Pandemics and Presidential Power Grabs
Gene HealyWar is the health of the state, Randolph Bourne famously said, and President Trump ishardly alone in describing the fight against COVID-19 as a “war.” However inapposite that metaphor might be, public officials at all levels of government are now exercisingemergency powers rarely seen outside the context of total war.Wars —metaphorical and literal—have also been the health of the presidency. In hisfirst inaugural, along with the famous lines about “fear itself,” FDR announced his desire for “broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me i...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 10, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Gene Healy Source Type: blogs

That Darn Coin
George SelginThey say that a bad penny always turns up. But when it comes to crises these days, it seems that what keeps turning up is a bad idea —namely, the idea of having the U.S. Mint strike one or more trillion-dollar platinum coins.As I explainedlast March, the idea, which was first broached in 2009 and has since become very popular among Modern Monetary Theorists, gained prominence in January 2013, whenthey and several more orthodox economists latched onto itas a way around that month ' sdebt ceiling crisis.Paul Krugman, who was one of the idea ' s proponents, observed:Should President Obama be willing to print a ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 24, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs

The End of an Era
John SamplesNo, not the end of the Trump Era. Or the Obama Era. Or an “era” named after a politician, including the Reagan Era. Or even the end of the New Deal, or the Great Society, or whatever.It ’s actually the end of the era of campaign finance “reform,” born in 1969 died in 2020. Many people helped end this era, among them Barack Obama (whose fundraising prowess destroyed the presidential public finance program) and Donald Trump (who showed that you could capture a major party ’s nomination without spending “big money.”) But it was Michael Bloomberg that actually ended the era.A political era...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 23, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: John Samples Source Type: blogs

Boost Supply, Not Demand, During the Pandemic
Chris EdwardsCOVID-19 is battering the U.S. economy, causing many businesses to cut back and close down. Policymakersare considering a huge $1 trillion stimulus package with an array of subsidies designed to boost consumption. Pundits often say things like “70 percent of the economy is consumption” and “America has a consumer ‐​driven economy.” That leads them to think that reviving growth rests on inducing people to spend.Consumer spending is 70 percent of aggregate demand, but that is only one side of the economy. The other side is supply —the production of goods and services. The government can s...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 20, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs

Coronavirus and NIH/CDC Funding
Chris EdwardsThe rapid spread of coronavirus (Covid ‐​19) is focusing attention on the health agencies that are helping to fight the pandemic. This year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will spend about $38 billion on research and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will spend about $8 billion on controlling infectious di seases and other activities.The health agency budgets have become a  political football in recent weeks withvarious claims being made regarding spending levels under President Trump. Let ’s look at some data.Figure I  shows total outlays on the NIH and CDC in real (or infl...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 16, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs

71 Self Care Quotes to Help You to Take Care of Yourself
Self-care is one of those things that is essential but we often don't take enough time for (or feel we don't have the time for). But taking care of yourself, your body, health and mental well-being is so important to not just feel better but also to perform better in the long run and to be able to help others better. And to keep going and not give up until you reach your goals and dreams. So I've put together a collection of the 71 best self care quotes I've found. I hope they will help and inspire you to more consistently take some time for yourself and for what you deep down need. Inspiring Self Care Quotes “Self-care...
Source: Practical Happiness and Awesomeness Advice That Works | The Positivity Blog - March 16, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Henrik Edberg Tags: Personal Development Source Type: blogs

Are Congressional Democrats Warming Up to the Legislative Veto?
William YeatmanCongressional Democrats seem to be warming up to the legislative veto. If so, it would mark a welcome breakthrough in regulatory politics.But first: What ’s a legislative veto?Basically, it ’s a way for Congress to stop a regulation in its tracks. From 1932 to 1975, Congress included 292 of these veto provisions in laws that created regulatory agencies. These vetoes came in many flavors. Sometimes, it took a majority of both the House and Senate to kill a regulatory action. Other times it took passage in only one of the chambers. Less frequently, a legislative veto...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 13, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: William Yeatman Source Type: blogs

Will the Trump Administration's Testing Snafus for Coronavirus Be Their Political Version of the Democrats' Catastrophic Launch of Obamacare?
Maybe somebody should point out to Trump that he now has the big boy job and people are dying.      As I have watched the Trump administration fumble the ball on getting mass coronavirus testing available to communities, I am reminded of the way the Obama administration fumbled the ball on the Obamacare launch in 2013: Repeated statements on how well things were going in the face of fact s that (Source: Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review)
Source: Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review - March 9, 2020 Category: Health Management Authors: ROBERT LASZEWSKI Source Type: blogs

Schumer ’s Sorry‐​Not‐​Sorry SCOTUS Apology
Walter OlsonOn Wednesday, at a rally on the Supreme Court steps, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D ‑N.Y.) cut loose with a truly amazing diatribe against Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, declaring that the two would “pay the price” and “won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Schumer’s menacing if vague comments drew prompt disapproval from a broad range of legal figures, such as the heads of theAmerican Bar Association andNew York City Bar Association as well asDemocratic SCOTUS shortlister Neal Katyal and Harvard ’s Larry Tribe. Chief Justice J...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 6, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs

Can stress really make hair (or fur?) turn gray?
It seems like common knowledge or conventional wisdom: stress can turn your hair gray. Whether it’s the kids, your spouse, your job, or something else, people with gray hair have been blaming stress for centuries. The example of Barack Obama is often cited: his hair was quite dark when first elected president, but by the time he’d completed his second term, it was much grayer. Clearly it was the stress of his job, right? Not so fast! As I wrote in a previous post, the notion that stress makes you gray may be largely myth. Certainly, there are factors other than stress that lead to graying, not the least of which are ge...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 6, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Men's Health Stress Women's Health Source Type: blogs

Failed Humanitarian Interventions and the “Good Intentions” Dodge
Ted Galen CarpenterIn a newNational Interest Online article,I discuss how advocates of “humanitarian” military interventions resort to a variety of excuses to evade responsibility once their crusades go awry.One especially maddening deflection of responsibility is when proponents insist that their intentions were good, and that the missions should be judged according to that standard.Even Barack Obama seemed to recognize the insufficiency of that defense when he first met Samantha Power, an advocate of the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) doctrine and U.S. involvement in multilateral military interv...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 25, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Ted Galen Carpenter Source Type: blogs

Back To the Battlefront on Religious Exemptions and Discrimination Law
Walter OlsonThe Supreme Court today agreed to review a challenge to Philadelphia ’s policy of excluding Catholic Social Services from its foster care system because of its refusal to place children with same‐​sex couples.Fulton v.City of Philadelphia could potentially clarify the heated ongoing conflict over the rights of religious objectors in discrimination law.Potentially is the word because it ’s far from clear on what issues the Court will choose to resolve the case. It might focus onwhether the city of Philadelphia overstepped the Court ’sMasterpiece Cakeshopguidance by showing improper animus aga...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 24, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs

Understanding #Medicare4All & The Democratic primaries
By MATTHEW HOLT Since Saturday’s Nevada primaries, confusion seems to be reining about how Bernie Sanders seems to be winning. Time (and not a lot more of it) will tell who actually ends up as the Democratic nominee. But the progressive side (Bernie + Warren) is doing much better than the moderate side (Biden/Butt-edge-edge/Klobuchar) expected, while we wait to see how the  Republican side of the Democratic primary (Bloomberg) does in an actual vote. The key here is the main policy differential between the two sides, Medicare For All.Don’t get too hung up in the details of the individual plans, especially as...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 24, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Politics THCB Bernie Sanders Elizabeth Warren Matthew Holt Medicare For All polling Source Type: blogs

Here ’s How We Perceive The Political Leanings Of Different Fonts
Photo: The serif font Jubilat was used on signs for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid — though a new study suggests that sans serifs are generally seen as more liberal. Credit: Brett Carlsen/Getty Images. By Emily Reynolds Fonts can be very distinctive indeed. Even if robbed of their original context, it can be easy to identify the fonts used on the front of a Harry Potter book, adorning a Star Wars poster, or on the side of a Coca-Cola can, to name a few examples. But particular fonts can also leave us with other impressions: the font used to brand a beloved book, for example, has different emotional connotati...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - February 17, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Aesthetics Language Perception Political Source Type: blogs

Healthcare in the National Privacy Law Debate
Conclusion Despite the importance of the healthcare industry, the HIPAA Rules, and health information to the overall debate about individual privacy, healthcare has not been a leading factor in the current national privacy legislative debate. This is unfortunate and can lead to problems for both the healthcare industry and a variety of other stakeholders interested in healthcare data and the privacy of this data.  The HIPAA rules — because of their detail and our broad experience with them since their implementation  — can provide some useful experience in evaluating the national debate, particularly in th...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 10, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Data Health Policy The Health Data Goldilocks Dilemma: Sharing? Privacy? Both? HIPAA Kirk Nahra Source Type: blogs