“In America, freedom is not to be given, not to be bestowed, but it is ours by right,” Harris said. “And that includes the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body, and not have the government telling people what to do.”
Mission Creep: Housing for Homeless is Another Medicaid Expansion
Some states have begun a novel experiment: diverting health care funds for housing assistance.
States are plowing billions of dollars into a high-stakes health care experiment that’s exploding around the country: using scarce public health insurance money to provide housing for the poorest and sickest Americans.
At last count nearly 40% of states – 19 so far – are diverting funds from Medicaid into housing assistance. The Biden Administration is encouraging others to follow.
Tuesday Links
- NYU Lagone Health is offering virtual urgent care as an alternative to the emergency room.
- Matt Holt: while primary care is skimping by, hospitals have so much money they are paying their senior people million dollar salaries and starting hedge funds.
- Direct Primary Care: Society of Actuaries study: ER visit are 40% lower.
- Direct Primary Care case study: DPC reduced health plan spending by 54%, employees’ out-of-pocket costs at the point of care by 30%, and employee premiums by 20%.
Domestic Companies Producing PPE Want More Subsidies to Stay Afloat
Think back a little over four years ago in the late Spring of 2020. Covid was taking off and nobody really knew how to stop it. Everyone was advised to stay home and when you had to venture out you were required to wear a mask. Masks were hard to find. Latex gloves were hard to find. Hand sanitizer was difficult to find and toilet paper was too. A major problem during Covid was not just that demand had skyrocketed for protective gear (called PPE) but also protective gear was mostly made overseas in China. Global transportation ground to a halt making it hard to access PPE from abroad even if there was the capacity abroad to manufacture it.