- Valentine fact of the day: The US marriage rate has fallen by half since 1900.
- National income per capita was below $19,000 in 1955. In 2025 it approached $69,500. (John Cochran’s entire piece on “Misplaced Nostalgia” is worth reading.
- A drug selling for $3,2 million a dose is not safe, not effective and still on the market.
- A global budget (not tied to FFS) saves a rural hospital financially. But there is no improvement in the quality of care.
- Should drug ads be required to include more useless information?
- The average wait to see a physician is now about 31 days.
- Eugene Steuerle: “Congress has left Social Security, Medicare, and many healthcare programs on autopilot and expanding faster than the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) or income…. they alone, along with interest, now account for more than 100 percent of projected future inflation-adjusted spending growth and over 125 percent of revenue growth.” (Entire piece recommended)
- Why “a calorie is not a calorie.”
Category: Doctors & Hospitals
Friday Links – 13 February 2026
- Study: “Admitting 1,000 new immigrants would lead to 142 new foreign healthcare workers. We also find [that] a 25% increase in the steady state flow of immigrants to the US would result in 5,000 fewer deaths nationwide. We identify reduced use of nursing homes as a key mechanism driving this result.”
- The good news is that advanced technology and automation are making it possible to meet the health care needs of rural areas.
- Tyler on fertility.
- Can Schizophrenia be cured with a keto diet?
- There are 417 rural hospitals at risk of closure.
- Physicians are producing more, but getting paid less.
Thursday Links – 12 February 2026
- Since 2000, the number of physicians assistants has quadrupled, while the number of medical doctors has risen 40 percent.
- $30 billion federal welfare program became a “slush fund” for the states.
- CMS: The 0ut-of-pocket exposure to increase to $12,000 in (Obamacare) exchange plans in 2027.
- Elon: Colonizing Mars will take a back seat to colonizing the moon.
- Former CDC Director Robert Redfield: Covid “came from gain of function research” at the Chinese lab. Collins and Fauci were guilty of a coverup.
NYT: What is Physicians’ Role in an AI Empowered Health Care System?
AI is causing some doctors to rethink what it means to be a physician. What is their purpose in the age of chatbots that can spit out accurate answers to medical questions 24 hours a day and do not take vacations. Will AI boost the productivity of doctors the way tractors boost the productivity of farmers? Or will it put skilled knowledge workers out of a job like the assembly line did to cobblers and tailors?