- More women and young people are getting cancer, but the overall mortality rate has declined.
- Study: more than four in ten people will develop dementia after the age of 55 – with a lifetime cost of $415,936,
- My favorite headline of 2025: “You Can’t Trust The People Who Say They Hate Civilization To Run It.”
- In 2024 alone, the Biden presidency has cost the economy $1.4 trillion in new regulatory burdens.
- Goodman assesses the Biden presidency.
- Brookings saves Social Security with eat-your-spinach reforms: higher taxes and lower benefits.
FTC Claims PBMs Jacking Up Drugstore Prices
Since I wrote about carving out Medicaid drug benefits versus carving in benefits the industry changed. Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) began to consolidate to the point where the top three now control about 85% of the drug market. When three firms dominate an industry to that degree their behavior can go from benevolent (i.e. competing for business) to malevolent, self-dealing behavior.
Thursday Links
- “Our analysis found that out-of-pocket cost sharing is estimated to result in 1.1 million women delaying necessary breast cancer diagnostic testing and imaging in 2024 due to affordability issues.”
- Hospitals are ignoring the law on price transparency.
- Health Affairs article reviews a decade of Obamacare. No mention of the narrow networks, outrageous deductibles and out-of-pocket exposure for people who are unfortunate enough to get sick.
- More on Medicare site neutrality: What’s involved. What it would save.
- The Affordable Care Act has more than 1,000 mentions of the phrase “the secretary shall.”
The New Golden Girls: Seniors Sharing Homes for Money and Companionship
Years ago, I read an article in the New York Times about the economics of three seniors who could move in together and share expenses. The cost of an apartment and splitting the cost of around the clock home care would be cheaper than one person moving into a nursing home. I was intrigued by the idea. Few people can afford a nursing home and not everyone can afford expensive assisted living, or senior communities. For that matter, most seniors don’t want institutional living.