A new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that auto accidents rose in states that legalized recreational marijuana. Car crashes with injuries jumped 6% while fatal auto accidents increased 4%. Comparison states that did not legalize recreational marijuana saw no increase in these types of accidents. The states that legalized recreational marijuana examined in the study were California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. The comparison states where cannabis is not legal were Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Category: Health Insurance
Wednesday Links
- How an economist thinks about abortion. Well, at least one economist.
- Why is Google investing in health care?
- Is developing Covid vaccines a profitable venture for drug companies? “The answer is a resounding ‘no’. In fact, in most cases, developing mRNA vaccines for a portfolio of emerging diseases would be a money loser.”
- How common is prior authorization?
- Price controls on insulin: The (intended?) result will that be that consumers will pay more, diabetes complications will get worse, and incumbent manufacturers will make more money.
- Almost a quarter of Americans over the age of 18 are now medicated for one or more of these conditions. (HT: Tyler)
- Canada’s health care providers say their system is “collapsing.”
Drug Maker Applies to Sell The Pill Over the Counter without a Prescription
According to the New York Times the US Food and Drug Administration has received an application by a drug company to switch a prescription birth control pill to over-the-counter status. A Paris-based company, HRA Pharma asked the FDA to make its pill legal to sell without a prescription. That move is controversial, not just because of the recent Supreme Court ruling on Roe v Wade. Another pill manufacturer, Cadence Health, is also preparing to submit an application to switch its pill to OTC as well.
Monday Links
- 7 Monkeypox questions answered. It doesn’t look good for sexually active gay men, and vaccine production is at a trickle.
- California is going to make its own insulin.
- Mini “Build Back Better” bill to cost $1 trillion. “It’s better than nothing,” said one progressive.
- Study: giving people money doesn’t make them better off. “The data are most consistent with the notion that receiving some but not enough money made participants’ needs—and the gap between their resources and needs—more salient, which in turn generated feelings of distress.”
- Biden’s Executive Order on Abortion: “Nothing in his executive order will fundamentally change the everyday lives of poor women in a red state,” Georgetown University health law professor Lawrence Gostin told Vox.
- David Henderson: Abortion in Canada is rationed by waiting.