- In most states, individuals can satisfy Medicaid’s work requirement and maintain coverage by showing $580 in gross gambling winnings once every six months.
- What NPR got wrong.
- What Trump’s trade wars have done to US farmers.
- Traditional Medicare is now using AI to make prior authorization decisions. (Vox)
- Medical myths.
Category: Authors
FDA is Shutting Down Importing Cheap Prescription Drugs for Personal Use
I’m only on one (inexpensive) prescription drug I pick up from my local pharmacy, but it would be nice to have options. A Texas woman interviewed by the Wall Street Journal currently pays $10 a week for a Canadian prescription drug that costs 100 times more in the United States. She’s not alone. The Wall Street Journal reports more than two million Americans take prescription drugs they ordered from abroad to save money.
Saturday Links – 26 September 2026
- BCBS report: hospitals’ use of A.I. was responsible for nearly $1 billion in additional expenses over two years.
- One blood test could screen you for 50 cancers. So why is it controversial? (NYT)
- Is the value of privacy overrated?
- “Over the past three years, the cost of a given level of AI performance has fallen an average of some 47% per quarter. That is a 13-fold drop every year – a faster rate than any other transformative technology in history.”
- U.S. cancer mortality declined 35% since 1991.
- A visual look at the federal debt.
- Bureaucracy: insurers complete their initial claims processing 27 to 30 days after a visit, but providers account for most of that delay. Providers take an average of 16 to 22 days to submit claims, while insurers take 9 to 13 days to make an initial determination.
Friday Links – 25 September 2026
- The Hauser Curve: Revenues as a share of GDP have been fairly steady, in the range of 16% to 20% of GDP for 100 years, whether the top tax rate was 90% or 28%.
- “Nearly 70% of cancer deaths come from cancers for which there is no recommended screening test at all. Pancreatic, ovarian, liver, stomach, esophageal and blood cancers often reveal themselves only after symptoms appear, when the disease has progressed and treatment options have narrowed.”
- Democratic Part D reform: “Medicare spending on prescription drugs grew roughly 50 percent faster than spending by private insurance from 2021 to 2025—even though Medicare did not cover GLP-1 drugs for weight loss until 2026. The rise in Medicare prescription drug costs similarly outstripped that in Medicaid and Medicare Part B (which pays for physician administered drugs).
- Blue states are increasingly babyless. The latest data show Vermont is at 1.27 births per adult woman, followed by Rhode Island (1.33), New Hampshire (1.35), Oregon (1.36), Massachusetts (1.38).
- No, you are not on indigenous land.