- The new Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines are formulated to a particular variant that is currently giving rise to only 3% of covid infections.
- Paragon: “We estimate the ACA led to only 1.6 million more Americans with private health insurance despite $60 billion in annual subsidies — an … annual cost of roughly $36,800 for each additional private-insurance enrollee.”
- Neanderthal DNA in modern humans has been linked to serious hand disease, the shape of people’s noses and various other human traits.
- Study: People with positive beliefs around getting older lived seven and a half years longer than those who felt negatively about it. (NYT)
Author: John C. Goodman
Tuesday Links
- The Board of Tea Experts, established on March 2, 1897, is finally being mothballed.
- Deborah Laufer has filed more than 600 different lawsuits —typically against small hotels — and Laufer accuses them of failing to comply with the federal disabilities law. Will the Supreme Court shut her down?
- Yglesias: Loneliness isn’t aloneness. And contra Nicholas Kristof, it is highly correlated with low incomes.
- Tyler Cowen: ten ideas on reducing the number of single parent families.
Monday Links
- Health gains from key prescription drugs.
- Steve Henke, et. al., skewer a new Royal Society report on Covid-19.
- Health Affairs study: employers lack leverage to negotiate lower prices. Have they never heard of reference pricing?
- CDC: we are losing the battle against obesity. I thought we lost it a long time ago.
- Inequities at the doctors office: is it because the patients don’t speak up for themselves?
Saturday Links
- Patience is correlated with more success in school.
- “Aspirations cannot become law.” Sen. Bill Cassidy on Bernie Sanders’ latest health care proposal.
- Peter Nelson: How to make price transparency better.
- Is a female takeover of elite occupations taking place?
- Penn Wharton model: The federal government’s unfunded liability is $244.8 billion.