- Real 403B reform would “require that savings are passed directly to patients at the pharmacy counter—not buried in hospital spreadsheets.”
- 31% of men ages 25-40 who are not working full-time collected some form of cash or cash-equivalent benefit in the form of food stamps, Social Security for disability, Supplemental Security Income, or unemployment insurance in the prior year.
- China v. the U.S.: China’s share of total world gross domestic product has grown from 3.5 percent in 2000 to just under 17 percent today, while the US has gone from 30 percent to 26 percent. During this same period, China has gone from 6 percent to over 30 percent of total world manufacturing output, while the US has fallen from 25 percent to 17 percent.
- Covid update: The parents most reluctant to send their kids back to school in blue cities in the spring of 2021 were black and Hispanic, research has consistently found, not white. And the most organized opposition to school reopening came from teachers’ unions,
- The case for turning Social Security into a flat benefit.
- House Medicaid reforms graph by graph.
- The House reconciliation package will add at least $3.3 trillion to the debt through 2034.
Category: John C. Goodman
Friday Links
- The plan that is now being debated in the House has net spending reductions of roughly $1.2 trillion. Instead of spending $89.3 trillion, the “cruel” Republicans want to only spend $88.1 trillion – a measly 1.5% cut.
- “Our research finds that the growing presence of asylum seekers [illegal immigrants] residing in homeless shelters explains about 60 percent of this rise in sheltered homelessness.”
- “The Trump administration handed Medicare Advantage plans a massive gift on Monday, finalizing payment rates for 2026 significantly higher than what regulators in the Biden administration sketched out.”
- An “intelligent” hospital room allows for virtual nursing.
- Antarctica’s massive ice sheet is growing, not shrinking.
Thursday Links
- $1,139,000,000,000—Minimum amount that Medicaid would continue to grow over the next ten years under the House-passed budget resolution, belying the notion that the budget would “cut” Medicaid spending.
- Medicaid provider taxes explained.
- More on the Republican plan to curb the rate of growth of Medicaid, not reduce its spending.
- Scientific societies call for a moratorium on creating genetically modified children.
- The average American is now vastly more affluent than the average European.
Wednesday Links
- Claim: it was the Obama administration that paused funding for high-risk (gain of function) studies in 2014. The ban was lifted by none other than Donald Trump in 2017.
- Yarvin’s strange argument on populism and Gain-of-Function research
- Firing squads are making a comeback.
- US patients pay almost three times more than the average price paid in OECD countries for brand drugs, but we pay a third less than other countries for generics.
- The case against Medicaid budget cuts. (unimaginative)