- The chronically ill have trouble paying their bills.
- Survey: 43 percent in the 19-30 age group has used cannabis 20 or more times over the previous year.
- How to earn $139,000 a year as a nurse.
- What a black hole sounds like.
- 40% of US births are out of wedlock. But internationally we are in the middle of the pack. In Iceland it is 71%.
Category: Health Insurance
Virology Labs Are dangerous
The FDA used to have a laboratory located at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. In 2014, they moved it to consolidate with other FDA facilities nearby. Because these are reasonably careful and conscientious people, they conducted a formal clean-up before they moved, and during that process they found 327 vials of unclaimed samples of viruses “inside cardboard boxes stored in the back left corner of an FDA laboratory’s cold storage room.” Six of them contained smallpox, one contained Russian spring-summer viral encephalitis (the subject of previous lab accidents), and nine had labels that couldn’t be read.
When Hospitals Misquote Prices They’re Not Held Accountable
I often write about how the U.S. health care industry is predicated on maximizing revenue against third party payers, primarily employer plans. Health insurers negotiate prices with providers but about half of people in private health insurance are covered by self-insured employer plans. That means an insurer is often managing the plan but not taking on any risk. Some benefits brokers have told me insurers frequently profit off third-party claims due to spread pricing. That is, charging the employer plan slightly more for a procedure than what the insurer paid the provider. That is problematic because the party negotiating the prices (insurers) profits every time they spend (someone else’s) money. That is not a very strong incentive to hold prices down, or steer enrollees to the cheapest options.
Nearly Half of Cancer Deaths Could be Avoided
Many people worry about cancer in their lifetimes. Mutual of Omaha has even sent my wife and me applications for ‘cancer insurance’ on two separate occasions so cancer is undoubtedly something many Americans fear. A new study suggests there is something better that Americans could do to protect themselves from cancer than enroll in Obamacare or buy Mutual of Omaha’s cancer insurance. Americans who want to avoid cancer can lead healthier lifestyles: don’t smoke, limit drinking and avoid being overweight.
Globally, nearly half of deaths due to cancer can be attributable to preventable risk factors, including the three leading risks of: smoking, drinking too much alcohol or having a high body mass index, a new paper suggests.
The research, published Thursday in the journal The Lancet, finds that 44.4% of all cancer deaths and 42% of healthy years lost could be attributable to preventable risk factors in 2019.
The research was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation.