- Landmark 15-year transgender study: Around one-in-10 children expressed “gender non-contentedness” to varying degrees. But by age 25, just one-in-25 (4 percent) said they “often” or “sometimes” were discontent with their gender.
- Illegal immigrants are leaving hospitals with billions in unpaid hospital bills.
- Was your operation performed by a doctor? Or by a medical student in training? And how do you really know?
- Only half of all adults are married. And that’s not good, because “Marriage predicts happiness better than education, work and money.” (NYT)
- NEJM in the 1930s: “When it did address Nazi ‘medical’ practices, the Journal enthusiastically praised German forced sterilization and the restrictive alcohol policies of the Hitler Youth.”
- More on why the 2017 tax cut was a good idea.
Category: Health Economics & Costs
Oregon Recriminalizes Small Amounts of Hard Drugs, Admitting Decriminalization Failed
Measure 110 never worked well from the start. Last July I wrote state officials, advocates for drug reform laws and Oregon residents are left wondering whether Measure 110 needs small reforms, is merely experiencing growing pains or should be scrapped altogether. Also, one has to wonder if the tax revenue supporting treatment centers was supposed to mitigate the increase in drug use by making drug use less risky.
Friday Links
- Do you know what a “walkaway death” is?
- Headline I wish I hadn’t seen:
One of the Heritage Foundation’s telehealth policy recommendations for a 2025 GOP president stands at stark odds with policies advocated by telehealth stakeholders and included in GOP-backed telehealth aimed at cementing Medicare telehealth permanency.
- Heritage, of course is right. See Mandate for Leadership (2025) Pages 483 and 488.
- How California uses Medicaid to rip you off. It taxes providers, then gives the money back as Medicaid funding and draws federal matching money in the process. (WSJ)
- NYT (for the first time, I think) allows its lead editorial to advocate the buying and selling of kidneys. (NYT)
- Glasses matter: Garment workers, artisans and tailors in Bangladesh who were provided with free reading glasses experienced a 33 percent increase in income compared to those who were not given glasses.
- More on Glasses: For nearly a billion people in the developing world, reading glasses are a luxury that many cannot afford. (NYT)
Thursday Links
- The latest on Fentanyl deaths.
- “Using published data from the Netherlands and Belgium, where medically assisted death is legal, we estimated that…Medical assistance in dying could reduce annual health care spending across Canada by between $34.7 million and $138.8 million, exceeding the $1.5–$14.8 million in direct costs associated with its implementation.”
- Why are we still funding the WHO?
- Why we need “right to try”: family had to travel to Italy for life saving drug for their daughter that the FDA was slow to approve in the US.
- More than half of eligible physicians received a payment from a pharmaceutical drug or device maker over 10 years.