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UFOs still remain a mystery

When it comes to UFOs, we don’t know the right answer. The truth is still out there. And it may be out there for a while. A new federal government report on UFOs couldn’t explain 143 of 144 military aviation encounters, which the government, never one to pass up the opportunity to create a clumsy acronym, now calls UAP, short for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. The one explainable encounter? A large, deflating balloon. We didn’t expect the brief, unclassified report to include selfies of a little green guy from another world at a Texas Rangers game. Heck, folks are still looking ...

Big Mac inflation differs from CPI

Inflation is measured by changes in the Consumer Price Index published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Our Social Security, cost of living adjustments, and many other things are tied to it. Does the CPI do a good job of measuring inflation? Well, that’s debatable. Back in my undergraduate days, I learned that inflation was measured by changes in the cost to a consumer of a fixed basket of goods and services from one period to the next. So, an increase of 5% in the CPI over one year means that inflation was 5% for that year. Not exactly. The BLS makes two adjustments to ...

Plan for PA roads and state police

The Pennsylvania General Assembly and Gov. Tom Wolf have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help fix our deteriorating roads and bridges while also solving the funding dilemma of the Pennsylvania State Police. The plan is so simple, and makes so much sense, that it almost surely won’t happen. Wolf and the General Assembly should use a portion of the $7 billion federal COVID stimulus money to support the state police budget for two years. Currently $700 million — that’s $700 million — is diverted from state road construction each year to backfill our state police budget ...

Community pharmacies support structure

The COVID-19 pandemic changed our healthcare system more in the last year than during any period in modern history. And while the pandemic tested our health-care system, some of the resulting changes have been for the better. We are finally making it more convenient for patients to access care, more fully utilizing the capabilities and proximity of our community pharmacists. As a pharmacist with a long history working across the entire pharmaceutical supply chain, I have always believed in the need for greater pharmacist-patient interaction, as well as for policies that protect ...

No reason to change election laws

Trump Vote Comparison 2016-2020 PDF The Pennsylvania General Assembly intends to take up legislation this month to roll back bipartisan laws that expanded access to the polls. One proposal would limit no-excuse absentee ballots in a state that already has some of the most restrictive election laws in the country. The best outcome for these bills, advocated by Republicans in both the state Senate and House, would be that they never come to a vote. If passed into law, an extremely unlikely result with Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf poised to exercise a veto, the voter restrictions would ...

Preserve patient-provider relationship

The relationship between patients and their health care providers is the cornerstone of America’s medical system, one built on the trust that prescribed treatments and medications lead to healing and improved quality of life for the patient. Unfortunately, as we see in Pennsylvania and across the nation, the more stakeholders who interfere with this relationship, the more that foundation is eroded. We see this perhaps most immediately in prior authorization and step therapy policies. Health insurance providers are implementing these practices at an increased rate, creating ...