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

Five Reasons for Congress to Protect the 340B Program

This is one article I have found which openly supports the 340B program and establishes the reasons for a need of the program. Hospitals located in areas of low income citizens and uninsured patients are more likely to make use of this program than those in more affluent areas. Efforts disparaging this program because of […]

A little-known federal contractor is a big player in privatizing government services

We are again discussing people on Medicaid who may not know they have to reenroll. The largest unknowing segment of that population are those over 65 years of age. This is a combination of several different articles on the Medicaid Disenrollment occurring today. Private business again taking advantage of the lack of knowledge of people […]

Conflicts of Interest on Company Prescription Plans

This is interesting. Companies, large companies, and public institutions hire consulting firms to research drug coverage for their employees. This is what companies and institutions do, get the experts to come in, use their expertise and knowledge of the process or the market, to get the best efficiencies or deals at lower costs. The way […]

RFK, Jr, race and COVID-19

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, the notional Democratic presidential candidate, made himself even more foolish than he already was recently by speculating that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was engineered to protect people of Chinese and Jewish descent. Setting aside the fact that there is zero evidence that the virus was engineered and most evidence points to an […]

Considering Alternatives to Patent Monopoly Financing of Drug Development

There is more to this story than just making technology open to the public so others can manufacturer it. Think about what is being said here. The manufacture of face masks went overseas. When many were needed, foreign manufacture could not keep up and the prices were ridiculous. We are in a situation of whether […]

Not All Non Profit Hospitals Deserve Tax Exemption Status

This is the third or forth I have seen concerning Non-Profit hospitals. The issue being whether a Nonprofit hospital provide enough nonprofitable care to be considered nonprofit which entitles them to tax exemptions. As the authors discuss, some for-profit hospitals provide greater nonprofit care. Read on and I am sure there will be more to […]

Some Healthcare Detail on costs, smoke, and morphine.

Three healthcare issues that are relevant to today. Things we should be talking about. If you remember Merrill Gooz had a chart up showing healthcare costs have been around 17%. For more than a decade, CMS and CBO consistently overestimated the growth in health care spending, which undermines efforts to spend more on health-related social […]

Profit Motive Isn’t Working in Healthcare

Or with contract doctors . . . ER Dr. Ming Lin is calling attention to the increasing influence of large corporations in the practice of medicine and its detrimental effects on physicians and healthcare workers. What we have is one employee facing down a healthcare corporation. The chances of an employee winning are minimal unless […]

US: Nonprofit Hospitals Chase Low-Income Patients on Debts

This is more of an introduction to the Human Right Watch Org and the review of healthcare in the United States. The topic is no surprise as we have touched upon this in earlier commentaries. In this short piece they are finding private nonprofit hospitals are not so nonprofit. Indeed, they are skimping on healthcare […]