Taxpayers paid more than $114 billion directly to insurers in 2024 … more than six times as much as in 2014.
Our study shows the correlation between premium growth and subsidy growth is nearly perfect.
In 2024, 90% of subsidy-eligible enrollees had access to plans with net premiums of $10 a month or less.
We found that the market size for unsubsidized Obamacare plans shrank by a quarter, from $23 billion in 2014 to $17 billion in 2024.
Obamacare is a poor value, a product few Americans would voluntarily purchase without subsidies.
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Tuesday Links
- Berwick, et. al. on how to fix American health care: more socialism.
- How one medical intervention can cascade into more interventions.
- Senate Democrats oppose prior authorization in traditional Medicare.
- The problem for doctors and patients is that the vast majority of cardiac arrest cases occur in lower-risk individuals without heart failure or known heart disease.
- Why do we continue to fund Head Start when studies show it doesn’t work? Because it’s a jobs program.
Drugmakers Bypass PBMs to Sell Directly to the Public
Prescription drug spending is about $806 billion a year, while the cost net of manufacturers’ prices is about $487 billion. That suggests $319 billion of drug expenditures are going somewhere else besides drugmaker’s pockets.
More Good News About 2025
88% of the world’s adults are now literate.
Fewer than half as many children died in 2025 as in 2000.
Incomplete statistics suggest that roughly 30 percent fewer Americans will have died of overdoses in 2025 than in 2023.
A new drug that can be taken by injection once every six months virtually eliminates the risk of getting H.I.V.
The gene editing tool CRISPR is revolutionizing care for sickle cell anemia and other diseases.
Scientists might eventually be able to grow you a new arm.
Source: Nichola Kristof, New York Times