Hospitals make it notoriously difficult to know the price prior to a service. Prices are hard to obtain and often meaningless when disclosed. Indeed, there isn’t one price but many prices depending upon who the payer is. There is a different price for BlueCross, Aetna, Cigna and most other health plans. There is the chargemaster…
Category: Consumer-Driven Health Care
Friday Links
- Antibiotic resistance might cause up to 10 million death per year by 2050. (NYT)
- Is global warming causing a spike in poison ivy?
- Survey: 1 in 3 U.S. adults are interested in trying psychedelics like MDMA, known as ecstasy, or psilocybin, the naturally occurring compound in “magic mushrooms,” for their mental health.
- H.R.5608 would allow individuals to elect to receive contributions to a health savings account in lieu of reduced cost-sharing under health insurance obtained through a health insurance Exchange.
- Wisdom > From Larry Summers.
- Alex Tabarrok: drug companies need to make more money, not less.
Thursday Links
- Who pays higher prices for medical care: commercial insurer’s or self-insured employer plans?
- Pharma’s case against PBMs.
- Roughly a quarter of children live in a one-parent home, more than in any other country. (NYT) Charles Murray made the same points a decade before the Gray Lady discovered the problem.
- Only about one in five Americans think abortion should be allowed after the state of pregnancy in which the fetus is viable outside the womb (about 23 or 24 weeks).
Why Fentanyl Can Kill So Easily
Hardly a day goes by but what I read about a fentanyl overdose. I’ve also noticed an increased number of news articles about people from the entertainment industry dying unexpectedly. I always assume unexpected deaths among otherwise healthy people are drug related. According to the National Safety Council, more than 67,000 people died of fentanyl overdoses in 2021.