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Top Three Takeaways – July 7th, 2021
- Fewer police = more crime. Imagine that. Yet as commonsensical as that may sound to you it’s news to the merry band of ignorant ingrates behind the defund movement. While closely guarded and seriously spun in most mainstream news media, trust me I read at least ten articles attempting to spin numbers to sound different to the facts in context, there remain two sides to stories and one side to facts. Cities which have defunded police have the largest increases in violent crime and smallest property crime decreases which were lower across the board due to COVID-19 lockdowns shutting down businesses. Homicide rates are up 32% in cities with over 1,000,000 in population. The largest percentage and total increase of any cities of any size. And it’s not just violent crime but property as well. Many news outlets are quick to report year-over-year declines in property crime, which is true but skewed due to the pandemic lockdowns. While overall property crime is lower across the board over the past year the decrease in the largest cities, 7%, was lower than the national average of greater than 8%. So yeah...fewer police = more crime. This. Just. In.
- Price transparency equals lower healthcare costs. In the second seemingly obvious observation that’s commonly not applied... I conducted a two-year review of Florida’s healthcare cost transparency website. It was actually a lot more fun than that just sounded. That’s because saving money is fun and there’s evidence that even without most Floridians likely knowing it exists – it's working. At the time of the site’s creation, I priced out an appendectomy throughout South Florida. What’s changed in two years? The average cost nationally has risen by 7%. The average cost in Florida has actually slightly declined. The range in cost is still ridiculously different with prices ranging from $5,900 to $25,500 for the same procedure – illustrating the reason we should all evaluate non-emergency care, but the broader point remains. We’re all great at finding good deals and forcing businesses to be competitive on price to win our business. We’re not even close to generally good at doing it when it comes to healthcare and already it appears to be working in Florida. Even if you have really good health insurance, we all benefit in the long run by being better consumers of healthcare. We’d consider it bat crap crazy to sign a contract to buy a new car without knowing the price, yet that’s what we’ve been conditioned to do with healthcare. This is a reminder to break that bat crap crazy habit.
- The CDC wants to rule your life. On the same day President Biden said the vax police are going to come knocking on your door here’s another for you. So, the CDC lost its legal battle with the state of Florida over their “no-sail” and “conditional sail” orders, as it was ruled that they constitutionally lacked the legal authority to offer anything other than advice...however...the unelected body of scientists in Atlanta have now decided to appeal. Technically, it’s the Joe Biden Department of Justice on behalf of the unelected body of scientists in Atlanta (which only serves to provide more warm and fuzzies over how this administration views personal freedom and constitutional liberties). Currently the CDC can’t do more than pound sound, or offer advice as the case may be, as of July 18th. To be continued...