–The number five bestselling paperback non-fiction book on the current New York Times list. is “Heaven is for Real,” described as “A boy’s encounter with Jesus and the angels during an appendectomy.”
–What, 25 years ago (1985), was a hot-button issue statewide? The Legislature approved requiring the use of seat belts. Following the lead of talk radio wonders such as the late Jerry Williams, voters repealed the law in 1986. Faced with the threatened loss of federal highway funding if the state didn’t have a seat belt law, the state finally approved a bill in 1994 over the objections of then-Gov. William Weld. It remains a secondary violation for adult drivers and passengers, although not properly restraining a child in a vehicle is a primary offense.: Boston Globe, Dec. 19: Two males, age 16 and 27, were killed in Sutton yesterday in a one-car crash in which speed and alcohol were believed to be major factors. … Neither was wearing a seat belt, police said.
–Arnold Relman on Health Care:
Another very important but often overlooked reason for greater health expenditures in the US is that, more than in any other advanced country, large parts of the system are owned by investors. As a result, the entire system behaves like a profit-driven industry, as I described two years ago in my book A Second Opinion. The commercialization of our health system dates back only a few decades, but its consequences are profound. Investors now own about 20 percent of nonpublic general hospitals, almost all specialty hospitals, and most freestanding facilities for ambulatory patients, such as walk-in clinics, imaging centers, and ambulatory surgical centers. These medical care businesses, like other businesses, need profits to satisfy their investors, and for this purpose they use marketing and advertising, directed at physicians and the general public. (New York Review of Books, July 2, 2009).
