- Tomas Philipson: My calculations suggest that Medicare price controls will actually increase total health care spending by at least $30 billion over 20 years.
- More than 50,000 hospitals now qualify as “safety net” institutions that qualify for 340B status.
- A 2022 survey estimated that 100 million Americans carry medical debt, and nearly 80 percent of medical debt is held by households with zero or negative net worth.
- While increases in profits and cash reserves of nonprofit hospitals grow, charity care does not.
- KFF: health insurers operating through the federal exchanges denied 1 in 5 claims in 2023.
- “The cash price for a colonoscopy within a ten-mile radius of midtown Manhattan ranges from a low of $580 to a high of $4,355.”
Category: Cost of Healthcare
Small Towns Recruiting Physicians are Offering Cash and Free Office Rent
What do people do, who live in small towns or rural areas, when they need medical care? They drive to where there are doctors and hospitals. A family member sent me a text the other day saying he was in a regional town 200 miles from his home for a checkup regarding the surgery he got a year ago in that same town.
Thursday Links
- Some universities get two-thirds of NIH grant money as “overhead.”
- “Trump should reinstate Obama’s moratorium on risky biological research.”
- Do ultra processed foods cause depression?
- Can weight loss drugs ruin your sex life? (NYT)
- From the time the FDA approves a medical device it takes 5.7 years before Medicare starts paying for it.
- Trump finally deals with the National Straw Crisis.