I love telemedicine. I have long been an advocate of being able to talk to your doctor on the phone when you have a health complaint. The alternative is often driving across town and waiting in a crowded waiting room with other sick people. I have long believed the natural progression of telemedicine would be (or at least should be) people buying Bluetooth devices that check vital signs and connect seamlessly to your doctor’s computer to make telemedicine even more robust. This would help your doctor know even more about your medical complaint than listening to you on a cellphone or seeing you through a grainy video feed.
Wednesday Links
- A proposal: for reference pricing – why aren’t insurance companies and employers doing this?
- Cato’s Human Freedom Index: Switzerland is No. 1. The US is No. 17
- 3 million children have been dropped from Medicaid and CHIP this year.
- Homelessness is surging in blue states and blue cities.
- Bernie Sanders to introduce bill to restrict US drug prices to the prices paid by other developed countries. (Some similarity to a Trump policy that Biden rescinded.) InsideHealthPolicy — Gated
Medicare Pays Too Much for Drugs that are Available OTC
I have often said that over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are the best deal in health care. Most care is self-care. At least initially, most of the time when Americans have a health complaint they reach for an OTC drug rather than visiting their doctors. Self-care with OTC drugs only represents about 1% of national health expenditures. When…
Tuesday Links
- Health care spending drops back to 17.3% of GDP.
- A less rosy view of the future of heath care spending.
- Paragon Health Institute: Medicaid expansion leads to a surge in spending, but reduces healthcare access for traditional Medicaid enrollees such as low-income children and people with disabilities and it doesn’t improve health.
- Biden: IRA drug rebates are saving seniors “as much as $618 per average dose on 47 prescription drugs.” Reality: Prescription drug prices increased by 2% under Trump, by 5.5% under Biden, and by nearly 6% in November. (WSJ)