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Expert: NC better positioned than other states to respond to pandemic (WRAL)
The slow growth in coronavirus cases in North Carolina relative to New York and some other states puts North Carolina in better position to respond to the pandemic, according to a Duke University professor. Economist Mark McClellan, the director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, was U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner during the…

Medicare Drug Coverage Is Often Inadequate—Here’s Why
Your father’s rheumatoid arthritis medicine was working well, fighting off that otherwise debilitating illness. Then he found out that Medicare would no longer pay for the drug. Your aunt’s multiple sclerosis was flaring and her neurologist recommended a promising new treatment. But she learned that she would have to try, and “fail,” on two other…

Medicare Pays More Money To Doctors Taking Care Of Rich Patients. Here’s Why.
It has always been financially rewarding for doctors to take care of rich patients. People with more money…well, they have more money to spend on healthcare. But shouldn’t this more money/higher payment relationship go away in Medicare? It doesn’t, and some recent payment reforms may be making matters worse. (To read the rest of the…
Behavioral Economic Interventions – It’s Not a Choice Between Nudges and Shoves
The field of behavioral economics has brought attention to promising ways of motivating people to make better life choices. Many behavioral economic-inspired interventions are relatively hands off — they nudge people to make wiser decisions without in any way restricting their choices. The idea of nudges was made justifiably popular by Cass Sunstein and Dick Thaler…

Buying Junk Food With Taxpayer Dollars: Whether Interventions to Encourage Healthy Purchasing Work
One of my elderly relatives was in line at the grocery store one day and saw the person ahead of him charging what looked like a cart full of junk food to her food assistance card. My relative was incensed: Why, should his hard earned tax dollars be used to pay for someone’s Cheetos? Currently,…

Preventing Diabetes – What Medicare Administrators Could Learn From Shark Tank
The Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program is a lifesaver. Consisting of of at least 16 class sessions that provide practical training about healthy eating, physical activity, and other strategies for weight control, the Program reduces the chance that people at high risk for diabetes actually develop that life-threatening condition.
However, the Program is floundering, with distressingly few people having access to or enrolling in the program. Could it be because Medicare administrators haven’t watched enough episodes of Shark Tank?