- “We find that a ten percent increase in the proportion of county residents with access to broadband internet leads to a 1.01 percent reduction in the number of suicides in a county, as well as improvements in self-reported mental and physical health.”
- Does our personality determine our political ideology? (HT: Tyler)
- Linus Pauling was wrong about vitamin C. But he was less wrong than some other bad nutritional advice.
- Why brain dead people may not actually be dead.
- While physician costs for overhead, medical equipment and supplies, as well as administrative staff, have soared, inflation-adjusted Medicare payments to physicians have dropped by over 25 percent over the past two decades. Commentary.
- “The Office of the Inspector General found that Medicare and Medicaid spent over $18 billion in three years on drugs with accelerated approval but incomplete confirmatory clinical trials.”
Category: Policy & Legislation
The War on Poverty Bred Dependency, including Hospitals, Clinics, Doctors, Drugmakers, etc.
Whenever there are societal problems there are always ambitious politicians who seek to fill a need. If you assume the desire to alleviate poverty and inequity is solely the purview of Western democracies, you would be wrong. Just study political economy and you will find that despots often use poverty and inequity to seize power and maintain it.
Nonprofits That Live Off of Government Grants Are the Problem
Outsourcing government functions to nonprofits is a form of privatization. Importantly, it’s a form of privatization that progressives could accept. But nonprofits have little accountability, causing costs to bloat and services to degrade, and allowing unscrupulous nonprofit execs to pocket taxpayer money. And it’s easy for them to become involved in corrupt relationships with their political patrons.
Source: Noah Smith
Public Safety Advocates Want Lower Speed Limits to Save Lives
Congress passed the National Maximum Speed Limit law to lower highway speed limits to 55 miles an hour in 1974. Federal officials had predicted lowering the speed limit to a snail’s pace would generate gas savings of 2.2%. The actual savings were between 0.5% and 1%. Yet, the law would remain in place for more than 20 years after proponents argued slower speeds reduced traffic fatalities.