- Regulations prohibiting price gouging during the Covid pandemic resulted in shortages leading to more social contact in crowded stores at the worst possible time—when social contact spreads a dangerous pathogen.
- The increase in US maternal mortality may not be real.
- Biden executive order: health insurers participating in Medicare Advantage, Medicaid or the Obamacare exchanges will need to respond to expedited prior authorization requests within 72 hours, and standard requests within seven calendar days.
- The world is getting older: In the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, total spending on long-term care is already more than 3% of GDP. In Japan and Korea more than 15% of the population is over 80.
Category: Policy & Legislation
What Are We Getting for All That Obamacare Spending?
Obamacare spending has now reached $214 billion a year, insuring people through Medicaid (which is mostly contracted out to private insurers) and the Obamacare exchanges. At $1,731 for every household in America, that’s a great deal of money being transferred from taxpayers to insurance companies every year.
So, what are we getting in return?
One scholarly study finds there has been no overall increase in health care utilization in the U.S. since the enactment of Obamacare. The number of doctor visits per capita actually fell over the last decade.
See my latest post at Forbes.
Congress Needs to Ensure Health Care Price Transparency is not a Sham
The latest issue of Health Care News features a commentary, “Price Transparency Is a Fraud in a Fake Market.” This argument is somewhat surprising because conservative policy wonks love to expound on the benefits of price transparency. The logic goes that if only doctors, hospitals and drug makers were forced to reveal prices consumers would shop and force down prices, like occurs in competitive markets.
Thursday Links
- Yglesias: Is it time to get rid of teacher licensing requirements?
- Ultraviolet light may be the cheapest and most effective preventive medicine there is.
- With a New York City “get-out-of-jail” free card, you can speed and run red lights with impunity.
- A Chief Patient Officer represents patients in bureaucratic institutions. A Chief Contrarian asks hard questions that otherwise wouldn’t be asked in organizations that are on auto-pilot. Neither would be needed if we had a free market for health care.