Category: Cost of Healthcare
Bankruptcies Rising in the Health Care Sector
The United States spends nearly $5 trillion on medical care and health-related activities each year. Health expenditure consumes nearly 20% of gross domestic product (GDP). Yet, economists and business analysts claim the health care industry is hemorrhaging money, with bankruptcies on the rise year after year.
Monday Links
- Book review: “Why did China manage to build the world’s biggest high-speed rail network in just a few years, while California has yet to build a single mile of operational train track despite almost two decades of trying?” (Recommended)
- Scott Sumner: In defense of China. (Also recommended)
- Why our hearts can be as much as 10 years older than our chronological age and what we can do about it.
- Pew Foundation: How government destroyed low-cost housing.
- It’s progressives who aren’t having children. HT: Arnold Kling
- If the money the federal government spent to reconstruct New Orleans after Katrina were given to people who live there in cash, it would amount to more than $1 million per household.
Saturday Links – 30 August 2025
- Everything you want to know about the hundreds of studies on whether alcohol is good or bad for you.
- Did GPT-4o help a kid commit suicide?
- The $42.5 billion BEAD program was designed to deploy high-speed internet to individual locations. Costs run as high as $40,000 to connect a location.
- The way you breathe is unique to you, like a fingerprint.
- How Medicaid pays for health care for illegal immigrants:
Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federally funded Medicaid, but hospitals must still provide emergency care to anyone in need. Through Emergency Medicaid, states receive federal reimbursement for services provided to individuals who meet Medicaid’s income and residency requirements but lack an eligible immigration status. Federal reimbursement can be as high as 90%. InsideHealthPolicy (gated)