The AP Reports that some war protesters are refusing to pay taxes. Some fear that if this keeps up, the government might come grinding to a halt. If they have any other objections, they’re not saying.
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Here’s One Embargo SiCKO Won’t Violate
USA Today initially reported that Michael Moore will be screening his new film SiCKO at a Tehran film festival in October. Alas, one of Moore’s producers responded with an even-tempered denial (which was dutifully reported by USA Today).
That’s a shame.
With the help of a beautiful and intelligent attorney, I uncovered a Treasury Department guide to U.S. sanctions against Iran. Officially speaking:
The receipt or transmission of postal, telegraphic, telephonic or other personal communications, which does not involve the transfer of anything of value, between the United States and Iran is authorized.
I’d say that gives SiCKO the green light.
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Does Cost-Sharing for Rx Reduce Health?
Unknown, say Dana Goldman, Geoffrey Joyce, and Yuhui Zheng of the RAND Corporation.
In this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, the team presents a meta-analysis of “132 articles examining the associations between prescription drug plan cost-containment measures, including co-payments, tiering, or coinsurance[;] pharmacy benefit caps or monthly prescription limits[;] formulary restrictions[;] and reference pricing[;] and salient outcomes, including pharmacy utilization and spending, medical care utilization and spending, and health outcomes.”
Here are their principal findings and conclusions, from the abstract:
Increased cost sharing is associated with lower rates of drug treatment, worse adherence among existing users, and more frequent discontinuation of therapy. For each 10% increase in cost sharing, prescription drug spending decreases by 2% to 6%, depending on class of drug and condition of the patient. The reduction in use associated with a benefit cap, which limits either the coverage amount or the number of covered prescriptions, is consistent with other cost-sharing features. For some chronic conditions, higher cost sharing is associated with increased use of medical services, at least for patients with congestive heart failure, lipid disorders, diabetes, and schizophrenia. While low-income groups may be more sensitive to increased cost sharing, there is little evidence to support this contention.
That last sentence was certainly interesting. But here comes the kicker.
While increased cost sharing is highly correlated with reductions in pharmacy use, the long-term consequences of benefit changes on health are still uncertain.
That echoes points I’ve made previously in this blog:
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Unequal Justice?
There it was, emblazoned across the front page of the Washington Post, a headline made especially disturbing by its publication on July 4:
Justice Is Unequal for Parents Who Host Teen Drinking Parties
What did it mean, I wondered. Poor parents go to jail, rich parents walk? The law is enforced in black neighborhoods, winked at in white suburbs?
Not exactly. In fact, the Post reported,
In Virginia and the District, parents who host such parties can be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor that can carry jail time. In Maryland, hosting an underage drinking party is punished with a civil penalty, payable with a fine, even for multiple offenses.
So it’s not a story about unequal justice, just about different jurisdictions with different laws. But the Post sees it differently:
Read the rest of this post →The stark contrast in punishments is just one inconsistency in a patchwork of conflicting legal practices and public attitudes about underage drinking parties.
Why People Hate the IRS
My wife and I received a notice from the IRS yesterday regarding our 2006 income tax return. At first glance, I thought it said we underpaid by $107, which would be no big deal and I’d go ahead and pay.
Then I looked closer at the calculations the notice showed:
Total Tax On Return: $xx,242.00
Total Payments and Credits: $xx,241.63
Underpaid Tax: $0.37
Penalty: $106.65
Interest: $0.01
Total Amount You Owe: $107.03
You’ve got to be kidding–we underpaid our taxes by 37 cents and the IRS is dinging us with a $107 penalty?!
Page 22 of the 1040 instruction book clearly says that rounding to the nearest whole dollar is OK. I think this needs more investigation.
Cato@Liberty’s Health Care Content Ranked #24?
Last week, I entered the Cato@Liberty blog you’re reading in the healthcare100.com rankings of health care blogs. Which might have been unfair. Most or all of the blogs in that ranking are exclusively focused on health care. Cato@Liberty covers many other issues and could get credit for visits and incoming links that have nothing to do with health care. So I made sure to enter only the health-care-specific URL and RSS feed.
The results (as of July 2, 2007) are in: Cato@Liberty (Health Care) tied with three other blogs for 24th. That put it ahead of such popular blogs as:
- WSJ.com: Health Blog and Health Affairs Blog (tied for 34th),
- Insure Blog and Healthcare Economist (tied for 54th),
- Medpundit and Healthcare Law Blog (tied for 61st), and possibly
- Managed Care Matters, which appears twice on the list (tied for both 71st and 88th).
We have yet to eclipse The Health Care Blog (tied for 7th), but Matthew Holt is on notice.
I am not convinced that Cato@Liberty’s health care content deserves that ranking, however. The “Cato@Liberty (Health Care)” entry on the healthcare100.com list links to Cato@Liberty’s main page, rather than the health-care content page. In contrast, the WSJ.com: Health Blog entry links to that blog’s health-care content.
I’m guessing that using the health-care-specific URL and RSS feed actually would tend to understate the popularity of Cato@Liberty’s health care content, since many readers presumably access our health-care content along with the rest. The health-specific RSS is certainly Cato@Liberty’s weakest suit in the healthcare100.com rankings. But when we edge out The Health Care Blog, I don’t want to hear any talk about asterisks.
A bigger concern is that Cato@Liberty’s strongest showing is in the “Technorati Authority Ranking” portion of the healthcare100.com algorithm: “Technorati’s authority ranking shows the number of unique blogs that have linked to a particular blog over the past six months.” This must be capturing non-health-care-related links to Cato@Liberty. I hope the good folks at healthcare100.com will let us know if that’s the case and whether it can be remedied.
My favorite blog name on the list: Fingers and Tubes in Every Orifice (tied for 71st).
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Happy Birthday, America–and Thanks for Having Me
This will be my first July 4th holiday in Washington, DC. Last year I was in New York City with my family, celebrating my 30th birthday (yes, I’m a bicentennial baby). So I am looking forward to seeing how the nation’s capital celebrates Independence Day.
As a recent arrival, I know that my experience of Independence Day is necessarily limited. But the ideals upon which America was based and which we celebrate tomorrow are common to many around the world, no matter where they call home. The American dream–to make a better life for yourself and to pursue whatever brand of happiness to which you aspire–is the human dream. As David Boaz notes in his podcast (mp3) today, the line of people at the immigration centers of American embassies is larger than the line of picketers outside, no matter how harsh the criticisms of the rest of the world can seem.
The government and the country are not the same thing. So for all those who have taken offense at a foreigner criticising U.S. farm and trade policy over the last year, please know that I will be celebrating a wonderful country tomorrow, along with all of you.