Big Pharma has become a familiar whipping boy in the debate over healthcare costs. CAR-T therapies to treat certain cancers, for example, can cost between half a million and a million dollars for a single treatment course. What’s the prospect of a cancer cure worth to you? GLP-1 receptor agonists like semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and […]
As I posted yesterday, Medicare Advantage, which now covers more than half of the Medicare-eligible population, is a rip-off for taxpayers and for policy holders. Apparently, this is finally sinking in for hospitals and health systems across the country: “In 2023, Becker’s began reporting on hospitals and health systems nationwide that dropped some or all […]
It should come as no surprise to regular AB readers that the US for-profit healthcare system is a disaster for everyone except the executives and stock-holders. Here’s yet another confirmation: “A report out Thursday shows that the United States’ for-profit healthcare system still ranks dead last among peer nations on key metrics, including access to […]
Endless online vitriol has been spilt promoting the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic was somehow either (a) an engineered pathogen or (b) a virus that escaped from a research facility. While those allegations served the interests of the Trump Administration, the actual, you know, scientific data supporting them was non-existant. Now, years later, the sorts […]
Kevin Drum has a short piece on the recent surge in auto insurance rates. He doesn’t offer any explanation in his post, but the comment thread has suggestions: • a combination of increase in bad driving and lack of enforcement; • fender benders are much more costly since all the self-driving gear as well as […]
From everything I’ve read, Medicare Advantage is just as scam. By the time my Lovely And Talented Wife® retired and shifted to Medicare two years ago, she took the regular Medicare. This July when I retired, I followed suit. Turns out, a growing number of hospitals and health systems nationwide have dropped some or all […]
About 15 years ago, we replaced our electric stove and range, which was breaking, with a gas stove and range. I prefer cooking on gas. In addition to the oven and cooktop, we had a gas furnace, water heater and clothes dryer. To be fair, >80% of the electricity in Missouri at the time was […]
Farming is a risky business. Always has been. A federal program to keep farmers in business during droughts seems like a good idea to me. Sadly, it’s also a target for fraud: “On a normal day, the promising storms produced snow or rain that would fall onto a system of official weather stations at airstrips […]
I just finished reading “America for Americans: A history of xenophobia in the United States” by Erika Lee. It is an unsparing analysis of the way xenophobia is woven into the fabric of American law and culture. When you read “America for Americans,” does it conjure an image of native Americans asserting their rights to […]
Trump is promising mass deportations if he’s elected. He claims this will create jobs and economic growth. We’ve been here before. “In the 1930s, state and local governments deported 400,000 to 500,000 people of Mexican descent, promising to create jobs for Americans during the Great Depression. What actually happened? The employment of native-born Americans dropped […]