Monday Links

Posted on by John C. Goodman

There are about 36 million Health Savings Accounts holding $104 billion.

What the elites don’t understand about obesity.

Built-in programming for your self-driving car: Should it risk injury to you to avoid hitting a pedestrian? Or the other way around? (WSJ)

The case for kicking ineligible people off the Medicaid rolls. (DMN)

It may not be the onset of Alzheimer’s: memory lapses are normal.

The ACCESS Act  would allow roughly 5 million lower-income individuals to redirect their cost sharing subsidy (which now goes to insurance companies) into Health Savings Accounts (which they would own and control). Dean Clancy comments.

3 thoughts on “Monday Links”

  1. I thought, where is the other 12 Billion? It’s just your typo. It’s $116 Billion. I personally showed Senator Ernst on Saturday that Biden’s new rule prohibits Iowa farmers’ last PPO. Iowa’s Obamacare, like most states including TX, only has dangerous and deady HMOs that pay NOTHING out of network hospitals like the MAYO Clinic, voted BEST hospital in the world by Newsweek. Senator Ernst was [uncomfortable] learning that Iowa farmers were losing their last MAYO Clinic option. The MAYO is 24 miles from the Iowa border. I also talked with Representative Ashley Hinson (R) and thanked her for co-sponsoring HSA Legislation. She surprised me with her knowledge! Ashley Hinson is an HSA Representative. I gave her some Jim Jordan numbers that would blow your mind. Ohio & the World’s Largest Insurance company.

    Reply

  2. Thanks for posting the ACCESS act story.

    Dean Clancy is a good writer, but he makes a couple of challenge-able statements:

    1. Why would the Access Act lower federal expenses by $30 billion?
    The CSR money is still going out the federal door either way.

    Dean may be arguing that HSA’s will bend the cost curve, which does eventually lead to lower federal costs. But that is a very indirect and unreliable outcome. I like to call it a “bank shot,” where several trends must line up just perfectly for the assertion to be true.

    2. Will HSA’s really lead to more competition and lower prices?

    The results are very mixed. Services that are discrete and postpone-able may see lower prices. But many illnesses are complex to diagnose and to treat successfully, and I suspect will not see lower prices.

    Reply

    1. Oh please Bob. Are you pretending that Dean Clancy’s blather could possibly mean anything? He is the HSA director at the non-profit Americans for Prosperity (AFP) which is spending big bucks in the states from the Koch billionaire brothers. Dean Clancy has to say SOMETHING about HSAs so he supports that low-end subsidy in Obamacare going to broke people.

      Dean Clancy loves Obamacare and wrote against President Trump repealing Obamacare in 2017. Americans for Prosperity has employees all over Iowa knocking doors trying to get Iowans to like goofball DeSantis. That is an impossible sale. I have a meeting on Weds with the Iowa Director Drew. Trump’s about 40 points up on DeSantis so Drew is screwed. DeSantis is such a loser he will probably quit before Iowa’s 1st in the Nation vote in January.

      Poor Drew, the Americans for Prosperity’s biggest issue is HSAs and I know so much more than him, even though he is an EXPERT because he has one on employer-based insurance. LOL

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