- Placebos seem to work even when patients know they are taking a placebo. HT: Tyler
- Sen. Blackburn tweets on the Goodman/Gossage WSJ editorial.
- Amy Finkelstein, et. al. find that Jeff Brenner’s “hot spots” experiment in Camden, New Jersey can’t be duplicated.
- House Republican health care legislation gets a few things right.
- AI discovers a new structural class of antibiotics. HT: Tyler
- An AI pendant worn around your neck grades you on your interactions with others and tells you how to improve.
Category: Health Reform
Why People Have a Negative View of the Economy
- Real average hourly earnings are down 2.5 percent since Election Day 2020 and real median usual weekly earnings are down 3.2 percent. That latter compares with an 8.0 percent gain over the previous four years.
- Today it takes nearly 60 percent of a median family’s income to cover a mortgage on a median-priced home. The standard historically has been around 30 percent.
The Dark Side of Telemedicine
I love telemedicine. I have long been an advocate of being able to talk to your doctor on the phone when you have a health complaint. The alternative is often driving across town and waiting in a crowded waiting room with other sick people. I have long believed the natural progression of telemedicine would be (or at least should be) people buying Bluetooth devices that check vital signs and connect seamlessly to your doctor’s computer to make telemedicine even more robust. This would help your doctor know even more about your medical complaint than listening to you on a cellphone or seeing you through a grainy video feed.
Medicare Pays Too Much for Drugs that are Available OTC
I have often said that over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are the best deal in health care. Most care is self-care. At least initially, most of the time when Americans have a health complaint they reach for an OTC drug rather than visiting their doctors. Self-care with OTC drugs only represents about 1% of national health expenditures. When…