- How are state universities just like hospitals? Unflattering.
- More empirical evidence of their similarity. Also unflattering. (NYT, gated)
- Fraudsters may have stolen $45.6 billion from the nation’s unemployment insurance program during the pandemic.
- The official child poverty rate is 15.3%; but if you count all the transfers programs, the actual poverty rate is about 2%. (WSJ, gated)
- Sitting all day can erase the benefits of a workout.
Death and Dying is a Growth Industry
Wherever baby boomers have gone they’ve strained institutions. Hospitals were filled to the brim with babies in the post WWII years through 1964. Schools were full and more had to be built. Colleges too were filled to capacity with the huge cohort of Americans born between 1946 and 1964. Nowadays approximately 73 million baby boomers are heading for old age. As boomers passed into late middle-age, they created a Golden Age of Rectums resulting in investors buying the practices of gastroenterologists. Investors are also buying nursing homes, which is a growth industry as boomers age. With a huge cohort of boomers slipping into old age, death is becoming a growth industry. Hospice care practices are being acquired by investors, as is presiding over boomers’ death. A new example appeared in Kaiser Health News and Fortune. Death is anything but a dying business as private equity cashes in on the $23 billion funeral home industry.
Friday Links
Steve Forbes: We are already in a recession.
Dilbert cancelled by 77 newspapers for making fun of “wokeness”.
Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death. How big a problem is that?
Is $2.8 Million a Fair Price for a Revolutionary Treatment?
There’s a new drug in town called Zynteglo. It’s used to treat a life-shortening blood disorder called beta thalassemia. This disorder reduces the ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen. It’s one of many genetics-based treatments destined to come to market in the next few years. Many of these treatments will be for cancer and other diseases for which there is no current treatment and require life-long therapies.