- Why don’t we have more human challenge trials for vaccines and other new drugs?
- Study: Minimum wage increases do not reduce poverty.
- Why does Medicare require a three-day hospital stay before it will pay for a skilled nursing facility transfer? Medicare Advantage plans don’t require this.
- Has the US ever defaulted on its debt before? Yes, three times.
- More than 20% of Medicaid enrollees no longer meet the criteria for program eligibility. States have not conducted redeterminations of Medicaid enrollees’ eligibility in more than three years.
- US Surgeon General: loneliness is as dangerous as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.
- Medical researchers: Don’t skip breakfast. Even a cup of coffee can have a positive effect. (NYT)
Category: News and Events
Surgeon General: Devastating Impact of the Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation
The U.S. Surgeon General is afraid you don’t hangout enough with friends. Seriously, in the Information Age when people have never been more connected, he believes loneliness a public health crisis. Calling it an epidemic of loneliness, the Surgeon General’s report spans 81 pages including references.
Wednesday Links
- “Longer life with no greater proportion lived in good health equals more years in poor health—statistically, for the population at large.” Interesting throughout, with implications for research and public policy priorities.
- Obesity drugs could save Medicare $100 billion a year.
- 40% of privately insured patients receive no preventive care, despite the ACA mandate for free coverage.
- David Henderson grades the US on how far we have come toward achieving Karl Marx’s ten public policy goals.
- Monopoly matters: “in states in which the market share of the dominant health insurer exceeded 71 percent…[that] payer, on average, paid 14.7 percent less to hospitals than market-leading insurers in more competitive insurance markets.”
White House Ends Vaccine Mandates for Federal workers
Actually, the mandates don’t actually end until “May 11, the same day that the COVID-19 public health emergency ends.”
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity comments:
It was clear by late 2021 that the vaccines had no meaningful effect on transmission, and that prior infection was at least as protective as vaccination. These mandates have been pure drama ever since, and the United States is among the last countries in the world to still impose them. They backfired in many ways-making many millions of Americans suspicious of Big Brother orders requiring the shots.