Can medical expenses be crowdfunded?
Study of treatment facilities for adolescents with opioid use disorder: nearly 40 percent had no beds immediately available or offered a waitlist, with a mean wait time of 28.4 days. Only 57 percent accepted Medicaid. We are becoming more like Canada every day.
David Frieman on historical “facts” you have probably heard about (and even seen depicted in movies) that are actually myths. Fun reading.
The Geothermal energy solution: “There’s 41 times more heat energy in the earth’s crust than that of all known petroleum and nuclear fuel reserves. What’s more, the energy of that sun beneath our feet is carbon-free and potentially available all day, every day.”
Crowdfunding for medical care: that’s called insurance. Why would I help others unless I felt a specific desire to do so or I was getting some benefit like the assurance my bills would be crowdfunded?
Bogus history: History gets distorted for many reasons: some political, some for popular culture. Take the cowboys. Numerous TV shows and movies have made cowboys part of the historical landscape not just in the US but across the world. The era of the cowboys manning cattle drives lasted only about 10 years. Cattle drives started after the Civil War to round up long horn cattle for northern markets. The railroad reached Fort Worth Texas in 1876 making the need for long cattle drives no longer needed.
Vikings: We think of Vikings as the major marauders in two centuries before the turn of the first millennium. We know of them because they raided Northern Europe. However, there were many, many bands of people who were raiders at this time. The vacuum left by the fall of the Western Roman Empire created many an opportunity for raiding. (that’s why it’s called the Dark Ages).
FDA: Drug companies currently produce drugs that are often ineffective, barely effective or less effective than others on the market. This is because people: a) don’t pay for their own medical care, b) have this notion that if their doctor prescribes it then it must be good. The FDA has a role but it should not be creating huge barriers to entry and protecting monopolies.
Regarding smallpox blankets: The songwriter’s native ancestry has apparently also been contested, by the CBC among others.