Tag Archives: Healthcare

Lambert at Naked Capitalism has an interesting article up as taken from KHN entitled “I Write About America’s Absurd Health Care System. Then I Got Caught Up in It” as detailed by Bram Sable-Smith. As taken from the KHN article, Bram describes the beginnings of his dilemma of getting Insulin: “I’d been waiting since September for an appointment with an endocrinologist in St. Louis; the doctor’s office couldn’t get me in until Dec. 23 and...

With seasonality over, it is clear that Omicron is responsible for increased layoffs With seasonality behind us, it is apparent that Omicron has resulted in increased layoffs. New claims declined 30,000 last week to 260,000 – still well above its pandemic low of 188,000 set early in December. The 4 week average of new claims increased 15,000 to 247,000: Continuing claims for jobless benefits rose for the second week in a row, by...

Coronavirus dashboard: Omicron has peaked; now what?, New Deal Democrat  – by New Deal democratLet’s start out with the good, or at least less catastrophic news: it’s almost certain that the Omicron wave has peaked in the US. In fact, the only Census region it is still up week over week is in the Midwest: In almost all of the areas hit hard early – Puerto Rico, and the NYC and DC metro areas – cases are down sharply since peaking....

“Biden Administration (CMS) Says No to Premiums in Medicaid,” Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, Joan Aker Georgia, Arkansas, and Montana recently had their 1115 Medicaid waiver requests denied. All three states were asking they be allowed to charge premiums to low income adults on Medicaid. A Section 1115 demonstration is intended to test new approaches promoting the objectives of Medicaid.  The Biden Administration’s painstaking...

This podcast came to me by way of Kip Sullivan, the expert on Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage. We have had a running dialogue for about a year now. Most recently, Angry Bear featured Kip’s PNHP Single Payer Healthcare Financing Series detailing why healthcare is expensive in the US. I have put up numerous posts on healthcare, Medicare, Medicare Advantage. This podcast by Kip and Ralph Nader gets into the take over of Traditional...

Today the conservative majority of Supreme Court Justices decided that federal vaccine mandates are unconstitutional, that states rights and employer rights are more important than the public’s welfare in this time of pandemic. It is likely that their decision will result in the unnecessary death of as many as 250,000 Americans. Let it be on their heads. Let history show for all times that these 250,000 unnecessary deaths are upon the heads of...

The United States is currently recording over 700,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day and the number is rising rapidly.  Fortunately, vaccines are quite effective at preventing severe disease, and Pfizer’s anti-viral drug, Paxlovid is remarkably effective at preventing death and severe illness from Covid-19.  However, only 265,000 courses of Paxlovid are expected by the end of January, and Paxlovid needs to be taken early in the course of illness...

Coronavirus dashboard for January 11: good news and bad news With no new economic releases today, let me give you a brief update on the fast-moving Omicron wave.First, the good news: as I pointed out yesterday, several States that were hit hardest first by Omicron look like they are hitting or have already hit peak: This is an increase from just several days ago. In fact, right now the only early hit State that has not peaked is Hawaii...

Coronavirus dashboard for January 10: how “mild” Omicron is depends upon how much you lag the data So, how “mild” or not, is Omicron? It depends on whether you lag the data on hospitalizations and deaths or not.The original story out of South Africa was that Omicron was extremely mild. Despite a huge spike in infections, deaths barely budged. As Omicron took hold in Europe and the US, South Africa disappeared from the picture.  Which is too...

It was this year; a question arose on the distribution of Covid tests to the states and why shouldn’t some states receive more tests than others. The question referenced Florida as one of those states. The question was put to Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary. I admire Jen for the job she does as there is no mincing of words or delays in her responses to the adversarial reporters in the mix. Her answer was (my memory), the tests are...