If more people began to act like consumers instead of passive patients, more health care providers would begin to compete for their business. For that matter, if more health care providers made it easier to shop for medical care, perhaps more patients would compare prices.
Category: Drug Prices & Regulations
Chronic Illness
Three-quarters of Americans have a chronic disease, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. More than half of Americans have two or more chronic conditions. Most death and disability in the US stem from these conditions. Ninety percent of the nation’s nearly $5 trillion in annual health expenditures are for people with chronic and mental health conditions.
Just as importantly, most chronic conditions are preventable. So, Kennedy and Trump were right to prioritize chronic disease.
Source: From an anti-Kennedy opinion piece in Health Affairs.
The Economist: Baby Boomers Aging Disgracefully
Lately Baby Boomers are supersizing their homes rather than downsizing so young families have enough space. Many are also refusing to retire so Millennials can have their jobs.
Saturday Links – 1 August 2026
- The Biden White House pressured Facebook and Instagram to censor Covid facts, including its origin.
- Now we know: Scientists who signed a paper claiming a natural origin for Covid turn out not to have believed it themselves. (WSJ)
- The real DeSantis record: In 2020 Florida had the tenth lowest age-adjusted Covid death rate in the country, which was nearly 20% lower than California’s. (WSJ)
- When did people stop being drunk all the time? From the Middle Ages to the pre-industrial era, the average person consumed about a liter of beer a day, around four times as much as consumption in modern beer-drinking countries. HT: Tyler
- DEI training doesn’t work: 30 years of data from more than 800 U.S. companies show that mandatory diversity training programs have practically no effect on employee attitudes — and may even backfire.
- An estimated 795 000 Americans become permanently disabled or die annually because dangerous diseases are misdiagnosed. Just 15 diseases account for about half of all serious harms. HT: Arnold Kling