Republicans wisely want to inject more consumerism into the medical marketplace. Health savings accounts, high-deductible health plans, direct primary care, price transparency are all attempts to encourage patients to act more like consumers. Democrats, by contrast, seemingly want to remove every shred of consumer sovereignty from health care. Not to cast aspersions, but it is true. Obamacare is but one example.
Monday Links
- Good news on the jobs front.
- Studies contradict HHS warning on Tylenol.
- 90 million people have sleep apnea. Could the problem be solved with a pill?
- Does food really taste better without alcohol?
- The female liverwort Plagiochila exigua only lives in North America, while the males are found only in Europe. In lieu of sex, they clone themselves.
Saturday Links
- More on the inverted food pyramid.
- RFK Jr. On Trump’s Diet: “I Don’t Know How He’s Alive.”
- Cato on Reconciliation 2.0: How to cut Obamacare and Medicare spending.
- Medicare Actuary’s Office: spending on (Obamacare) Exchange subsidies rose by a whopping 34.9 percent in 2024—this after 25.5 percent growth in 2023.
- Trump: The Great Health Care Plan
- The main driver of increased health care spending is greater volume and intensity of care, not higher prices.
White House Should Expedite Plans to Boost Access to OTC Drugs
President Trump released The-Great-Healthcare-Plan in January 2026. The plan was summarized on one page and illustrated the White House’s plans to restrain medical spending and increase access to care. Among the topics were lower drug prices, lower insurance premiums, holding big insurance companies accountable and maximizing price transparency. One subtopic stood out, and it is probably the one policy wonks will pay the least attention to. Yet it arguably has the most power to help achieve Trump’s goals of boosting access to care while holding costs down.