I know a doctor who relocated to a small town after being recruited to join a new practice. He sold his house, bought a new one and uprooted his family for a move 150 miles away. It turned out that it was not a lucrative move. His schedule was quickly filled with Medicare patients, most of whom required 30-minute visits due to multiple chronic conditions. He remarked that his pediatrician colleague could see two or three privately insured patients during the time it took him to see one (lower paying) Medicare patient. His income fell far below expectations and he decided to get out.
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Lack of Compensation is Why Donor Organs are Scarce
The system for organ donation in the United States does not work well. About 3.5 million people die in the U.S. each year and many are potential organ donors. Yet, there are thousands of people on waiting lists for donor organs and thousands die waiting every year. According to the Washington Post:
Sunday Links
- AAF study of the effects of Medicare’s coming drug price negotiations: fewer than 6 million beneficiaries – less than 10% of enrollees – will benefit at all and for those with any saving 69% of will save less than $300.
- Given Trump and Biden executive orders promoting the idea, why is it taking so long to allow states to import drugs from Canada?
- Health Affairs authors: giving insulin to patients for free is cost effective. So why don’t insurers – including Medicare Part D insurers – do that? I explained that months ago.
- How health care was rationed during the pandemic: Mississippi case study.
- Left-of-center Tax Policy Center: people earning less than $400,000 will pay more taxes under the new Biden budget proposal. A lot more taxes!
Saturday Links
- Did you know that commercial airlines have to obey a speed limit?
- Digital therapies that sought FDA approval are expensive and in a regulatory morass. Is there a non-FDA approach that is possible?
- How worried should we be over a drug resistant fungus?
- Views on AI’s risk to humanity.
- Scott Sumner’s take: the worry is not that an intelligent AI will destroy the world. It’s that a depressed person will use AI to destroy the world.
- A different view of the Waco tragedy – one more sympathetic to the Branch Davidians.