- Large randomized controlled trial (RCT) backs up traditional economic theory of minimum wage laws: fewer people are hired and there are fewer hours worked.
- RTC for guaranteed basic income: recipients worked less — household income decreased by 20 cents for every dollar they received.
- RCT providing $1,000 a month to homeless people: reduction in homelessness was not much different from the control group.
- Best explanation I have seen for why Imane Khelif of Algeria should not have been in women’s Olympic boxing.
- AAF pans the FTC report on PBMs.
- The new ability to conduct surgeries remotely with robots could be a boon to patients who live in under-doctored areas.
Category: Saturday Links
Saturday Links
- Manhattan Institute: Let private insurers negotiate drug prices instead of the government.
- Bipartisan PBM reform: “The bill would bar PBMs from steering, force sharing of nearly all rebates on prescriptions with health plans, allow patients to get their drugs from any in-network pharmacy, prevent overcharging patients above the reimbursement rate to the pharmacy, prohibit “spread pricing” where PBMs pocket the difference between what they tell the health plan a drug costs and what they reimburse the pharmacy, and much more.”
- When should the public be alerted to possible side effects from vaccines?
- Five of the 10 happiest countries are Nordic countries.
- UnitedHealth Group now employs or is affiliated with 10% of all physicians in the U.S. (STAT)
- Bird Flu: Right now, everyone getting sick works with animals; but given more time to circulate, the virus may get better at spreading human-to-human, which could result in a global wave of H5N1 infections.
Saturday Links
- The number of active drug shortages in the U.S. is 300, down from an all-time high of 323. But nothing to cheer about.
- Microsoft global outage forces health systems to cancel appointments, delay procedures.
- Everything to know about the theory of language.
- OpenAI’s GPT-4o scored 98 percent on some of the most challenging parts of the US Medical Licensing Examination.
- Happiness seems to increase with the log of absolute income, so going from $50k to $100k has a much larger impact than going from $250k to $300k.
- How the Biden administration interprets “march-in” rights: New guidance explicitly states that the government could march in and seize the patents underlying any product officials think is overpriced, in fields from AI to aeronautics. Recommended.