- UK to speed up drug approval process. Needed: US acceptance of UK approvals in this country.
- GPT-4 passes the medical exam and then some.
- Why aren’t there any cost/benefit studies on bicycle lanes?
- Federal spending is up 40% since 2019. What are the drivers? They are not Social Security, Medicare or Defense.
- What have we learned after 13 years of Obamacare? If you make health insurance almost free, a lot of people will sign up. If you charge anywhere near the real cost, the market will spin into a death spiral.
Category: Friday Links
States Try to Cap Travel Nurse Wages that Skyrocketed During Covid
During Covid outbreaks nurses willing to relocate for temporary assignments could command a huge premium over their regular wages. Hospitals overwhelmed with patients had little choice but to pay whatever it took to recruit scarce nurses. As I’ve said in the past, hospitals are loath to raise nurses’ pay. They often hire temporary nursing staffing at much higher rates than raise the standard pay to recruit staff nurses. During Covid outbreaks hospitals’ unwillingness to compensate nurses for the heightened risk and heavier workloads caused many to jump ship and join traveling nurse agencies.
Friday Links
- Other countries have drug approval reciprocity (where one country accepts another’s approval including our own FDA approval), so why don’t we?
- Study: Mediterranean diet reduces heart disease in women (24%) by just as much as it does in men.
- Study: Among older patients with metastatic cancer, the majority received aggressive treatment in their final 30 days. A quarter underwent cancer treatment: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy.
- Expert: with the standard deli sandwich, “you’re literally eating a heart bomb.” (WSJ)
Friday Links
- An argument for mask wearing, even after the Cochrane Review meta-analysis.
- An early (and completely uncritical) history of medical licensing. To be paired with Regulation of Medical Care by moi — for balance.
- Why Daylight Savings Time matters: “The body releases sleep-time and wake-time hormones at a particular time.” Studies have shown that deadly car accidents, workplace injuries, and heart attacks increase following the springtime change.
- Should a face-to-face meeting be required before doctors prescribe a controlled substance for a patient?
- California to end Walgreens contract over abortion pills policy.
- What the Biden plan to “save” Medicare doesn’t do: repeal the Democrats’ IRA bill that takes $246 billion out of Medicare. (CBO p. 72)