When we warn the real threat of AI is how it’s used against people in the present, not the fantasies that some day computers might think for themselves, this is exactly the kind of thing we’re talking about: health insurers using AI to deny care.
"Moderna is quadrupling the cost of covid vaccines, from $26/dose to $110-130. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel calls the price hike "consistent with the value" of the mRNA vaccines. Moderna's manufacturing costs are $2.85/dose, for a 4,460% markup on every dose...
What will Moderna do with the billions it reaps through price-gouging? It won't be research. To date, the company has spent >20% of its covid windfall profits on stock buybacks and dividends, manipulating its stock price, with more to come...
It's not an outlier. Big Pharma is a machine for commercializing publicly funded research and then laundering the profits with financial engineering. The largest pharma companies each spend more on stock buybacks than research."
We called the rural Idaho in-laws last night. Knowing they subsist on a diet of Fox "News," we alerted them to the present COVID surge and requested that they take due precautions.
Their reply? "Well, we don't think there's much of that going around here. Usually, when cases are high, the medical staff wear masks, and we haven't seen that."
I quickly popped up the wastewater data from their county on my phone and saw a precipitous incline on the graph.
"The wastewater data in your area shows a surge," I said. "Please be careful."
When we hung up, their comment about masks stuck in my mind. They look to medical personnel for signals about the state of the pandemic. Employee masking at their doctors' offices provides a visual cue that prompts them to resume precautionary behavior. Absent the masking signal, they feel safe.
To me, this anecdote sums up why masking should be required in all medical environments. Aside from the obvious benefits of deterring the transmission of COVID (and other airborne viruses), the public looks to the medical community for behavioral guidance.
"At Bumble, the women-centered dating app that calls Austin home, executives say that about one third of their 150 Texas employees have left the state entirely, opting for remote work...The reason: It’s not just hard to keep talented employees in Austin in a post-Roe world, where doctors might not perform even medically necessary abortions for fear of reprisal, it’s also hard to attract them to Texas in the first place."
Here's the final section of a letter to the FT from Brendan Kelly (Professor of Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin) makes a crucial point...
While there is no doubting the problems of mental health, to treat all aspects of these personal travails as illness is to focus too much on the individual and allow our toxic society & workplaces to escape their share of the blame.
#Insurance Executives Refused to Pay for the #Cancer Treatment That Could Have Saved Him.
This Is How They Did It.
A #Michigan law requires coverage of cancer drugs. One insurer came up with a “defensible” way to avoid paying for treatments that offered Forrest VanPatten his last chance for survival.
#Idaho Banned #Abortion. Then It Turned Down Supports for Pregnancies and Births.
Since the #SupremeCourt overturned Roe v. Wade last year, the state’s GOP-led Legislature has disbanded a maternal mortality committee, failed to expand postpartum #Medicaid coverage and turned down federal grants for child care.
"RIP's model turns debt collection on its head: Normally, debt collectors buy unpaid bills to then try to collect the owed funds. RIP identifies unpaid hospital bills owed by people making up to four times the federal poverty level, then buys that debt on secondary markets or directly from hospitals at a small fraction of the original value. Instead of trying to collect, RIP forgives it — so it simply disappears for the patients who owe."
@ProPublica reporters will be tracking this hashtag and following up with information on how you can request the internal notes and audio surrounding the claim.
British people, I cannot explain adequately what absolute hell the American healthcare system is. You know how people say: "at least in the US, you can get fast treatment. At least in the US, you can choose your doctor. At least in the US, you can get the most innovative treatment"?
Lies. All of it.
The US healthcare system excels at one thing only, and that's bankrupting people.
wife tested positive for covid. It's bad. Online Doc refused to prescribe #Paxlovid citing she's <50yrs. Said LongCovid isn't real and pretty much gaslit the thing.
PCP offices are closed.
CVS w/o prescription requires labwork that we don't have handy.
It's insane that teeth, eyes, and ears were left out of regular health insurance in America. Support the Medicare and Medicaid Dental, Vision, and Hearing Benefit Act