The first of the year the Biden Administration considered tightening regulations on gas stoves in households and businesses. The Administration claims it was not trying to ban gas stoves. Rather, the proposed rules were intended to reduce harmful emissions and make gas stoves more efficient. In the end the federal agency reached a compromise decision after a fierce backlash by Libertarians, Republicans, moderate Democrats, chefs, home cooks and everyone else who enjoys cooking and eating.
Category: Policy & Legislation
Doctors Shun Primary Care, Nurse Practitioners and Physicians Assistants Do Too
The physician shortage could reach 86,000 doctors by 2036, of which nearly half of the missing doctors could reflect shortages in primary care. One reason is demographics. The average age of physicians is 47 for women and 55 for men. Many of the older practicing physicians are among the Baby Boomer generation, who will be retiring soon and need care for themselves as they grow old. Another reason for the shortage is a 1996 federal law capping the number of graduate medical education training slots that Medicare will fund.
There Is An Emerging Black Market in Healthy Poop for Medicinal Use
We have all probably watched a television show or movie where a clandestine drug deal occurs. In movies a nervous buyer often meets a nervous seller in a seedy part of town. Money and products are exchanged with both hoping the other is not a cop. Either party could try to steal what the other has without keeping their end of the bargain. This is probably mostly fiction, but clandestine exchanges of drugs do occur. Buying and selling illicit drugs is a dirty business, but Slate magazine describes new levels of filth: selling human poop for medicinal use.
Hospitals Increasingly Offer Cash Prices Similar to What Insurers Pay
Health care is unique compared to other sectors of the economy. In typical consumer markets prices are transparent and suppliers compete for the patronage of consumers by competing on price, quality, service, and other amenities. In health care prices are opaque and providers do not compete for patients in the traditional sense. In health care there is not one price but many prices, a different price for each payer.