Included in Friday Links (November 10) was the title, “Would coverage for gene therapies make employer-based health insurance unaffordable?” That raises an important question: How much should employers (and employees) be required to pay for hyper-expensive therapies very few people need? A related question: should the purpose of employee health coverage be to recruit and retain workers or fund rare disease research and therapies?
Category: Policy & Legislation
Monday Links
- Are apprenticeships a viable alternative to higher education? If so, why does government subsidize the latter and not the former?
- The IRA bill has already stopped the development of one cancer drug and may be delaying many more.
- Why do new drugs have such bizarre names? It’s bureaucracy gone amok.
- Study: thunderstorms cause asthma attacks.
Tuesday Links
- “Many older people are one medical emergency away from a court-appointed guardian taking control of their lives.”
- The hypothalamus, a cone shaped part of the human brain no bigger than an almond, affects whether we feel hungry and helps control our metabolism. (NYT)
- Kansas and Virginia Medicaid programs paid MCOs for beneficiaries who were dead. (InsideHealthPolicy paywall)
- Solution to rural health care: telemedicine. But you need an internet connection.
Drowsy Driving is a Public Health Hazard
By now everyone knows that driving under the influence is bad. Indeed, nearly one-third of all traffic fatalities involve a drunk driver. More than half (56%) of drivers involved in an injury or fatal car crash were on at least one drug (including alcohol) at the time that impaired their ability to drive. When I took flying lessons, we were warned that OTC cold medicines and flying is not allowed. The FAA has an explicit list of medication types that pilots cannot ingest while flying. An FAA study found the most common drug in the body of pilots involved in fatal aviation accidents was diphenhydramine (brand name Benadryl).