Category: Interesting Links
Jun 16, 2010 | 4 comments | by John Goodman
Trust Explained, No Fight to Cut Costs, and Boys Outnumber Girls in Math Skills
Trust explained: It’s caused by a brain hormone known as oxytocin. Distrust is caused by testosterone.
Larry Summers vindicated: At the far right tail of the math test distribution, boys outnumber girls 4 to 1. They also outnumber girls on the left (moron) tail, however; and girls outnumber boys on verbal skills.
Jun 11, 2010 | 11 comments | by John Goodman
Nurses Plan Walkout, Fatal Medication Errors Spike in July, and Medical Debts to Be Expunged from Credit Reports?
July is the month when the new residents arrive at the teaching hospitals: Fatal medication errors spike by 10 percent in counties with a high number of teaching hospitals, but stay the same in areas without teaching hospitals.
Two new studies: Hospital readmission rates are from 14% to 29% lower for enrollees in Medicare Advantage plans. These are the plans that are going to lose 7½ million members to traditional Medicare because of health reform.
Hospital doing gene research will inform patients about what they discover. This is considered a controversial break with traditional protocol.
Bills: Credit reports would have to expunge medical debts. If they are paid or settled, that is.
Jun 11, 2010 | 5 comments | by John Goodman
Teen Behavior Explained, the TV Diet, and Online Abortions?
Study: Teenagers are hardwired to engage in risky behavior.
If Americans ate only foods advertised on TV, they would consume 25 times the recommended amount of sugar and 20 times the amount of fat they need. But less than half the dairy, fiber and fruits and vegetables.
1 in 12 patients with sleep disorders report having had sex while they were asleep.
Jun 10, 2010 | 8 comments | by John Goodman
Christ Conventions, Therapeutic Deception, and Insulin Pills for Diabetics
What do you do with delusional patients who all believe they are Jesus Christ? Make them confront each other in an asylum.
Is autism caused by fertility treatments? Probably not.
Should therapists “recover” memories of abuse or trauma? No.
Nicer than needles: Insulin pills for diabetes are moving ahead in clinical trials.
Jun 07, 2010 | 5 comments | by Devon Herrick
Majority of Americans Take a Drug for Depression, Hospital Readmissions on the Rise, and How Acupuncture Works
Americans prefer drugs to talk therapy for depression. Nearly 80 percent take a pill for the condition.
Hospitals stays are shorter, but readmissions are higher and the net cost may be higher as well.
How acupuncture works: It increases levels of the compound adenosine.
Jun 04, 2010 | 8 comments | by John Goodman
Debt-Related Stress on the Rise, Children in Medicaid Receive Fewer Screenings, and Alzheimer’s Prevention
46 percent of Americans are suffering from debt-related stress. 53 percent say they feel little or no stress at all.
More than three of every four children on Medicaid in nine states did not receive one or more of the recommended medical, vision or hearing screenings in 2007, according to a study by the HHS inspector general.
Jun 03, 2010 | 5 comments | by John Goodman
Latest Discoveries about ObamaCare
Rasmussen: The sentiment for repealing ObamaCare is now two-to-one, with 63% of likely voters in favor of repeal and 32% opposed.
Towers Watson: “Health care reform’s…”Cadillac plan” excise tax will affect more than 60% of large employers’ active health plans by the provision’s 2018 effective date.”
Can the IRS administer ObamaCare? Only 64% of taxpayers who called the IRS during last year’s tax-filing season reached an IRS representative.
ObamaCare’s requirement that businesses file 1099s with any other business with which it spends $600 or more in the course of a year may cause the number of tax forms to double from the 1,833,000,000 to nearly 4 billion.
Jun 03, 2010 | 4 comments | by Greg Scandlen
Effects of ObamaCare
Jun 03, 2010 | 5 comments | by John Goodman
Small Business Tax Credit “Bait and Switch,” When Angry Passengers Spit, and How Doctors Care for Themselves
AP: Businessman discovers how to qualify for small business health insurance tax credit: Fire employees and slash wages.
Fifty-one New York City bus drivers went on paid leave after being spit upon, taking an average 64 days off work. One driver spent 191 days on paid leave.
Wild birds prefer nonorganic to organic birdseed. Nitrogen fertilizer ups the protein, which helps birds survive the winter.
40% of male physicians are overweight, and 23% are obese, compared with 43% and 23% of U.S. men 60 and older. Doctors are more likely to drink alcohol, but they are less likely to binge.
May 27, 2010 | 6 comments | by John Goodman
