Occasionally I plan to put up a short post about something I am either listening to or reading, for you to check out or ignore. There is a lot of edifying stuff on the web and a lot very destructive mind rot; hopefully my recommends are of the former category.

I listen to a lot of podcasts while exercising or walking. I use iTunes, but there are other apps like Spotify and Stitcher that let you subscribe and manage your podcasts, and you can usually listen directly in your browser as well.

I often find “The Weeds” podcast from vox.com to have intelligent conversation about government policy, but this one from January 2, on “Why is U.S. life expectancy failing?” has continued to nag at me. While general mortality rates and infant death rates have been moving in a good direction in almost every country in the world (including much of the “third world”) these measures are getting worse in the U.S. There is lip service given to this problem, but nobody with any governmental power seems actually trying to do anything about it that might cost money or challenge the way we do health care. “The American Way! What do those foreigners know about health care?”

Health policy journalist Sarah Kliff takes the lead in this discussion. I have been following her writing on health care and health insurance economics for about a decade now, and she is always spot-on in perceiving and explaining the economic and political issues at hand. Look for the January 2 podcast in this link, and if you want to hear more Sarah Kliff, scroll down to her solo podcast called “The Impact,” which deals exclusively with health care innovations. It is about to enter its second season.

https://www.vox.com/pages/podcasts