More than 30 years ago when the cost of health care was much lower compared to the average wage of American workers. In the late 1980s, for example, the percent of GDP spent on health care was just over 10%. It’s nearly 20% today. Around that time a politically motivated attorney general began looking into the amount of charity care provided by nonprofit hospitals within the state to make sure hospitals were providing enough to justify their tax breaks. The investigation ultimately found hospitals in the state were providing enough charity care to avoid further investigation, but perhaps the question should have been why was the bar set so low?
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Monday Links
- The correlation between income and weight in advanced countries is driven almost entirely by women. (The Economist) Recommended but gated.
- Canadians wait an average of 14.8 weeks between seeing a specialist and getting treatment at a cost of $2,925 per patient in lost wages and productivity.
- The top 1% now pay more in income taxes than the bottom 95%.
- In Virginia, hospitals must disclose their prices before patients are admitted. (WSJ)
- Harvard scientists: drug cocktail can reverse aging.
Friday Links
- We have been advocating OTC birth control for years.
- Adverse selection problems in insurance markets go away if people must insure by household rather than as individuals. At least in Pakistan.
- Is your doctor employed by a private equity firm? (NYT)
- AARP Represents Health Insurers, Not Seniors
- Is compression of morbidity being reversed? Considering 300 diseases in the USA from 1990 vs. 2017, health span (health-adjusted life expectancy) grew by 2 years, but life expectancy grew by 3 years.
- The Health Care Blog goes wacko: “The greatest health equity threat to Medicaid – and Medicare – beneficiaries is the climate crisis.”
FDA Finally Approved an OTC Oral Contraceptive; Now it Should Approved Competing Ones
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has finally approved an over-the-counter hormonal birth control pill.
At a time of unrelenting attacks on reproductive autonomy, the Food and Drug Administration’s decision on July 13 to approve a birth control pill for over-the-counter (OTC) use is an important advance toward providing people with tools to control their fertility. This includes preventing unwanted pregnancy. Having Opill, a safe, effective, easy-to-use birth control option available without a prescription is essential, because it so difficult for many people to get prescription birth control in the U.S.