According to the NYT, Elon Musk plans to start putting brain implants in humans. No doubt this is to counter the implants that Bill Gates has been putting into people via the Covid vaccines.
Category Archives: health care
The problem with deductibles
From the NYT: “The Affordable Care Act was supposed to improve access to health insurance, and it did. It reduced the number of Americans who were uninsured through the Medicaid expansion and the creation of the health insurance marketplaces. Unfortunately, it has not done enough to protect people from rising out-of-pocket expenses in the form of deductibles, co-pays and co-insurance.
“Out-of-pocket expenses exist for a reason; people are less likely to spend their own money than an insurance company’s money, and these expenses are supposed to make patients stop and think before they get needless care. But this moral-hazard argument assumes that patients are rational consumers, and it assumes that cost-sharing in the form of deductibles and co-pays makes them better shoppers. Research shows this is not the case. Instead, extra costs result in patients not seeking any care, even if they need it.
“Cost-sharing isn’t set up in a thoughtful way such that it might steer people away from inefficient care toward efficient care. Deductibles are, frankly, ridiculous. The use of deductibles assumes that all medical spending is the same and that the system should disincentivize all of it, starting over each Jan. 1. There is no valid argument for why that should be. Flu season peaks in the winter. We were in an Omicron surge at the beginning of this year. Making that the time when people are most discouraged from getting care doesn’t make sense.
“Co-pays and co-insurance aren’t much better. They treat all patients the same, and they assume that all patients should be treated the same way. …
“The purpose of insurance is to protect people from financial ruin if they face unexpected medical expenses. Reducing the amount that they need to pay from six figures to five is necessary, but not sufficient. It’s not enough to give people insurance. That insurance must also be comprehensive.”
What personal responsibility really looks like
Standing up for your belief in personal responsibility means being willing to bear the consequences. Otherwise it?s just cheap talk.
PSA
This is old but important and I’m posting it here so that I know where to find it.
Experts offer advice for protecting yourself from tick bites and what to do if you are bitten.
Who wants to live to 150?
This comes amid a rising trend of biohacking, or using trendy, age-defying practices to lengthen a lifespan. Biohackers have tried everything from fasting to injecting themselves with untested herp?
A silver lining?
Mask wearing, social distancing and other steps to stop COVID-19 have also curtailed influenza
Obamacare holding up during pandemic
Vaccine purgatory
The period after a vaccine is approved will be strange and confusing, as certain groups of people get vaccinated but others have to wait.
The case for Bidencare
Paul Krugman in the NYT: “But while Biden is indeed proposing incremental change rather than Medicare for All, we’re talking about some big increments. Independent estimates suggest that under Biden’s plan, 15 million to 20 million Americans would gain health insurance. And premiums would fall sharply, especially for middle-class families. …
“None of this [Biden’s proposals] amounts to revolutionary change — in contrast to Trump’s efforts to kill Obamacare, which would drastically change American health care, for the worse. But Bidencare would still be, as Biden didn’t quite say when President Barack Obama signed the A.C.A. into law, a pretty big deal.
“True, America would still fall somewhat short of achieving what every other advanced country has — universal health care. But we’d get a lot closer, and many who currently have insurance coverage would see their costs fall and the quality of coverage improve.”
The Swedish approach to Corvid-19 revisited
From the NYT: “Normalcy has never been more contentious than in Sweden. Almost alone in the Western world, the Swedes refused to impose a coronavirus lockdown last spring, as the country’s leading health officials argued that limited restrictions were sufficient and would better protect against economic collapse.
“It was an approach that transformed Sweden into an unlikely ideological lightning rod. Many scientists blamed it for a spike in deaths, even as many libertarians critical of lockdowns portrayed Sweden as a model. During a recent Senate hearing in Washington, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the leading U.S. infectious disease specialist, and Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, angrily clashed over Sweden.
“For their part, the Swedes admit to making some mistakes, particularly in nursing homes, where the death toll was staggering. Indeed, comparative analyses show that Sweden’s death rate at the height of the pandemic in the spring far surpassed the rates in neighboring countries and was more protracted. (Others point out that Sweden’s overall death rate is comparable to that of the United States.)
“Now, though, the question is whether the country’s current low caseload, compared with sharp increases elsewhere, shows that it has found a sustainable balance, something that all Western countries are seeking eight months into the pandemic — or whether the recent numbers are just a temporary aberration.”