Today’s science lesson is sponsored by XKCD comics.
You can find more at http://xkcd.com/, in case you haven’t checked it out before.
Old news – healthcare costs are rising again. Older news – healthcare costs have been rising, faster than inflation, for most of the last half-century. Newer news – those costs are increasingly being born by employees rather than employers. Here’s a picture I came across at Vox, an excellent website for healthcare news.
“A Simple Tweak Makes Calorie Labeling More Effective” – The Washington Post
The federal government is currently debating whether the big six health insurance companies in the U.S. will soon become the big four. Aetna and Humana have announced plans to merge, as have Anthem and Cigna. The American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association strongly oppose the mergers, saying they will reduce competition in consumer…
“The Ulysses Strategy” – The New Yorker
I recently wrote something in Forbes about all the mergers going on in the U.S. healthcare industry. Well here is a nice article about the growth of the healthcare system in Western North Carolina, that explores some of the same issues. Check it out: Mission Health Partners, the Accountable Care Organization of Mission Health System,…