- During the pandemic, government payments for social benefits rose by $1.5 trillion, or 47%, between 2019 and 2021. At the same time, the official poverty rate rose to 11.6% from 10.5%.
- Using a consistent measure of poverty, AEI researchers find that only 1.6% of the population lives in poverty, well below the official poverty rate of 10.5%.
- The case for a value added tax.
- Likely scenarios if the government seizes drug company patents: They’re all bad.
- New technology can identify genetic defects before Invitro Fertilization begins.
- “Canadian woman is diagnosed with cancer, told she has 2 years to live at most, that she is not a candidate for surgery but would she like medical help committing suicide? She declines, comes to the United States, spends a lot of money, and is treated within weeks.”
Category: Direct Primary Care
Friday Links
- Tyler Cowen on the three university presidents testifying before Congress: “Overall this was a dark day for American higher education.”
- Biden Plans to Revoke Drug Patents to Lower Prices.
- How doctors get paid.
- Study: Children with liberal parents are more likely to suffer mental health problems.
- How does having too much to drink or eating a large meal prior to bed affect your sleep? A sleep tracker can tell you.
- A new way of harvesting organs – doctors take them before the donor is brain dead.
The U.S. System of Organ Donation is in Dire Need of Reform
Comedian and political commentator, John Oliver, dedicated a 30-minute episode of his television show to our dysfunctional system of organ donation. There were 42,887 organ transplants in the United States last year. However, the number of people waiting for a donor organ, at 103,984 is more than double the number of transplants. It is estimated that 17 people die each day while waiting for a donor organ. The total number of Americans who die each year of any causes is nearly 3.4 million, but less than 2% of deaths occur under conditions optimal for organ donation.
Why Are Nonprofit Hospitals Focused More on Dollars Than Patients?
Nonprofit hospitals … are supposed to serve the public good in exchange for being exempt from federal, state and local taxes — exemptions that added up to $28 billion in 2020.
[Yet] detailed media reports show them hounding poor patients for money, cutting nurse staffing too aggressively and giving preferential treatment to the rich over the poor….