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

Open Thread October 5, 2023 – 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers Strike

Wednesday (October 4, 2023) found more than 75,000 union employees of Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health providers, walked off the job, marking the largest health care worker strike in US history. Kaiser Permanente unionized health care workers go on strike across dozens of locations, cnn.com, Samantha Delouya. Open Thread – NPs and […]

In an age of negative partisanship, the best reason to support the Democratic Party is . . . the Republican Party

I think Democrats were probably right to refuse to bail out McCarthy.  The main reason is that this will likely prolong the current shitshow being staged by the House Republicans, which will help Democrats in 2024 by reminding voters just how crazy and exhausting the Republicans are.  The Republicans can’t do this often enough. The […]

Medicare’s Discretion to Say No to Unproven Therapies, Medical Devices, and Equipment

If it is not Medicare Advantage plans over-charges tapping into Medicare funds designated for the care of seniors, it is the commercial healthcare companies such as pharma this time and again. The political influence these companies wield with legislators and probably SCOTUS justices (later as companies sue and quickly levitate to a SCOTUS hearing) who […]

August JOLTS report: a pause in deceleration, but the trend remains intact

August JOLTS report: a pause in deceleration, but the trend remains intact  – by New Deal democrat Last month I concluded my post on the July JOLTS report’s sharp declines by noting that “None of these statistics move in a straight line, so it would be a mistake to project this report’s relatively big moves […]

Women in Science

You know that Hungarian woman who shared this year’s Nobel in Physiology or Medicine? She struggled to get and keep an academic career. Eventually, she was pushed out of her lab at Penn. “That morning at the lab, Karikó’s old boss had come to see her off. She did not tell him what a terrible […]

Manufacturing and construction have the most positive reports all year

Manufacturing and construction have the most positive reports all year  – by New Deal democrat As usual, the monthly data starts out with reports on the two most important production sectors of the economy, namely manufacturing (for September) and construction (for August). For a change, the news was mainly positive. Let’s start with manufacturing. The […]

Part 2 of Saving Rural Hospitals – Problems and Solutions for Rural Hospitals

I broke this report into two parts as it becomes harder to complete reading when each of us has other obligations. CHQPR or the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform is a national policy center facilitating improvements in healthcare payment and delivery systems. As explained earlier in Part 1, rural hospitals are facing issues […]

F-35 Maintenance Costs

$42,000 per flight hour that’s 7 switchblade drones per hour. It raises the question of whether the F35 would be cost effective if we got the planes for free (not $80,000,000 each ). Currently F35s manage on average 11.2 flight hours per critical failure (I got that one partly from memory and partly from googling […]