- Study: even small amounts of alcohol are bad for you. HT: Tyler
- Fake news from the New York Times: How Climate Change Turned Lush Hawaii Into a Tinderbox
- Turns out the real culprit for the Maui fires was bad government policy.
- The reason for not getting another covid vaccine shot right now: We don’t know what covid variant will be threatening us in the fall. (NYT)
- Study: extreme heat causes psychosis, dementia and substance misuse. Since cold kills more people than heat, I am skeptical.
Category: Consumer-Driven Health Care
How Medicare Encourages Hospitals to Monopolize the Medical Marketplace
In 2016, the first hour of chemotherapy infusion — one of the most common services billed by oncology practices — was reimbursed at $136 for physician’s offices, while payment for hospital outpatient departments was 106% higher, at $280…. This year, this payment disparity has jumped to 158%, with physician reimbursement declining to $129 and the outpatient department rate increasing to $333….
The FDA Hinders the Progress of Regenerative Medicine
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sometimes gets lost in a bureaucratic maze of confusion and red tape that deprives patients of beneficial therapies. Innovative products sometimes fall within a gray area and become overly regulated. One of the FDA’s latest targets is regenerative medicine.
An article titled, An MBA in Regulatory Confusion, talks about Florida-based Regenative Labs. The firm manufactures products made from umbilical cords (donated by mothers after a C-section, according to the company website). English physician and anatomist Thomas Wharton first described his namesake umbilical cord jelly in 1656, although he had no way of knowing it is rich in stem cells and regenerative healing properties.
Saturday Links
- Reprint of a Uwe Reinhart classic: how Republican administrations gave us health care price controls and Keynesian economics fiscal policy.
- OxyContin and the Sacklers return to TV in a Netflix series fact checked by Slate.
- Blue Shield of California tears up the prescription drug playbook and partners with Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company. (WSJ)
- Did you know the US government is stockpiling cheese ….. and raisins?
- What happens to the roughly 20 million people slated to lose Medicaid coverage? The vast majority have other insurance and apparently didn’t need to be on Medicaid in the first place. (WSJ)
- COVID experts calling for masks again — even at home!