A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week: Biden’s new China doctrine, a jailed ex-president won’t go quietly in South Africa (8:44), and carbon border taxes (14:32).
Tag Archives: Reviews
Journal Views: ‘Science Magazine’ – July 16, 2021
Views: Is U.S. Healthcare System Broken? (Harvard)
Here’s a question that’s been on my mind and perhaps yours: Is the US healthcare system expensive, complicated, dysfunctional, or broken? The simple answer is yes to all.
Below are 10 of the most convincing arguments I’ve heard that our system needs a major overhaul. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Remember, an entire industry has evolved in the US just to help people navigate the maddeningly complex task of choosing a health insurance plan.
The cost is enormous
- High cost, not highest quality. Despite spending far more on healthcare than other high-income nations, the US scores poorly on many key health measures, including life expectancy, preventable hospital admissions, suicide, and maternal mortality. And for all that expense, satisfaction with the current healthcare system is relatively low in the US.
- Financial burden. High costs combined with high numbers of underinsured or uninsured means many people risk bankruptcy if they develop a serious illness. Prices vary widely, and it’s nearly impossible to compare the quality or cost of your healthcare options — or even to know how big a bill to expect. And even when you ask lots of questions ahead of time and stick with recommended doctors in your health insurance network, you may still wind up getting a surprise bill. My neighbor did after knee surgery: even though the hospital and his surgeon were in his insurance network, the anesthesiologist was not.
Access is uneven
- Health insurance tied to employment. During World War II, healthcare was offered as a way to attract workers since employers had few other options. Few people had private insurance then, but now a layoff can jeopardize your access to healthcare.
- Healthcare disparities. The current US healthcare system has a cruel tendency to delay or deny high-quality care to those who are most in need of it but can least afford its high cost. This contributes to avoidable healthcare disparities for people of color and other disadvantaged groups.
- Health insurers may discourage care to hold down costs. Many health insurance companies restrict expensive medications, tests, and other services by declining coverage until forms are filled out to justify the service to the insurer. True, this can prevent unnecessary expense to the healthcare system — and to the insurance company. Yet it also discourages care deemed appropriate by your physician.
Stock Trading: The Rise Of Robinhood (WSJ Video)
The twists and turns of the online brokerage’s path to a public offering The brokerage app Robinhood has transformed retail trading. WSJ explains its rise amidst a series of legal investigations and regulatory challenges as it looks forward to its IPO. Photo illustration: Jacob Reynolds/WSJ
Science: Heat Waves In U.S. Impacting Minorities, Graphene Layers, Twitter
Why heat waves disproportionately impact minorities in US cities, and the researcher that critiqued his whole career on Twitter.
In this episode:
00:45 How heat waves kill unequally
Researchers are beginning to unpick how historic discrimination in city planning is making the recent heat waves in North America more deadly for some than others.
News Feature: Racism is magnifying the deadly impact of rising city heat
11:59 Research Highlights
A graphene layer can protect paintings from age, and a new and endangered species of ‘fairy lantern’.
Research Highlight: A graphene cloak keeps artworks’ colours ageles
Research Highlight: Newfound ‘fairy lantern’ could soon be snuffed out forever
14:25 Self-criticism
When researcher Nick Holmes decided to criticise his past papers, in 57 tweets, he found the reflection enlightening. Now he’s encouraging other researchers to self-criticise, to help speed scientific progress.
World View: I critiqued my past papers on social media — here’s what I learnt
20:53 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, Richard Branson’s commercial space flight, and the Maori perspective on Antarctic conservation.
The Washington Post: Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic crew are safely back from space, ushering in a new era
The New York Times: The Maori Vision of Antarctica’s Future (intermittent paywall)
Preview: ‘The New York Times Book Review – 125 Years Of Literary History’
ABOUT THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
From the longest-running, most influential book review in America, here is its best, funniest, strangest, and most memorable coverage over the past 125 years.
Since its first issue on October 10, 1896, The New York Times Book Review has brought the world of ideas to the reading public. It is the publication where authors have been made, and where readers first encountered the classics that have enriched their lives.
Now the editors have curated the Book Review’s dynamic 125-year history, which is essentially the story of modern American letters. Brimming with remarkable reportage and photography, this beautiful book collects interesting reviews, never-before-heard anecdotes about famous writers, and spicy letter exchanges. Here are the first takes on novels we now consider masterpieces, including a long-forgotten pan of Anne of Green Gables and a rave of Mrs. Dalloway, along with reviews and essays by Langston Hughes, Eudora Welty, James Baldwin, Nora Ephron, and more.
With scores of stunning vintage photographs, many of them sourced from the Times’s own archive, readers will discover how literary tastes have shifted through the years—and how the Book Review’s coverage has shaped so much of what we read today.
Reviews: Top Luxury Speed Boats For 2022 (Video)
It’s time we took a break from open highways and enjoyed open seas instead. In this episode we will explore the world of extremely overpowered speed boats and magnificent luxury yachts, that just like supercars defy any limits in performance and opulence. So as always let’s put on our finest home garments and enjoy window shopping of the most anticipated yachts in 2022.
Employment: Do Hiring Incentives Work? (WSJ)
Low-wage work is in high demand, and employers are now competing for applicants, offering incentives ranging from sign-on bonuses to free food. But with many still unemployed, are these offers working? Photo: Bloomberg
Books: ‘Revolutionary World – Global Upheaval In The Modern Age’ (LSE)
Telemedicine: Growth Rate Peaked In April 2020, Stabilized During 2021
A year ago, we estimated that up to $250 billion of US healthcare spend could potentially be shifted to virtual or virtually enabled care. Approaching this potential level of virtual health is not a foregone conclusion. It would likely require sustained consumer and clinician adoption and accelerated redesign of care pathways to incorporate virtual modalities.
- Telehealth utilization has stabilized at levels 38X higher than before the pandemic. After an initial spike to more than 32 percent of office and outpatient visits occurring via telehealth in April 2020, utilization levels have largely stabilized, ranging from 13 to 17 percent across all specialties.2 This utilization reflects more than two-thirds of what we anticipated as visits that could be virtualized.3
- Similarly, consumer and provider attitudes toward telehealth have improved since the pre-COVID-19 era. Perceptions and usage have dropped slightly since the peak in spring 2020. Some barriers—such as perceptions of technology security—remain to be addressed to sustain consumer and provider virtual health adoption, and models are likely to evolve to optimize hybrid virtual and in-person care delivery.
- Some regulatory changes that facilitated expanded use of telehealth have been made permanent, for example, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ expansion of reimbursable telehealth codes for the 2021 physician fee schedule. But uncertainty still exists as to the fate of other services that may lose their waiver status when the public health emergency ends.
- Investment in virtual care and digital health more broadly has skyrocketed, fueling further innovation, with 3X the level of venture capitalist digital health investment in 2020 than it had in 2017.4
- Virtual healthcare models and business models are evolving and proliferating, moving from purely “virtual urgent care” to a range of services enabling longitudinal virtual care, integration of telehealth with other virtual health solutions, and hybrid virtual/in-person care models, with the potential to improve consumer experience/convenience, access, outcomes, and affordability.
Boomers Daily 