- Medicare Advantage enrollees get an average of $2,660 per member this year for benefits not available from traditional Medicare, such as dental, vision and hearing coverage, as well as transportation, groceries, bathroom grab bars and caregiver support.
- The Flu kills 300,000 people worldwide each year.
- Doctors upset over AI: one third of adults turn to chatbots for health advice – increasingly uploading their medical tests.
- Does birth order affect your health?
Author: John C. Goodman
Cost of Ron Wyden’s (moderate Democrat) Health Reforms
Iits mantra of “reversing Republican cuts” from last year’s budget reconciliation bill—which among other things would expand health coverage for illegal immigrants—would cost more than $1 trillion over a decade, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. The CBO has estimated that extending enhanced ObamaCare subsidies would cost $350 billion over the same period. In 2020, I calculated that repealing the firewall [between employer plans and subsidized Exchange coverage] would lead to $2.2 trillion in higher subsidy spending over a decade for the estimated 24 million people who would switch from employer coverage to the exchanges. Enacting such proposals would cost trillions without factoring in the new cost-sharing assistance Mr. Wyden outlines.
Wednesday Links – 12 August 2026
- A 2023 study from the company itself estimated that Flock cameras are used in solving 700K crimes each year, or approximately 10% of all reported crime in the US.
- U.S. healthcare costs over $40,000 per household in 2026.
- Steuerle: If medical care prices had increased at the same rate as overall inflation, national health care expenditures in the U.S. would be about 8 percent of GDP today, rather than 18 percent.
- The real capital gains tax for many investments Is 50%.
- What Obama’s CEA report had to say about reforming health care in 2010.
Tuesday Links – 11 August 2026
- The percentage of working-age adults who get their health coverage from a job has declined from 67% in 1998 to about 60%.
- Orphan drugs: 167 drugs are exempt under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).
- A brand new, peer-reviewed study found that data centers actually caused average U.S. retail electricity rates to “fall modestly” between 2015 and 2024, because the centers’ high, steady power demand helped spread a grid’s fixed costs over more usage.
- Tim Fist and Saif Khan: there’s a substantial chance that AI will kill most people on Earth within the next decade or two, by designing superviruses. AI is already capable of designing viruses not found in nature, so this isn’t a sci-fi scenario.