hair growth, fertility drugs, and drugs prescribed to treat sexual or erectile dysfunction.

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Dollar General to Open Retail Clinics

Posted on May 25, 2023 by Devon Herrick

Progressives and people on the left often criticize dollar stores as contributing to so-called food deserts. Food deserts are parts of towns and rural areas where no large grocery stores want to operate. In addition, the presence of a dollar store supposedly makes an area less desirable for full-service grocers. The logic makes little sense to me: Dollar stores are supposedly bad because they’re not full-service grocers. Yet, full-service grocers don’t want to operate in food deserts because stores in the area are unprofitable but competition from dollar stores makes them even less profitable. What?

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For many years, our health care blog was the only free enterprise health policy blog on the internet. Then, when the NCPA closed its doors, the health blog stopped as well.

During this five-year hiatus no one else has come forward to claim the space. So, my colleagues and I have decided to restart the blog in connection with the Goodman Institute. We invite you and others to use this forum to share your views.

John C. Goodman,

Visit www.goodmaninstitute.org

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