In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court in June 2022 reversed the court’s previous 1973 Roe v Wade decision, and 20 related cases, wiping out a half century of constitutional protections for women’s reproductive rights.  In Dobbs, the court found the Constitution now excludes a woman’s control over her body as well as the possible continuation of her life.  Compelled pregnancy, involuntary childbirth and forced parenthood is not, the court ruled, an essential part of the “liberty” protected under the 14th amendment - or presumably even the freedom of “invol ..read more

Over the past 12 years this podcast has discussed increasing corporate dominance of healthcare delivery, made evident in part by the fact the healthcare market is highly concentrated and highly leveraged, e.g., over the past decade private equity has spent roughly $1 trillion to acquire physician practices.  The corporate practice of medicine (CPOM) is problematic because allowing for corporate medicine can compromise a physicians’ independence and/or creates a conflict between physicians’ ethical duty to their patients and corporate interests in maximizing profits.  While states hav ..read more

Research published last month in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences by Prof. Abraham and his colleagues once again show ocean temperatures, more specifically ocean heat content (OHC), once again dramatically increased in 2023.  (As I noted last year, many believe OHC is the best way of measuring anthropocentric warming because it is comparatively less variable on a year-to-year basis.)  Oceans, that cover over 70% of the earth’s surface, absorb roughly 90% of the sun’s heat trapped by an increasing Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) due to our continuing inability to meaningfully curb our gr ..read more

In his soon-to-be-published book, Dr. Chaudhary argues the climate crisis or the Anthropocene era is the political product of rightwing climate realism - what he terms the “Rex Tillerson Position.”  Listeners should be aware politics, not technology or economics, explains why the US continues to emit an enormous amount of CO2e pollution. (The US healthcare industry contributes approximately 550 MT CO2e annually or roughly 9% of the nation’s total.) The politics of functional climate denialism, or the belief business-as-usual can mitigate global warming, has resulted in economic, ecologica ..read more

Sepsis presents an enormous public health threat. There are for approximately 1.7 million hospital cases and 270,000 deaths per year. Sepsis is consistently in the top five for hospital case volumes and is the most expensive and resource intensive medical inpatient condition, representing approximately 15% of total hospital costs despite accounting for less than 4% of hospital stays.  Various studies estimate sepsis is present in 30% to 50% of hospitalizations that culminate in death.  Because two-thirds of sepsis cases are paid for by Medicare, beginning this January 1, HHS will add ..read more

According to the non-profit Mapping Police Violence, since 2013 when experts first starting tracking police shootings, last year was the deadliest year on record with 1,176 law enforcement gun deaths, or more than three people per day and nearly 100 per month.  In 2022 Blacks were three three times more likely to be killed by police than Whites.  However in, for example, MPLS and Chicago, Black shooting deaths were respectively 28 and 25 times more likely than White.   In her recently published book by Viking Press, Prof. Schwartz explains how the corruption of the 4th amen ..read more

US healthcare emits a massive amount of carbon pollution at approximately 600 million tons annually or roughly 9% of total US greenhouse gasses.  Because of the rapid increase in climate crisis-related harms projected economic losses worldwide over the next few years are estimated in the trillions.  Consequently, the US is beginning to follow Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, Switzerland and the UK in mandating GHG emission and climate-risk disclosures.  Most noteworthy, in April 2022 the Security Exchange Commissions (SEC) issued a proposed rule, anticipated to go final this month ..read more

US healthcare spending is extreme currently at approximately $4.3 trillion.  The single largest payer of healthcare services is Medicare at roughly $900 billion annually or 21% of total healthcare spending.   In this edited volume, recently published by Johns Hopkins University Press, Dr. Moffit along with eleven other contributors including Joe Antos, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Brian Miller, Mark Pauly and Gail Wilensky, lay out the conservative version of Medicare reform.  In sum, the authors argue federal policymakers reinvent Medicare as a defined contribution or premium supp ..read more

Over the past several decades healthcare has increasingly defined patients as medical consumers.  For example, healthcare advertising is today a $22 billion annual business; federal policymakers have over the past few years instituted regulations requiring both hospitals and commercial health plans to make pricing information public; and, provider quality performance information is increasingly publicly reported.   The question begged is to what extent have efforts to define patients as medical care consumers been successful - or even legitimate.  In “Remaking the American Patie ..read more

Professors Albritton Jonsson and Wennerlind’s recently published book, “Scarcity” by Harvard University Press, offers interpretations of a key concept in economic theory: scarcity, or the belief we live in a world of limited resources and therefore must master the natural world to meet desired needs.   The authors state, “the book does not offer a critique of the usefulness of the neoclassical concept of scarcity, instead, the problem we highlight is that it has been far too successful,” that is “by promoting optimal use of resources and maximum economic growth, it has fostered a wor ..read more