- Suicide, anxiety, and depression numbers are rising among teens. Is social media the problem? Observation: “Every child uses social media but not every child has a mental health problem.”
- Are children the victims of Medicaid expansion?
- Several studies have linked Medicaid expansion to longer wait times for appointments, slower ambulance response times, and greater delays in the emergency room.
- The bipartisan tax deal increases both marriage bonuses and marriage penalties.
- CBO: Budget deficits will average $2.0 trillion per year – or 5.7 percent of GDP – over the next decade.
- How can a silk patch replace a hypodermic needle?
Category: Health Insurance
Saturday Links
- The top 1% now pay almost half of all federal income taxes – the highest in history.
- Why isn’t UV light everywhere?
- Bad news on alcohol: binge drinking affects microbe in your gut and makes you crave alcohol even more.
- More bad news on drinking and the microbiome. (NYT: gated)
- Trump tax cuts: the rich are now paying more than ever.
- Can recessions be good for our health?
Friday Links
- Over half the new jobs in January’s report are in government or health care.
- Smoking is worse than you’ve been told. Long lasting effects after you quit.
- What happens when doctors become hospital employees? Medicare patients’ use of non-hospital sources for chemotherapy declined by 14% from 2015 to 2021, and chemotherapy performed in hospitals increased by 21%. More than half of Medicare chemotherapy patients now receive their treatments in hospitals, where the prices are higher.
- How health insurance eats into wages. Premiums for a family made up about 8% of employees’ compensation in 1988. If they stayed at that level for the next 32 years, a typical family would have earned an additional $8,774 in 2019. The cumulative value of lost earnings tops $125,000.
NIH Spends $189 Million to Study What We Should Eat
The NIH is spending $189 million on a landmark study to precisely determine what you and I should eat. The study involves 10,000 volunteers, who will spend weeks and months recording their diets. According to the Wall Street Journal, 500 study participants will live in scientific facilities where they can be intensely monitored. The 500 will be tethered to blood glucose monitors and other measures to determine how each diet affects them.