Saturday Links

Medicare Advantage and Traditional Medicare enrollees get about the same amount of dental, hearing, and vision care. MA patients pay less out of pocket.

in 2019, mean monthly out-of-pocket costs were estimated to be $440 in Medicare Advantage compared with $579 in fee-for-service Medicare. (That’s $1,668 a year difference.)

Ippolito on the prospects for Medicare Advantage reform.

Social cost of measles outbreak in Texas: $35.4 million. Social cost of vaccines that could have prevented measles: $40,000–$115,000.

Real, inflation-adjusted, federal domestic spending per person is now more than 2.5 times what it was in 1980, while total government spending and tax subsidies at all levels exceed $90,000 per household.

Why hospital price transparency regulations aren’t working:  “Many hospitals can easily afford the small fine and keep breaking the law.”