- Why the Reflecting Pool is not reflecting. (NYT)
- Study: Trump tax cuts (2017) created jobs.
- Cuba is privatizing.
- “The average Swedish woman is 2.5 inches to 3 inches taller than the average US woman, 23.8 pounds lighter, and can expect to live four years longer.” (Bloomberg)
- Jason Furman: with 3% of Social Security’s budget, we could lift all older Americans out of poverty.
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Some Patients Travel Abroad for Cheaper Drug Prices
Consider the drug, Trikafta, for cystic fibrosis. It’s a specialty drug that costs nearly $14,000 for a prescription, or about $346,000 a year. The patent(s) are not expected to expire for another 11.5 years. Of course, very few cystic fibrosis patients can afford that, but they’re not expected to. Their health insurers or employee health plans are supposed to pony up $350k a year on their behalf. To some degree you can thank Obamacare for hyper expensive drugs. By banning annual caps and lifetime caps on benefits (and mandating drug coverage) the Affordable Care Act created a market for completely unaffordable drugs.
Monday Links – 22 June 2026
- SS Trustees: “We need to either raise scheduled revenue by 2034 by about one-third, reduce scheduled benefits by about one-fourth or some combination of the two.”
- Interesting SS reform ideas from Andy Biggs.
- The biology of extreme athletes: they have less cortisol and more dopamine. (NYT)
- Patrick Henry speech.
- Scott Sumner: why the murder rate has been falling.
- Phil Gramm: Reagan tax cuts made the tax system more progressive.
Saturday Links – 20 June 2026
- Scott Alexander investigates reports of miracles.
- The shingles vaccine reduces dementia.
- An alarming drop in the percent of students who read for fun.
- Rural doctors are opting out of Medicare.
- The case for Mamdani’s cuts to NYC foster care.
- 10% of cash welfare goes to families headed by an illegal alien.
- Remembering the Tuskegee Experiment: Lessons