- More on what happens when the global population starts shrinking.
- Are we eating too much meat?
- By a 2003 act of Congress, the government’s contribution to Medicare from general revenues is never supped to exceed 45% of the program’s cost. So why has this law never been enforced?
- “Research suggests the [weight loss] medications may pay for themselves or even save money in the long run, by preventing heart attacks and strokes that lead to huge hospital bills.” Yet health plans around the country are dropping coverage. (NYT)
Category: Monday Links
Monday Links
- “The expected value of any net impact assessment of any large-scale social program is zero.” Recommended.
- Most or all of health care spending by people with health insurance would occur even under an indemnity policy – allowing them to take cash instead of care.
- Why don’t people buy their health insurance and their life insurance from the same firm?
- 81 countries have fertility rates below the population replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman of child bearing age.
- From 1975 to 2019, there was a 58% reduction in breast cancer mortality: 25% due to screening and 75% due to treatment.
Monday Links
- How political gridlock could kill the best global health program the US ever passed.
- The cost of Semaglutide, a medication used for treating type 2 diabetes and obesity, can range from $800 to $1,000 per month, on average. Since roughly 35% of Medicare patients are overweight or obese, Medicare spending is poised to go up by more than 17% overnight and stay at that level for a long time to come.
- The airlines lose 2 million bags a year.
- Fauci: no science behind the 6 ft distancing guideline.
- $5 trillion was spent on covid relief. The real increase in the federal debt was $5.8 trillion.
Monday Links
- FDA approves Florida plan to import drugs from Canada.
- Nearly 53,000 more people died in the UK last year above the normal rate of mortal attrition. These excess deaths coincided with 38 days of strikes by doctors.
- Given low price inflation, why is unemployment so low? Because the Phillips Curve is based on wage inflation, not price inflation.
- What could kill the Schumer/McConnell/Johnson budget deal? A “poison pill” AKA an “abortion pill.”