- The chronically ill have trouble paying their bills.
- Survey: 43 percent in the 19-30 age group has used cannabis 20 or more times over the previous year.
- How to earn $139,000 a year as a nurse.
- What a black hole sounds like.
- 40% of US births are out of wedlock. But internationally we are in the middle of the pack. In Iceland it is 71%.
Category: News and Events
Virology Labs Are dangerous
The FDA used to have a laboratory located at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. In 2014, they moved it to consolidate with other FDA facilities nearby. Because these are reasonably careful and conscientious people, they conducted a formal clean-up before they moved, and during that process they found 327 vials of unclaimed samples of viruses “inside cardboard boxes stored in the back left corner of an FDA laboratory’s cold storage room.” Six of them contained smallpox, one contained Russian spring-summer viral encephalitis (the subject of previous lab accidents), and nine had labels that couldn’t be read.
When Hospitals Misquote Prices They’re Not Held Accountable
I often write about how the U.S. health care industry is predicated on maximizing revenue against third party payers, primarily employer plans. Health insurers negotiate prices with providers but about half of people in private health insurance are covered by self-insured employer plans. That means an insurer is often managing the plan but not taking on any risk. Some benefits brokers have told me insurers frequently profit off third-party claims due to spread pricing. That is, charging the employer plan slightly more for a procedure than what the insurer paid the provider. That is problematic because the party negotiating the prices (insurers) profits every time they spend (someone else’s) money. That is not a very strong incentive to hold prices down, or steer enrollees to the cheapest options.
Wednesday Links
- A congressional bill to codify Roe: abortion rights groups can’t stand it.
- Life expectancy declined in every state in 2020.
- State with the longest life expectancy: Hawaii.
- Sometimes it’s better to forget your health insurance and pay cash.
- Electric shock therapy that seems to work.
- More on the idea that if you grow up poor it pays to have rich friends.
- WSJ editors slam Fauci.