Congressional Republicans have long opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), the landmark 2010 law that created Obamacare. With a majority in both houses of Congress, President Trump and Republicans have an unprecedented opportunity to reform the ACA. The thought of changing the poorly conceived health care law is a sacrilege to Democrats.
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Thursday Links
- Argument: RFK, Jr. is being unfairly blamed for the measles outbreak in Samoa.
- RFK, Jr. says he is open to seizing drug patents.
- Some positive aspects of Medicare drug price negotiation.
- The changing definition of obesity.
- Study: reference pricing could save state employee health plans $7.1 billion a year.
- Reference pricing update: In Oklahoma, 99.3 percent of hospitals and 80.0 percent of physicians participate. South Carolina has 100 percent hospital participation and 2more than 99 percent of physicians.
Wednesday Links
- Result of Beijing’s price controls: Chinese patients are getting inferior drugs. (NYT)
- A group of people in Chicago were asked whether a hypothetical 2-year-old named J.L. who has not been vaccinated against measles, mumps or rubella will get sick and require hospitalization. Their initial estimate of harm dropped about 20 percent after they were informed that “there are thousands of children who are J.L.’s age in Chicago who have not been vaccinated against measles, mumps or rubella.”
- The case against RFK, Jr.
- DeepSeek fails Econ 101.
- More thoughts on DeepSeek.
Is Aging a Disease? Why It Matters
I’m not getting any younger, as they say. That’s a cliché but is it a disease? Some scientists believe so and would like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to classify aging as exactly that, not a function of our calendar that inevitably leads to diseases of old age, but a disease itself.