- The United States pays more for hospital care than any other nation, despite using hospital services less frequently. Site neutral payment is one answer.
- Administrative spending makes up around 25 percent of the United States’ total health care costs, amounting to about $1 trillion every year Can AI reduce the cost?
- How safe are Covid-19 vaccines?
- Is oat milk good for you?
- How Covid can affect clinical trial results.
Category: Health Economics & Costs
Saturday Links
- How anti-obesity drugs could make us wealthier: “An average female obese woman earns around 10 percent less than a normal-weight woman in the States. Just taking that, imagine we cut obesity levels in the US to Scandinavian levels going from 40 percent of the population to 20 percent of the population. Assuming that that then increases salaries for those who will get out of obesity by 10 percent. That translates more or less into a two percent increase in US GDP.”
- Can AI run Medicaid?
- To save Social Security: Instead of more taxes for the rich, cut their benefit payments.
- Key to a happy life: marriage matters more than career. This is the opposite of what most young people think. (NYT)
- Why is Medicare charging researchers large fees to access its data?
- Are clubhouses the solution to serious mental illness?
Nearly Half of Americans Know Someone Who Died of an Overdose
More than 100,000 Americans die every year from a drug overdose in the United States. In the 12-month period ended in September 2023, 111,380 Americans had died. As recently as 2015 the number of Americans overdosing was less than half of recent figures, although that’s no small number either. Overdose deaths had risen to about 70,000 just prior to the covid pandemic. Covid appears to be a catalyst that spurred more drug use, resulting in the number of deaths skyrocketing.
Friday Links
- Coming to the market soon: noninvasive, AI-powered brain decoders that can translate into text the unspoken thoughts swirling through our minds.
- Another argument that FDA approval for new drugs should depend on safety alone, not efficacy.
- The US Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has a 10-year backlog of claims.
- “…the student loan program, as currently written, is looking to be one of the most costly, inefficient and unwise government programs of the 21st century.”
- More than half of all rural hospitals no longer deliver babies.