- Study: GoodRx often beats Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs on low prices.
- In the past century, human heights have skyrocketed. Globally, humans grew an average of about 3 inches. In South Korea, women grew an astounding 8 inches and men grew 6 inches on average.
- Near 100% marginal tax rates for the wealthy and a return to the 35% corporate income tax would not be enough to save Social Security and Medicare. (NYT)
- Democratic senators want the Biden administration to close down short-term insurance plans by reinstating Obama’s executive order. (gated)
- Study: Because of burnout, workload, and other stresses, 20 percent of physicians and 40 percent of nurses say they plan to leave their practice within two years.
- There are actually such things as lazy ants – but they serve a purpose.
Category: Consumer-Driven Health Care
Hospice Care is a Great Idea that is being Abused
Former President Jimmy Carter entered hospice care at his home in Plains Georgia last week. Hospice care is a form of palliative care for Medicare beneficiaries who are terminally ill with less than six months to live. People on hospice care agree to forgo all further treatments and are made as comfortable as possible until their deaths.
Why Are Hospitals Hurting Financially?
You would think with Covid driving so many people to the emergency rooms, hospitals would be in great financial shape. Yet in 2022 hospitals experienced the worst financial performance in memory. Jeff Goldsmith writes:
The Future Looks Bleak
To ensure that the federal government’s borrowing capacity does not become exhausted within the next 25 to 50 years, the growth in federal health care spending must be reduced relative to baseline spending. I provide two scenarios that would provide additional borrowing capacity. These would require federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and the insurance subsidies to be reduced by at least 7.5 percent of baseline spending, or 0.5 percent of the economy, over the 2025 to 2034 budget window.
Beginning structural reforms sooner rather than later will allow a path of continuous growth in the budget for health programs while avoiding much larger, drastic cuts in the future as well as problematic future tax increases, inflation, and higher interest rates.