- The Biden administration has given the Palestinians more than $1 billion, following the Trump freeze on aid.
- Kaiser: Employer provided family coverage now costs almost $24,000.
- United Health discontinues an AI-type algorithm it was using to deny patients care.
- Bidenomics: The typical white family’s real income rose 1.3%, between 2019 and 2022. But Black and Hispanic families saw declines of 1.6% and 1.1%, respectively.
Author: John C. Goodman
Monday Links
- Insurers have made out like bandits under Obamacare.
- Paragon study: The cost to the taxpayers of Obamacare is $36,798 per additional private insurance enrollee.
- The leader of Hamas is headquartered in Qatar – the same country that hosted the World Cup.
- Tyler Cowen (channeling the Economist) on why Argentina may elect a libertarian president.
- Who is better at keeping food safe? Public health agencies? Or the restaurants themselves?
- Reducing hospital costs without hurting patients.
Saturday Links
- Arthur Laffer: requiring health care providers to post prices for their medical services could save more than $500 billion a year.
- A disappointing discovery: Jim Jordan was willing to Jordan increase the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions – benefiting wealthy taxpayers in blue states – in order to get votes for the speakership.
- Study: repealing Certificate of Need laws leads to more hospitals in urban and rural areas.
- $233 million: what blue states receive that they wouldn’t receive if federal grants reflected these state’s population losses.
Friday Links
- Drug and device shortages are affecting patient care.
- Schwab: how a Roth IRA can reduce the Part B and Part D premiums for seniors.
- EBRI study: a 65-year-old couple needs as much as $383,000 in savings to have a 90% chance of covering their health care expenses for the rest of their lives.
- Yglesias interviews Melissa Kearney on two-parent privilege. Recommended. But she underestimates the penalties the welfare state imposes on marriage. See The Marriage Tax.
- Milton Friedman was right: there would be no lasting conflict in the Middle East if they had a laissez-faire economic regime.
- Obamacare gives insurers perverse incentive to buy doctors’ clinics, pharmacies, etc. And, that’s what they are doing.