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...

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 · 6d
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.

Reposted by Michael Barnett

it is coming to my attention that a lot of people in the mid-late career start going insane when they realise that all they have worked to attain is in fact ephemeral and fleeting. adding this to the packet of failure modes to be cautious about.

Tired: air traffic controllers calling in sick

Wired: orthopedic surgeons canceling hip replacements
It’s hard to put into words how inspiring Dr. Sue Goldie is.

An extraordinary teacher, researcher, leader, and mentor to so many of us @hsph.harvard.edu who now shares her deeply personal story fighting against Parkinson’s disease.

Her story in @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Sue Goldie Has Parkinson’s Disease
An acclaimed researcher is an expert at explaining complicated problems. Now she has to confront the most vexing question: What is happening to her?
www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Michael Barnett

I finally made the switch to R from stata, and as a fierce long-time defender of stata, I can concede that R is leagues better in almost every way.

Still, I do wish there was an easier way to diagnose merges w/o complicated code. GPT hasn't helped, and joyn doesn't seem to do it right. Any advice?

Reposted by Michael Barnett

More CDC Cuts :: NCHS Edition 📊🔫

At least 1/3 of the staff at the National Center for Health Statistics has been cut (and remain cut). This is catastrophic for our nation’s health data.

Say goodbye to national health statistics that you can trust, healthcare surveys, NHANES and data systems.

Reposted by Michael Barnett

🐹 Before viral videos on TikTok or YouTube, there was Hampsterdance.

Full of dancing hamster GIFs & a sped-up tune, it became one of the internet’s first viral hits.

You can still dance to it on the #WaybackMachine ➡️ web.archive.org/web/19991222...

#Wayback1T

🧵

sounds like a repeat experiment is coming soon? i need you here for moral support though

Reposted by Michael Barnett

This year’s #NobelPrize in Physics honors researchers who demonstrated quantum mechanical effects in electric circuits on a chip. https://scim.ag/46T4qQK
Physics Nobel awarded for macro demonstration of quantum effects
John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis honored for work demonstrating quantum mechanical tunneling in electrical circuits
scim.ag

well, beggars can't be choosers these days. X is not any better 😭