Syphilis infections are soaring in the United States. Once thought to be nearly eradicated, it’s making a huge comeback.
Category: Health Economics & Costs
Monday Links
- More on what happens when the global population starts shrinking.
- Are we eating too much meat?
- By a 2003 act of Congress, the government’s contribution to Medicare from general revenues is never supped to exceed 45% of the program’s cost. So why has this law never been enforced?
- “Research suggests the [weight loss] medications may pay for themselves or even save money in the long run, by preventing heart attacks and strokes that lead to huge hospital bills.” Yet health plans around the country are dropping coverage. (NYT)
Saturday Links
- Despite President Biden’s commitment to being the most pro-union president in history and despite Secretary of Labor Julie Su’s calm that 2023 was a “banner year for labor actions and unions,” the share of US workers who actually belong to a union is shrinking – and has been shrinking for decades.
- How Covid lockdowns affected learning: a decrease in average scores for eighth graders, losing nearly half of the gains made in the previous 30 years.
- The government’s mandatory health care spending now exceeds its entire discretionary budget.
- Women aged 18 to 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male contemporaries. This is also true internationally.
- FREOPP reviews Modernizing Medicare.
Rural Hospitals are Suffering, as are Their Patients
The medical news website, Kaiser Health News ran an article about a rural hospital in Oklahoma suing its patients over unpaid bills. This is now an old, familiar story in health care. Hospitals, including nonprofit organizations, sometimes sue patients for delinquent medical debts. Obamacare was supposed to do away with medical debt but many people still have cost-sharing they cannot afford.