Tag Archives: Hot Topics

I took this article and broke it into different parts. If it does not make sense, blame me and not the Insider author. This is a different topic but along the lines of student loans which Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice has been fighting. Republicans support these companies. Democrats are pushing back. Fomer students are holding the five and six digit debt. And no one has fixed the damn problem allowing OPMs to do this. DeJa’Vu just like the...

New and improved initial claims! Now including comparison to Sahm Rule  – by New Deal democrat I’m making an important addition to my weekly blurb on jobless claims this week: I’m showing how it compares with and leads the Sahm Rule. Just in case you’re not familiar with the Sahm Rule, it is a rule of thumb started by economist Claudia Sahm, stating that the economy is in a recession when the 3 month average of the unemployment rate rises...

Kip Sullivan sent this article to me a while back and it was posted. I am starting to see more activity on Value-based-care as an alternative to Fee For Service. The question arises as to how does one measure value received from the care under this regime. It is difficult to measure the value and what value found can not justify value-based care. A quick introduction to the topic of this article. Hence a repost of this article and one other...

New Deal democrat has been doing JOLTS reports for a long time. Some of you may understand what NDd is discussing and some may not. Just a quick one liner to help you understand why this is important. JOLTS is a monthly survey of U.S. job vacancies, hiring, and job separations released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. April JOLTS report noisily shows continued deceleration  – by New Deal democrat It is...

What looked like it could be catastrophic for the nation, its people, and its economy, the results coming from a so-called too old eighty-year old man negotiating the US budget appears to be far better than expected. And far better than what Repubs are offering up. Now it is up to the House to put the budget on the floor for a vote. McCarthy has done what little he could do. The radicals have to pass it or take the blame for global economic...

I agree with the author’s reasoning for domestic supply manufacturing. I have battled the issues with pharma, medical supply, and also food manufacturing. Batches are problematic as well as the USDA and FDA labeling requirements. You wait for approvals. As of August 2019, 28 percent of the manufacturing facilities producing active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs – drug substances formulated into tablets, capsules, and injections) to supply the...

House prices may have bottomed, while YoY price increases (leading inflation) have declined to lower than their 25-year average  – by New Deal democrat Seasonally adjusted house prices through March as measured by both the FHFA (light blue in the graphs below) and Case Shiller (dark blue) Indexes rose, the former by 0.7% and the latter by 0.2%. This is the second straight increase in a row, and suggests that house prices may have bottomed:...

I read through this short report on Laboratory Benefit Managers which included commentary on Pharmacy Benefit Managers. My overall opinion is they are middlemen and as such they add cost to the delivery of healthcare. The explanation does provide insight. The Time is Now for Laboratory Benefit Management, Managed Heathcare Executive, April 2022. PBMs Explained We have Pharmacy Benefit Managers (Pharmacist Society of the State of New York)...

As taken from an earlier post on a woman’ healthcare. There are quite a few issues which can arise while a woman gives birth which I detailed in the 2019 post. Having good healthcare insurance is a big factor in having safe deliveries before, during, and after a birth. The first line of this section was healthcare for women and maternal mortality is an important indicator of a nation’s overall quality of healthcare. If a person has healthcare...

April report for real personal income and spending adds to the evidence that a cyclical peak might ultimately be dated to January  – by New Deal democrat As I’ve repeated for the past several months, at present the report on personal income and spending is co-equal to the employment report as the most important monthly data. And for the second month in a row, the results were very mixed. And also, like yesterday, revisions played a big role,...