Category: Interesting Links

The Wall of Shame: It’s a government Web page that lists nearly 300 hospitals, doctors and insurance companies that have reported significant breaches of medical privacy in the last couple of years.

Investors at Risk: each 1% change in the stock index, either up or down, resulted in a nearly 2% increase in cardiac deaths.

From January 1 to April 30, 1900, not a single death from smallpox was reported. This is an example of a largely successful public health program: in the Philippines, under US martial law. HT to Tyler Cowen.

The Cleveland Clinic will close nine community hospitals. “The [new] federal health care law … as well as changing demographics and a lessening dependence on hospitals, are converging into a death knell for longstanding health institutions.”

Pfizer is conducting a drug trial in which patients participate from their homes using computers and smartphones rather than visiting a clinic. This could greatly reduce the cost of clinical trials.

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Donald J. Boudreaux: “The evidence shows that Americans are increasingly less likely to be killed in severe weather, and I’ll wager $10,000 that this will continue.”

Megan McArdle: We cannot pay for Social Security’s shortfall by rescinding the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget makes the same point.

Does a seismologist have a duty to warn others of a pending earthquake? If he doesn’t, has he committed manslaughter?

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Medical Device Makers Turn to Europe Over Concerns with FDA Process.

Where your taxes go: Gardening Tips From Uncle Sam

About half (51%) of adults surveyed report a personal connection with Medicaid: they receive benefits themselves or have a friend or family member who does.

Nearly a third of emergency departments closed over the last two decades, while ER patient visits increased 35% during the same period.

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Keith Hennessey: Everything you ever wanted to know about Medicare summarized on one page.

Trickle down stimulus: “We estimate the Act created/saved 450 thousand government-sector jobs and destroyed/forestalled one million private sector jobs.” (H/T: Arnold Kling via Tyler Cowen)

Alternative medical treatments rarely work, but the placebo effect they induce sometimes does. (H/T to Michael Ramlet)

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