- Virginia Democrats are planning to raise every conceivable tax.
- Modern medicine saves more lives than ever. So why do patients feel less cared for?
- Does a direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug sale risk a pharmaceutical manufacturer violating the federal anti-kickback statute.
- How much of the government fraud problem results from the role of NGOs?
Author: John C. Goodman
Monday Links – 2 February 2026
- JEC admits there really is a Laffer curve: “a tax rate above 50% to 55% starts to lose revenues.”
- An argument for why the US should not follow Denmark’s policies on vaccines. Hint: the argument has nothing to do with vaccines.
- Is there a crisis of low testosterone among American men?
- Mental health of kids: Could schools be worse than social media?
- Four reasons why was there was a decline in the rate of growth of health care spending between 2009 and 2019.
Saturday Links
- Capretta on Trump’s new health care plan.
- Are health care cost really a major worry for American workers?
- If Chinese migrant workers were their own country, it would be one of the ten largest in the world.
- New Obamacare exchange: Earning just one dollar more could mean a $10,000 increase in insurance premiums. (NYT)
- “Contrary to a common perception, the United States has always been an active industrial policy nation throughout the period, regardless of which party is in power.”
- Good and bad news on cancer:
The good news: overall, five-year survival rates for people with cancer have increased from 50 percent to 70 percent since the mid-70s
The bad news: For adults under 50, incidence rates are climbing nearly 3 percent per year (up from the 1 to 2 percent annual increase reported in the previous decade). Of greater concern is the fact that CRC is now the top cancer killer in that age group.
Friday Links
- Robots are coming – but not to worry.
- There is a single-dose oral antiviral that, when taken within 24 to 36 hours of symptom onset, is effective for both treatment and prevention of onward transmission of the flu.
- A bad experience with a sharing health plan: looking at the fine print of “pre-existing condition.”
- Medicare Advantage insurers made almost 53 million prior authorization decisions in 2024. Most were not appealed. Of those that were, 80.7% of those were at least partially overturned.