Unsatisfied with limiting itself to its whopperCoin cryptocurrency, Burger king Russia is complaining that Pennywise the dancing clown gives McDonald's an unfair advantage.

What? There's no way any kid ever has confused Pennywise with the modern-day Ronald McDonald. The Willard Scott version, maybe:

But Willard's been out of the burger bidness for a while now. 

See also: Whoppercoin

Healthcare isn't a right, but access to it is vital to a functioning democracy. 

That's my take. Atul Gawande (disclosure: I'm a big fan) takes his surgical mind to the problem and, as usual, illuminates the complexity of the issue. What if we had a system that allowed trash to back up into the streets if people didn't buy exorbitantly expensive "garbage insurance?" I suspect we'd move toward a system like what we have now: mostly affordable, in many cases government-subsidized trash collection. Healthcare could follow a similar model.

USPSTF is putting the kibosh on vitamin D for fall prevention.

When I was a resident in the early oughts, vitamin D was the hottest thing going. We thought we were going to fix or prevent sooooo many problems by optimizing people's levels. Unfortunately, almost no intervention with vitamin D has proven successful. Vitamin D levels instead serve as kind of a generic marker of unwellness. Repleting those levels does not in and of itself fix the unwellness, though.