- The physician shortage in our future.
- About one in five enrollees were disenrolled from Medicaid coverage at some point in 2023, but about 3/4ths of those either re-enrolled or found other insurance. Bottom line: the pandemic was an excuse to waste a lot of taxpayer money.
- Biden finally ends Covid mask mandate (imposed for federal facilities whenever a meaningless CDC metric is exceeded in a county).
- Why we don’t walk as much as we used to and why it matters.
- Against the idea that over-prescribing caused the opioid crisis.
Category: Health Reform
Accelerated Approval Benefits Patients with Some Caveats
Nowadays more than four-in-five drugs granted accelerated approval are oncology drugs (85%). How well is it working? That depends. The program to grant patients early access to promising new drugs does just that: it is used a lot. Since it began in 1992, 290 drugs have been approved through the accelerated program. That works out to more than nine a year, on average, or nearly one a month. By any measure that accelerated access to new drugs.
Tuesday Links
- Tax Day remembrance: The top rate was once 91%. The corporate rate was 52%. The capital gains rate was 25%. The tax on top estates was 77%. But the tax take was only 16% of national income.
- Why is there a shortage of Adderall?
- How the DEA is creating drug shortages.
- Missile defense: Beginning in the Reagan administration and right up through the GW Bush administration, many experts and many more nonexperts claimed it couldn’t work. “You can’t hit a bullet with a bullet,” was a popular catchphrase. But on Sunday, that is exactly what US/Israeli defense forces did – with incredibly accurate precision.
Psychiatrist: The FDA Should Approve Sales of OTC Antidepressants
Why should antidepressants be switched from Rx to OTC? Because there is a severe shortage of mental health professionals. Access to mental health specialists and therapists is difficult for many people. Most therapists don’t accept insurance and psychiatrists are booked out far in advance.