I met a doctor years ago who told me he didn’t like to eat in restaurants due to fears of catching foodborne pathogens. He worked in a community health setting and frequently treated food service workers with infectious diseases. He thought too many of his food service patients were fairly lackadaisical about taking their medications and too often worked when they should call-in sick. Apparently he was on to something. A new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found one of the causes of foodborne outbreaks at restaurants are food service workers handling food while they are ill.
Category: Health Insurance
Friday Links
- University of North Carolina rejects woke education for medical students.
- Kotlikoff: the debt deal overlooks the real federal debt.
- Reuters exposes wastes of Climate Change funds.
- The health consequences of being a vegan.
- The only effect of greater access to student loans: more money for universities.
- Effect of a public option in Minnesota: losses for providers, but little effect on the number of people with health insurance.
Fraud Alert: Unsolicited Covid Tests Sent to Seniors, Bill to Medicare
When Covid first began to spread it was difficult for patients to obtain Covid tests without going to an emergency room. When tests first became widely available there were drive-through testing centers with lines that snaked for blocks. When my wife began to feel ill in January of 2021, I made her an appointment for a Covid test at a Walmart Neighborhood Market pharmacy. The soonest appointment available was eight days away. We pulled up to the drive-through window and a pharmacy technician gave us the sealed swab and instructed my wife how to use it. My wife sealed it in the appropriate bag and deposited it in an adjacent laboratory collection box outside the drive-through. The results were relayed to us by phone a day or two later.
Monday Links
- Are therapists becoming social justice warriors?
- Some NY lawmakers want to make organ transplants available to illegal immigrants, while citizens stay on waiting lists. (NYT)
- Illinois offers free health care to some illegal immigrants. Spending already balloons to $1.1 billion – five times the initial projection.
- Mass bill: prisoners would get reduced sentences for donating their organs or bone marrow to other patients.