Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

September Update: COVID Death Rates By Partisan Lean & Vaccination Rate

September Update: “COVID Death Rates by Partisan Lean & Vaccination Rate”| ACA Signups, Charles Gaba As always, here’s my (Charles Gaba) methodology: County-level 2020 Population data via U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 Census County-level 2020 Trump vote data via each state’s Election Commission or Secretary of State websites County-level Case & Death data via Johns Hopkins University Center […]

What News was in My In-Box

Healthcare and Politics are the heavy hitters tonight. I always feel like I missed something. Feel free to add articles to this in comments. I have a post to complete on the costs and prices on Pharma. You know there is a difference. Politicians usually talk about one or the other. A while back Germany […]

Coronavirus dashboard for September 19: no, the pandemic is *not* over

Coronavirus dashboard for September 19: no, the pandemic is *not* over  – by New Deal democrat Contrary to the statement by President Biden last night, the coronavirus pandemic is *not* over. First, here’s the long term look at infectious particles in wastewater by Biobot, compared with confirmed cases: Levels of COVID in wastewater continue to […]

Declining US Citizen’s Life Expectancy

Lifted from notes by One handed economist David Zetland comes with this reminder about US life expectancy dropping. David goes further and gives the reasons for decreasing Life Expectancy. America, my increasingly ex-country, has lower life expectancy than 21 “peer” countries. This decline being due to a combination of death from Covid, cars, guns, and lifestyle. […]

How much would it cost to eliminate US Poverty ? Why don’t we ?

First the US poverty gap is on the order of $180 billion per year. That is the sum over all households with income under the poverty line of the amount that household’s income is below the poverty line. That is a small amount of money compared to US GDP or even US Federal Government spending. […]

What News was in My In-Box

A lot of informational news deposited in my In-Box this week. Nothing this week is taken from anywhere else. I think last week, I included one news article from the outside. Political, Economic, Healthcare news are my mainstays. The usual economics and business news coming from different sources. Yes, inflation is still an issue. I […]

Why is the Signify Health Acquisition Such A Big Deal?

“CVS beats out Amazon for Signify Health” (axios.com), Sarah Pringle Why does was CVS battling Amazon for a rinky-dink company like this matter? Hmmm, think back to “Value-Based Payment. It is the New For-Profit Health Care Industry” and all of the healthcare providers being acquired by insurers. There is also an involuntary push going on […]

ARP Medicaid Postpartum Coverage Expansion

I believe it was 2019 when I was asked to write on women’s healthcare issues. I was not asked because I was an expert. They were asking me because they wanted a male’s perspective on women’s healthcare issues. In particular, the topic was maternal healthcare and mortality. “A Woman’s Right to Safe Healthcare Outcomes” – […]

Value-Based Payment Is the New For-Profit Health Care Industry

Before I get started on the main text of Kip’s expert article, I wish to point out something which is happening nationally. There is a plan afoot of forcing people into Value-Based Payment plans from traditional Medicare. The players include Iora Health (subsidiary of One Medical), Privia, General Catalyst, agilon health, Caravan Health, Signify (CVS […]

Coronavirus dashboard for September 7: the slow ebbing on the way to endemicity continues

“Coronavirus dashboard for September 7: the slow ebbing on the way to endemicity continues” I promised a COVID update, so I suppose I ought to follow through. Let’s start today with a graph of South Africa’s cases and deaths for the past year: South Africa is where BA.1 and BA.4&5 originated. You can see the […]