- Dr. Casey Means (the would-be Surgeon General): Doctors make people sicker. (NYT)
- A single submarine can require four tons of rare earths. (NYT)
- A brief history of Obamcare.
- Cato study: Repealing certificate-of-need (CON) laws increased the number of long-term acute care hospitals (LTACs) by 69 percent and added an average of 558 certified beds per million elderly residents. Furthermore, when LTACs entered the nursing home market, they decreased the rate at which patients in skilled nursing facilities were rehospitalized by 5.9 percent, the number of patients who fell while in care by 5.3 percent, and the number of patients who were physically restrained to their beds by 13 percent.
Category: Affordable Care Act
Friday Links
- A defense of the 50-yer mortgage.
- Health insurance companies have done well under Obamacare.
- Why it will be difficult for someone to work for the Mamdani administration.
- Mamdani: “We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.”
- Obamacare: From 2013 to 2026. the premium for a benchmark silver plan has nearly tripled – growing from $232 $625. The average deductible has nearly doubled – growing $2,425 to $5,304.
- US men and women are marrying late and having fewer children.
Obamacare is Obsolete and Incompatible with Personalized Medicine
Under Obamacare patient power has only gotten worse. In 2023 I paid nearly $8,000 for a health plan that required I spend a similar amount on medical care before it paid a nickel of my medical bills. The only health care dollars I controlled were the ones I took from my own pocket. Of course, that is how it is supposed to work in other markets. The difference is that government regulates risk. If I want a method to limit my risk of a costly, catastrophic health condition, I must buy Obamacare.
What’s Wrong with Obamacare
In 2014, when the ACA’s key provisions took effect, individual market premiums rose nearly 50 percent.
From 2014 to 2026, premiums increased nearly twice as rapidly as employer plan premiums.
The ACA’s subsidies are ill-designed and inflationary. The enrollee’s share of the premium is capped, regardless of the total premium. Because enrollees pay only a small slice of the premium, insurers face virtually no price discipline—giving them incentives to inflate costs rather than improve value….
COVID-era subsidy boosts resulted in fully subsidized coverage and led to massive fraud.
In 2025, there are 6.4 million people enrolled in fully subsidized plans who are not eligible, costing $27 billion. In 15 states, there are more than twice as many enrollees in fully subsidized plans than are eligible.
Source: Senate Testimony of Brian Blase