- Kaiser: Insurers deny medical claims more often than you think.
- Enthoven in Health Affairs: likes our new Medicare book. A “must read.”
- Tom Miller: why most health policy is déjà vu.
- Why is mental health declining for young women? (NYT)
- Are Biden’s regulations the reason for a 20% drop in blood tests for transplant patients? (WSJ)
- How can you do a placebo-controlled drug trial if the disease affects only a few dozen people? (WSJ)
Category: Public Insurance
Indiana Employer Initiative to Rein-in Hospital Prices Spreading to Other States
Former White House official Al Hubbard and employer groups began lobbying Indiana legislators to make hospital prices more transparent, and more affordable. A recent analysis by RAND found that Indiana’s hospital prices are among the top of the nation. Hoosiers are paying about three times the fees Medicare pays for the same service. The news has employers steaming.
When Sachdev, a pharmacist by training who is now 54, became CEO of the Employers’ Forum of Indiana, she was shocked that her members often didn’t know what prices they were paying for surgeries or other medical services, because hospitals and insurers kept them secret.
Thursday Links
- Cosco is offering virtual checkups for $29. Third party insurance not accepted.
- Headline: Pharma would lose loyal ally if Menendez leaves Senate. If he is so loyal, why didn’t he stop the IRA bill?
- Frequently wrong, New York Times covid reporter Apoorva Mandavilli will lecture at Harvard (alongside former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot).
- The more governments intervene to protect workers, the more unemployment there is.
- Why hospital consolidation is hurting patients and what can be done about it.
Wednesday Links
- The new Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines are formulated to a particular variant that is currently giving rise to only 3% of covid infections.
- Paragon: “We estimate the ACA led to only 1.6 million more Americans with private health insurance despite $60 billion in annual subsidies — an … annual cost of roughly $36,800 for each additional private-insurance enrollee.”
- Neanderthal DNA in modern humans has been linked to serious hand disease, the shape of people’s noses and various other human traits.
- Study: People with positive beliefs around getting older lived seven and a half years longer than those who felt negatively about it. (NYT)