- When the Obamacare subsidy expansion doesn’t go away after three years (a good bet), the real cost climbs from $64 billion to $248 billion.
- Health Affairs study: US has the highest administrative costs among the world’s health care systems. Of course it ignores the admin cost of tax collection – which are 25 cents on the dollar, or more.
- Keeping Africa poor: first world elites want to deny the third world access to fossil fuels.
- There is no safe level of lead exposure; but lead is added to turmeric (a spice used in cooking in South East Asia) to give it a yellow color – and it may be in spices in NYC.
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Tuesday Links
These are from Heritage:
- Haislmaier: Since the Obamacare subsidy extension for three more years will have no effect on premiums, or on the number of people with health insurance, it will transfer $64 billion into the pockets of the insurers at taxpayer expense.
- Moffitt: Private sector competition in the market for Medicare prescription drug coverage is working much better than anyone expected; CBO: replacing that system with price controls will result in fewer drugs, fewer cures and fewer lives saved.
- Badger: Letting the Obamacare subsidies expire not only would save money, there would be no loss of Americans with individual health insurance coverage.
- Schaefer: Using the VA system as a guide, if Medicare imposes drug price controls seniors should expect less access to critical drugs and treatments than they have today.
How to Get Doctors Working in Rural America
People who live in rural areas often have a hard time finding physicians who will treat them. Nearly 80% of rural areas are designated ‘medically underserved’ according to Washington Post. In Van Horn, Texas, for example, there is one physician for a community of 11,000 square miles.
Nursing Homes Get Aggressive to Collect Unpaid Debts
Kaiser Health News (KHN) and National Public Radio (NPR) ran an article about nursing homes in Upstate New York pursing friends and family to collect on unpaid debts owed by loved ones. Often times there was no obvious financial connection between the person being sued and the person with unpaid debts to the nursing home. One lady interviewed was a sister who had only gone to visit her brother when he was in a nursing home for a couple months. In another case a son helped admit his mother into a nursing home and became the target of lawsuits to pay her bills.