Irish researchers find unvaccinated patients with low vitamin D levels are more likely to suffer severe disease and death
Insufficient vitamin D linked to fourfold increase in risk of death among Covid-19 patients
Tag: Seniors
NPR Host and NYT Guest Stress That Russia Is Communist While Vilifying Uninformed Republicans, While Most Republicans Wrongly Believe Russia Is a Communist Country: Poll
NPR Host and NYT Guest Stress That Russia Is Communist While Vilifying Uninformed Republicans
Related:
Most Republicans Wrongly Believe Russia Is a Communist Country: Poll
A majority of Republicans erroneously believe that Russia is a Communist country, according to a new poll.
The poll, released Tuesday by The Economist / YouGov, found that 52 percent of Republicans agreed that Russia was operating under Communism, despite the the county not being Communist since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. Among all Americans, 42 percent thought that Russia was Communist, including 44 percent of Democrats.
Manchin’s Climate Reversal Comes With Major Caveat: Expanding Oil and Gas
Conservative coal baron Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) announced on Wednesday that he has come to an agreement with Democratic leaders for a reconciliation bill with key climate, prescription drug price and tax reforms — with a major caveat to expand oil and gas exploration.
Manchin’s Climate Reversal Comes With Major Caveat: Expanding Oil and Gas
Related:
Senate Dems reach draft deal to extend ACA premiums, lower drug costs
Also included in the Inflation Reduction Act — a bid to lower drug prices. Medicare will be allowed to negotiate the prices of some 10 pharmaceutical drugs in 2026, 15 more drugs in 2027 and 2028 and 20 more in 2029. In addition to price negotiation, the bill also imposes penalizing rebates on pharmaceutical manufacturers who hike drug costs above the rate of inflation starting next year.
How Vitamin D Affects Omicron Symptoms, According To New Research
Trump Created A Program To Privatize Medicare Without Patients’ Consent. Biden Is Keeping It Going.
Under the program, insurers and doctors can negotiate to move patients to a private insurance stream. Patients don’t get a say.
Trump Created A Program To Privatize Medicare Without Patients’ Consent. Biden Is Keeping It Going.
Previously:
Congress ‘Asleep at the Switch’ as Biden Continues Trump-Era Ploy to Privatize Medicare
Biden moves forward with Trump Medicare privatization plan
Buzzfeed is a little behind (I first blogged about it, in November 2021), but here’s a reminder.
Canadian province stops giving boosters to elders who have had COVID in the past due to severe, life-threatening side effects + Quebec allows some infected health workers to stay on the job as COVID-related absences rise
Congress ‘Asleep at the Switch’ as Biden Continues Trump-Era Ploy to Privatize Medicare
Trump promises seniors $200 prescription drug gift certificates, but questions abound
Trump promises seniors $200 prescription drug gift certificates, but questions abound
The administration is getting its authority to ship the coupons from a Medicare demonstration program, a White House spokesman told STAT in a statement. The nearly $7 billion required to send the coupons, he said, would come from savings from Trump’s “most favored nations” drug pricing proposal. That regulation has also not yet been implemented — meaning the Trump administration is effectively pledging to spend $6.6 billion in savings that do not currently exist. The cards, he said, would be “actual discount cards for prescription drug copays.”
Related:
Trump’s ‘most favored nation’ executive order on drug prices is a scam for seniors
Yet none of these reference pricing proposals show how they would directly reduce out-of-pocket costs for seniors at the pharmacy counter. For example, an Avalere study found that fewer than 1% of older adults in Medicare Part B would see a reduction in out-of-pocket costs as a result of the international pricing index model. In all likelihood, the prices of drugs in other countries will be more affected by the executive order than U.S. drug prices.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 