Michael L. Barnett
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mlbarnett.bsky.social
Michael L. Barnett
@mlbarnett.bsky.social

health policy researcher, primary care physician, dad

Political science 62%
Sociology 22%
Pinned
New paper w/ Brian McGarry, Ashvin Gandhi, and Drew Wilcock in @jamainternalmed.com!

Hospitals are complaining across the US that patients are "stuck" waiting for rehab beds at nursing homes when they are medically stable and ready for discharge. What is going on??

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Third unvaccinated Kentucky baby dies of whooping cough.

Pertussis, best prevented with a vaccine, has killed three Kentucky babies in the last 12 months.

kentuckylantern.com/2025/11/25/t...
Third unvaccinated Kentucky baby dies of whooping cough • Kentucky Lantern
A third unvaccinated infant in Kentucky has died of pertussis as public health officials urge Kentuckians to get vaccinated against the disease.
kentuckylantern.com
🚨We analyzed 138 million geocoded property tax records to quantify how municipal boundaries spatially overlap onto economic segregation in every US metro area—creating disparities in localities’ ability to fund public goods. And we made an interactive map of our results! [1/16]
🚨 New working paper!

How well do people predict the results of studies?

@sdellavi.bsky.social and I leverage data from the first 100 studies to have been posted on the SSPP, containing 1,482 key questions, on which over 50,000 forecasts were placed. Some surprising results below.... 🧵👇
CDC has overhauled its website to assert that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”
Trying to assess GOP health plans right now is like “trying to read tea leaves, only the cup is full of mud”

@adrianna.bsky.social

www.thebulwark.com/p/not-so-imp...
The Not-So-Impressive “New” Health Care Ideas Republicans Want to Rush Out
What GOP leaders are missing in their mad scramble to remake health care policy.
www.thebulwark.com
It needs to be emphasized that this paragraph is about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

since I get this, hello fellow nerd 😂

Reposted by Michael Barnett

Federal court gives go-ahead for settlement in Purdue Pharma opioid case. www.axios.com/2025/11/14/o...
Federal judge approves $7.4 billion bankruptcy settlement in OxyContin case
"Today cements the end of a long chapter," said Purdue board chairman Steve Miller.
www.axios.com

?????!?!
JD Vance calls ibuprofen "useless medication" and implies it's not "necessary, safe and effective."
JD Vance calls ibuprofen "useless medication" and implies it's not "necessary, safe and effective."

Reposted by Michael Barnett

🚨New Publication🚨 Risk-based provider payment is more common in Medicare Advantage than any other segment of US health care financing. What happens to broad categories of health care utilization, and low-value service use, when provider groups adopt these contracts? jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Health Care Utilization and Low-Value Service Use After Risk-Based Contract Adoption
This cohort study examined whether health care organizations’ transition to risk-based payment contracts in Medicare Advantage was associated with changes in health care utilization or use of low-valu...
jamanetwork.com

Reposted by Michael Barnett

Ipsos finds Trump’s approval rating is decreasing almost entirely because of anti-incumbent economic anxiety. Approval rating among people who say the economy is the # 1 issue is -24pts since Jan. It’s stable for people who index on all other issues www.ipsos.com/en-us/lesson...
Get this: Coffee suppressed atrial fibrillation!
Unexpected results for recurrence from a randomized trial in participants after cardioversion from AF
#AHA25 @jama.com
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Why is Trump proposing a weird subsidy program that actually sounds like the ACA?? The truth is that Obamacare is fundamentally very conservative (Mitt Romney's plan!) and any attempt at meaningful reform can only go left ... Who will we buy health insurance from again?
Hey kids the Trump Healthcare
Plan just dropped!
Hey kids the Trump Healthcare
Plan just dropped!
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com

Reposted by Michael Barnett

Change in Headline

Yeah cOst or ReductiOns would have been better

Reposted by Michael Barnett

also stuck on "fOr"

wild set of results from @atheendar.bsky.social
The 1975 Voting Rights Act extension lowered mortality for most nonwhite groups but raised it for white adults and older nonwhite men, patterns consistent with status threat, from Atheendar Venkataramani, Rourke O'Brien, Elizabeth F. Bair, and Christopher A. Lowenstein www.nber.org/papers/w34421

Reposted by Michael Barnett

NBER @nber.org · 21d
The 1975 Voting Rights Act extension lowered mortality for most nonwhite groups but raised it for white adults and older nonwhite men, patterns consistent with status threat, from Atheendar Venkataramani, Rourke O'Brien, Elizabeth F. Bair, and Christopher A. Lowenstein www.nber.org/papers/w34421
I'm writing a book on this and why I think it's happening. Here are some forces at play that may explain our poor performance with life expectancy since the 1980s.

totally heartbreaking. addiction policy shouldn't be partisan and SAMHSA is such a drop in the bucket, less than 1/3rd of the support given to Argentina this month.
Goodbye, SAMHSA?

After the Trump administration's latest layoffs at the federal agency for mental health and addiction treatment, the agency is in shambles.

On the sacking of SAMHSA and what it means for the country's behavioral health, w/ @levfacher.bsky.social www.statnews.com/2025/10/30/s...
Trump cuts have decimated the federal addiction and mental health agency
The Trump administration has dismantled big chunks of the federal agency focused on mental health and addiction treatment, reducing its staff by more than half
www.statnews.com

Reposted by Michael Barnett

Goodbye, SAMHSA?

After the Trump administration's latest layoffs at the federal agency for mental health and addiction treatment, the agency is in shambles.

On the sacking of SAMHSA and what it means for the country's behavioral health, w/ @levfacher.bsky.social www.statnews.com/2025/10/30/s...
Trump cuts have decimated the federal addiction and mental health agency
The Trump administration has dismantled big chunks of the federal agency focused on mental health and addiction treatment, reducing its staff by more than half
www.statnews.com

Reposted by Michael Barnett

In the EVERDAC trial involving patients with shock, results for death at day 28 indicated that management without early arterial catheter insertion was noninferior to early catheter insertion. Full trial results: nej.md/3LmOO0D

#LIVES2025 | @esicm.bsky.social

Reposted by Michael Barnett

🚨 New Working Paper! 🚨 Excited to share our new study with Professor @lhoehnvelasco.bsky.social, and @reinahuang.bsky.social on Public Payment Mandates & Provider Supply: a look at how Medicaid reimbursement helped bring Certified Nurse-Midwives (CNMs) into mainstream U.S. healthcare 🧵
Shielding Chart

xkcd.com/3158/

If fixable, I would make them fix it as disincentive to obfuscate. If it's high quality research otherwise there are lots of reasons why the intro might hide info. Could be something one author did and the others are unaware or want to fix it and need permission.

congrats!!!!
Wow. This is the paper I have been waiting for. Mobile apps are brain rot, with meaningfully bad economic consequences for those who overuse them.