- To deal with misleading ads in the Medicare Advantage open enrollment period, CMS has tried every possible remedy except the obvious one: let doctors advise their own patients about the choices.
- Inequality in life expectancy: “the least-educated Americans have seen their death rates surge in a way that more-educated Americans have not.
- A Trump executive order requires giving consumers full pricing information for medications. It looks like the courts are going to force the Biden administration to enforce that rule.
- Covid vaccine mandates are back – in red state Texas!
- Food stamp spending has doubled in the last four years.
- David Friedman wonders if he can escape death.
Category: Thursday Links
Thursday Links
- Cosco is offering virtual checkups for $29. Third party insurance not accepted.
- Headline: Pharma would lose loyal ally if Menendez leaves Senate. If he is so loyal, why didn’t he stop the IRA bill?
- Frequently wrong, New York Times covid reporter Apoorva Mandavilli will lecture at Harvard (alongside former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot).
- The more governments intervene to protect workers, the more unemployment there is.
- Why hospital consolidation is hurting patients and what can be done about it.
Thursday Links
- Who pays higher prices for medical care: commercial insurer’s or self-insured employer plans?
- Pharma’s case against PBMs.
- Roughly a quarter of children live in a one-parent home, more than in any other country. (NYT) Charles Murray made the same points a decade before the Gray Lady discovered the problem.
- Only about one in five Americans think abortion should be allowed after the state of pregnancy in which the fetus is viable outside the womb (about 23 or 24 weeks).
Thursday Links
- CIA whistle blower: the agency bribed analysts to cover up the covid lab leak.
- Do you know the difference between “bagging” vs “buy and bill”? You may be spending too much for prescription drugs if you don’t.
- Panel: Sudafed doesn’t work. I happen to know it does.
- Opioid penetration map – county by county data. (WP)
- Why did the Surgeon General’s report on loneliness ignore the pen pal remedy?
- A new Human Rights Watch report: “Children in the US can be legally married in 41 states, physically punished by school administrators in 47 states, sentenced to life without parole in 22 states, and work in hazardous agriculture conditions in all 50 states.”
- Generic drugs save consumers $338 billion every year.