- Trustees: Social Security to run out in 2033; Medicare runs out in 2031.
- The earth’s population just passed 8 billion. Why some scholars think that’s good.
- Awards for dysfunction in health care.
- Judge: Obamacare preventive medicine freebies are out: Five things to know. Why the mandates were a waste of money anyway.
- What preventive procedures would patients pay for with their own money?
Author: John C. Goodman
Equal Occupational Fatality Day
“Equal Pay Day” calculates how much longer women must work going into this year, to earn what men earned last year, on the average. It occurred on March 14 this year, and was highlighted in Washington, D.C. with the usual liberal fanfare.
Naturally, the calculation ignores the fact that men and women work in very different occupations.
To demonstrate how much that matters, American Enterprise Institute scholar Mark Perry has calculated how many more years women would have to work in their selected occupations before they achieve the same death rate that men endured last year.
Friday Links
- AEI reforms the health care system: antitrust, price transparency and site neutrality for hospitals; Medicare Part B and 340B reforms for drugs.
- Why electronic medical records aren’t working.
- The downside of making the overdose reversal drug naloxone an over-the-counter drug: most health insurance doesn’t pay for OTC drugs.
- Study: telehealth significantly reduced opioid overdoses during the pandemic.
- Americans want less government spending, but not on any program you are likely to think of.
Is Medicare Running Out of Money?
Here is the actual state of affairs.
Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) has a trust fund and a payroll tax.
For many years, the receipts from payroll taxes exceeded the benefits paid out. So, the trust fund was in surplus. The extra funds were spent on other government programs and special government bonds were created, but not the kind of bond that is bought and sold on Wall Street. They were basically IOUs the government wrote to itself.