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

Financial Engineering’s Impact on Hospitals and Healthcare Delivery

This is a smaller version of a larger article in The Atlantic. I believe I have captured all of the issues needing to be presented. A hospital’s delivery of healthcare is more than just profit-taking to which the big firms invest their money. It requires steady, predictable resourcing that prioritizes local wellness over aggressive quarterly […]

September JOLTS report shows continued deceleration in all trends – except layoffs

September JOLTS report shows continued deceleration in all trends – except layoffs  – by New Deal democrat All of the major metrics in last month’s JOLTS report for August improved, most slightly, but the decelerating trend continued. In this morning’s report for September, that trend continued, as most of the metrics improved or declined very […]

Medical Debt Is Killing Patients who Deny Costly Healthcare

Emergency Physician and Pennsylvania state representative Arvind Venkat, MD has a detail story to tell about the impact of healthcare upon patients who can not afford the insurance, or are under insured, and opt to deny healthcare. And most can not afford the payments resulting from Medical Debt. This is a good plan and the […]

Coronavirus update through October 30, 2023

Coronavirus update through October 30, 2023  – by New Deal democrat No important economic news today, but it’s been a while since I took a look at the COVID-19 data, and there is an interesting trend, so let’s have at it! But first, some bad news. The most reliable data for infections for the past […]

HPV vaccine FTW!

Vaccination is one of the great triumphs of humanity over infectious disease. Smallpox was such a plague that George Washington mandated inoculation for all Continental soldiers in 1777. Prior to the polio vaccine, most Americans knew a friend or relative who contracted polio; today, it’s virtually unheard of, just like mumps and whooping cough. The […]

New Way for Consumers to Access Sanofi’s Lantus Diabetes Prescriptions for $35

What is occurring in this announcement is GoodRx working or negotiating with Sanofi to reduce out-of-pocket costs to consumers for Sanofi’s Lantus, a treatment for diabetes. The out of pocket costs will be capped at $35.00. Great cost relief news for people who are not on Medicare, etc. More of the GoodRx announcement below. GoodRx […]

‘$23 Billion Up for Grabs’

Just got done exchanging a couple of emails with Steve about Suzanne’s and his latest commentary about the growing privatization of the VA. Looks like the VA is farming out more of the veteran’s care to contractors which will come at a much higher cost. Outsourcing to for-profit entities is not a good practice. We […]

Employer Healthcare Benefits Annual Survey 2023 Summary of Findings

This is a portion (1 of 6 observations) of a much longer Employer Healthcare Benefits article which would have been impossible to feature in entirety at AB. If I did so, much of it would probably go unread. I was interested in how much concern employees have about company healthcare insurance costs. In particular, I […]

One Tenth of a Mg makes a big difference in a drug price and it has no clinical consequence

Interesting story about a pharma company taking an old drug finding a new usage for it at a particular dosage, filing a patent for the treatment at the specified dosage, and potentially blocking treatment of the disorder at a milligram higher dosage. Drug stores will not fill a prescription at a higher dosage if it […]

Blame and Consequences

There are good reasons to want to know the cause of an accident, a fire, – or even a crime; finding out the cause of – the reason for – something undesirable happening could help prevent a recurrence. For instance, to ensure safety and avoid accidents, property owners in Florida are required to conduct and […]