Friday Links

Posted on by John C. Goodman

Tomas Philipson: My calculations suggest that Medicare price controls will actually increase total health care spending by at least $30 billion over 20 years. 

More than 50,000 hospitals now qualify as “safety net” institutions that qualify for 340B status.

A 2022 survey estimated that 100 million Americans carry medical debt, and nearly 80 percent of medical debt is held by households with zero or negative net worth.

While increases in profits and cash reserves of nonprofit hospitals grow, charity care does not.

KFF: health insurers operating through the federal exchanges denied 1 in 5 claims in 2023.

“The cash price for a colonoscopy within a ten-mile radius of midtown Manhattan ranges from a low of $580 to a high of $4,355.”

2 thoughts on “Friday Links”

  2. The medical debt numbers are a little padded by including small debts that are going to be paid…i.e., if someone owes their dentist $400 and will pay it next month, that still counts in the total although it is not a social problem.

    Still there is way too much debt, and high deductibles are a big cause. This is painful because economic theory says that if people buy medical care with their own money, this will drive out the most overpriced providers and lead to cheaper health care.

    The problem here is that millions of people with high deductibles have no money. They cut back on both necessary and unnecessary care. Only a minority of workers have a health savings account that is large enough to cover their deductibles. Some employers do help fund the HSA’s, but I suspect this is a real minority of companies.

    The advocates of high deductibles must have been looking at healthy, well-paid and high-saving workers when they advanced their theories.

    Reply

Join the conversation.