Monthly Archives: January 2020

Grease, friction, and Amway markups in healthcare

UnityPoint Hospital

With a few exceptions, U.S. consumers spend at least twice as much per capita on healthcare than they do in a dozen other countries with true universal coverage and equal, if not better, outcomes. Bad, right? Here is the sticky part: most of that extra cash that you and your employer fork out pays the salaries of hundreds of thousands… Read more »

Probability in 1000 words

      3 Comments on Probability in 1000 words
Iowa storm

There are some words that I use a lot in this blog. This is the first in a series of attempts to “get pithy” with my explanations of these words. It’s probably going to rain today. Long before there was math, the human brain figured out a “gut level” understanding of when rain was more likely than not. One way… Read more »

John Roberts and the myth of balls and strikes

Little League

The details of the role Chief Justice John Roberts must play in the upcoming Senate trial of President Trump is a matter of some debate, even among Constitutional scholars. One commentator has said that he is to be a “potted plant,” in other words that his role is completely ceremonial. In this view, this proceeding is completely under the control… Read more »

Stupid stuff and the probability of tragedy

      No Comments on Stupid stuff and the probability of tragedy
Italian Hall

Drunk drivers will almost always get home safely each night. And if that happens enough successive times, the human brain “learns” a very bad thing, that it is okay to be driving drunk. Until tragedy strikes and it’s not. The Barack Obama foreign policy had been famously summarized as “Don’t do stupid s**t,” which is opposite of drunk driving, but… Read more »

Your Medicare Part D prescription drug plan bets

Pill bottle

Note: I have updated some of the numbers here for 2021. In recent posts, I have discussed viewing the selection of Medicare Part B Medigap and Part C Advantage plans as a set of probabilistic “bets” that you are making with your money against your health. This post extends that idea to Medicare Part D prescription coverage plans that were… Read more »

Worth a read: How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr

How to Hide an Empire

I like history books that surprise me with something important that I should have previously known. Daniel Immerwahr starts his recently-published How to Hide an Empire: a History of the Greater United States with a photocopy of a draft of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous December 7, 1941, “Day of Infamy” speech. Scratched out of the draft is a mention that… Read more »