Healthcare

Ideology and mental health chart

It’s important to acknowledge the correlation between “liberalism” (meaning “progressivism”) and mental illness.

By Justin Katz | May 29, 2021 |

Writing in Evie magazine, Elizabeth Condra highlights a finding using Pew Research data: The study, which examined white liberals, moderates, and conservatives, both male and female, found that conservatives were far less likely to be diagnosed with mental health issues than those who identified as either liberal or even “very liberal.” What’s more, white women…

WalletHub map of best states for doctors

Another WalletHub list puts Rhode Island dead last: Best States to Practice Medicine

By Justin Katz | May 29, 2021 |

Christian Winthrop spotted the ranking recently for Newport Buzz: In order to help doctors decide where to practice, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 19 key metrics. Their data set ranges from the average annual wage of physicians to hospitals per capita to the quality of the public hospital system.…

Two seniors on a bench with a view

If you’re getting on in years, be worried that RI’s “Nursing Home Staffing and Quality Care Act” heralds socialist nursing homes.

By Justin Katz | May 28, 2021 |

Rhode Island’s politicians are happily proclaiming an ostensible gift that they are giving to Ocean State seniors with a law creating minimum staffing requirements for nursing homes.  Those who currently or may soon utilize such services have enough life experience to think more deeply about how the politicians are changing the terms of our representative…

A deer tick on a leaf

Another vaccine that could expand our freedom is for Lyme disease.

By Justin Katz | May 28, 2021 |

Growing up in suburban New Jersey, we didn’t have a whole lot of forest in our town.  There was a strip of somewhat forested land along the Hackensack River and another cluster between the houses and the stores along Route 4.  Even so, my friends and I spent hours and hours adventuring in those limited…

X-Ray of an OK sign

What’s surprising is that more people don’t feel trapped in work for healthcare.

By Justin Katz | May 27, 2021 |

A recent survey of Americans, as reported on Newsmax, finds that one in six “U.S. adult workers have stayed at their jobs because they don’t want to lose employer-sponsored health insurance.”  That’s especially true for lower-income workers and minorities. Tying healthcare with employment is one of the more wrong-headed policy decisions our country has made in…

Canoes on a rack

Summer camp COVID rules are approaching child abuse.

By Justin Katz | May 26, 2021 |

Rhode Island needs a reset of its attitude on COVID, because we’re compounding and extending the economic damage we’ve done through our reaction to the coronavirus by amping up psychological damage to our children.  Courtney Carter reports on WPRI: When kids return to summer camp this year, they’ll still need to bring their face masks…

Infectious bronchitis virus

The coronavirus vaccine may have us on the path to a cure for the common cold.

By Justin Katz | May 24, 2021 |

HealthDay reporter Dennis Thompson writes about a trend (via Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit) that is certainly worth keeping an eye on: An experimental COVID-19 vaccine could potentially provide universal protection against future COVID-19 variants as well as other coronaviruses — maybe even the ones responsible for the common cold. And it’s dirt cheap — less…

Mark Zaccaria and shredded Constitution

Yes, parental rights do still apply in the era of COVID.

By Justin Katz | May 21, 2021 |

Mark Zaccaria hones in on a key question that seems like it’s been lost in the shuffle:  Can the state government and its subsidiaries selectively emancipate Rhode Island children from their parents for the purpose of deciding whether to be vaccinated against COVID-19? Hey, wasn’t it just a few years ago that the government was…

Map of drug overdoes increases by state

Overdoses were way up during Rhode Island’s lockdown.

By Justin Katz | May 19, 2021 |

As shown on the map that is the featured image for this post, the CDC estimates for overdose deaths show them well past projections for every state except South Dakota and Alaska. Rhode Island’s increase was 21.6%, which translated into an additional 71 deaths. I’m a little behind posting this data, which has been out…

Bostom name-calling tweet

More information has come to light about COVID-related pediatric deaths in Rhode Island.

By Justin Katz | May 19, 2021 |

The bad news (other than the fact that children have died, of course) is that it’s difficult to come to decisive answers about such deaths, in part because the way the government has been counting COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths has so muddied the water over the past year.  However, the number that has come…