- Medicare Part D Market: Average premiums are up 57%; average plan choices are down 53%; some state premiums increases are north of 100% (CA, NY, NV).
- Kamala’s home health care benefit: The nation already spends more than $130 billion on home care and $190 billion on nursing home care. Having Medicare assume these costs, would increase Medicare spending by 14 percent – assuming no increase in demand.
- Why Trump’s trade ideas don’t add up.
- The seven battleground states have less than 17% of the nation’s population, but they are on track to collect 44% of the green new deal (IRA) money.
- CBO: the 10-year cost of Medicare coverage of anti-obesity medications is $35.5 billion. Health benefits are uncertain.
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Weight-Loss Drugs Also Reduce Alcohol and Drug Abuse
Early research to assess whether weight loss for its own sake is beneficial enough to require coverage has shown some health benefits. A new finding is that GLP-1 drugs reduce the cravings for drugs and alcohol as well.
Friday Links
- Tomas Philipson: Why price controls on Ozempic could make overall health care costs go up.
- No, millionaires and billionaire’s do not pay lower tax rates than school teachers.
- 35% of bachelor’s degrees from liberal arts colleges result in a negative ROI.
- “In dual-income households within the top socioeconomic quintile, only 29 percent of wives earn more than their husbands, whereas in the bottom quintile, an incredible 69 percent of wives out-earn their husbands.” HT: Arnold Kling
- Ways in which FDR was anti-Black workers.
Thursday Links
- Bill would allow you to get $50,000 if you give up your kidney.
- All there is to know about “suicide pods.”
- Survey: More than 90% of independent pharmacies may not sell Medicare Part D prescription drugs selected to undergo price negotiation.
- When Congress created Social Security (in 1935) with a retirement age of 65, average life expectancy was 61 for white men, 65 for white women, 51.3 for Black men, and 55.2 for Black women.
- Paragon’s Joel Zinberg on health policy issues in the election.
- Can RFK, Jr. “make America healthy again”?