- Can medical expenses be crowdfunded?
- Study of treatment facilities for adolescents with opioid use disorder: nearly 40 percent had no beds immediately available or offered a waitlist, with a mean wait time of 28.4 days. Only 57 percent accepted Medicaid. We are becoming more like Canada every day.
- David Frieman on historical “facts” you have probably heard about (and even seen depicted in movies) that are actually myths. Fun reading.
- The Geothermal energy solution: “There’s 41 times more heat energy in the earth’s crust than that of all known petroleum and nuclear fuel reserves. What’s more, the energy of that sun beneath our feet is carbon-free and potentially available all day, every day.”
- More on abolishing the FDA.
Category: Medicare
Wednesday Links
- Hospital patients do better if they brush their teeth.
- Florida’s plan to import drugs from Canada is limited to state employees. It does not apply to the uninsured or to those with private coverage.
- Google cofounder Larry Page once accused Tesla CEO Elon Musk of being a “specieist,” who preferred humans over future digital life forms.
- More on whether AI will take over and kill all the humans.
- More evidence that bureaucracy is no substitute for real markets: “There was no evidence of a differential change in thirty-day mortality among all Medicare beneficiaries with targeted conditions at high-proportion Black hospitals versus other hospitals seven years after the implementation of the [Value Based Purchasing] Program.”
The Corporate Practice of Medicine and a Physician Cartel is a Bad Combination for Patients
Physician licensure has created a cartel. There I said it and I said it out loud. The right to practice medicine has high barriers to entry, both in terms of high standards and high costs. It takes 7-to-11 years beyond college to train a new physician, but it really begins long before medical school.
Does Medicare Underpay Physicians? Yes, No and Sometimes
There is a shortage of physicians in the United States. There is especially a shortage of primary care physicians willing to treat Medicare enrollees. People nearing the age of Medicare eligibility are often advised to begin searching for a primary care physician who accepts Medicare a year ahead of time.
Data published in 2020 by the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that the U.S. could see a shortage of 54,100 to 139,000 physicians by 2033. That shortfall is expected to span both primary- and specialty-care fields.