- Right-of-center opponents of dropping the A bomb on Japan include Herbert Hoover and Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
- After Portland decriminalized small amounts of illicit drugs, it got …. more drug use! (NYT)
- The judge, on the Biden administration’s censorship of Covid info: It was “arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” (WSJ)
- What Trump did on price transparency and why it matters.
- From Australia to Zimbabwe, governments are raiding each other’s health systems in a worldwide hunt for medical workers. (WSJ)
Category: Health Economics & Costs
Should You Own Your Cells if They’re Valuable?
Imagine you own a plot of land under which oil is found. Whether or not you have a right to a share of the wealth is determined by whether you own the mineral rights. Suppose you own a field and one day you discover a previous owner buried their life savings on the property 160 years ago. This year the owner of a cornfield in Kentucky found more than 700 gold coins dated between 1840 and 1863 buried on his land. Does he own those coins? Generally, unless there was some compelling evidence that the original owner was the government or it was used in a crime.
How about if your doctor was treating you for cancer and discovered an interesting phenomenon in your cancer cells?
Wednesday Links
- Age-adjusted deaths from cold are ten times greater than deaths from heat.
- The first Generalist Medical AI system is out.
- Nate Silver on left-wing bias in the media.
- Is there anything wrong with having AI romantic partners? Apparently, yes.
- During the Covid pandemic, some hospital ICUs were overloaded, while neighboring hospitals had excess capacity. Worst victims of the lack of market clearing mechanisms: Medicaid enrollees and Blacks.
Are Asylums the Answer for Mentally Ill Homeless?
The homeless population is reaching epic proportions in high-cost cities and is glowing in places where homelessness was never as prevalent. Although the reasons are many, the homeless are poor, often have uncontrolled substance abuse disorders or suffer from mental illness. Often the homeless have all the above. High rents exacerbate the above problems.
On an average night, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, close to 600,000 people in the country will be homeless—a figure seen by many as an undercount. More than 40% will be “unsheltered,” or “living in places not suitable for human habitation,” and about 20% will be dealing with severe mental illness.