Wednesday Links – 19 August 2026

Medicare Advantage plans give enrollees an average of $2,660 per member  for benefits not available from traditional Medicare.

Study: Nearly one-third of all women ages 20 to 44 will have heart disease in 2050, up from one-fourth today. 

Study: More than half of patients with metastatic lung cancer don’t receive life-extending treatments.

A 2012 randomized controlled trial sponsored by the federal government found that children assigned to Head Start showed transient improvements in language and literacy during preschool. But “these early effects rapidly dissipated in elementary school,” the study found, and participants performed no better academically by third grade.

The French lilac, a garden plant that was used to treat diabetes for centuries became the blueprint for metformin.