- Health care spending drops back to 17.3% of GDP.
- A less rosy view of the future of heath care spending.
- Paragon Health Institute: Medicaid expansion leads to a surge in spending, but reduces healthcare access for traditional Medicaid enrollees such as low-income children and people with disabilities and it doesn’t improve health.
- Biden: IRA drug rebates are saving seniors “as much as $618 per average dose on 47 prescription drugs.” Reality: Prescription drug prices increased by 2% under Trump, by 5.5% under Biden, and by nearly 6% in November. (WSJ)
Category: Drug Prices & Regulations
The Atlantic: Destigmatizing Hard Drug Use is a Huge Mistake
In high-income cities recently there were billboards filled with young, attractive, smiling people. The caption read “Drink with friends,” explaining if you drink & drive, ask a friend to go with you to help steer, watch for oncoming traffic and tell you when you’re swerving out of your lane. If that sounds utterly ridiculous that’s because it is. Except, drinking wasn’t the topic of the billboards, fentanyl use was.
Friday Links
- Anthrobots are biological robots, made from human cells, that “can be coached to do something they would never have done on their own.”
- A critical analysis of a proposal to abolish the FDA, by Scott Alexander.
- Blue cities are more segregated than the rest of America.
- A brief history of torture in judicial proceedings, including the modern era.
- Despite its being in place for more than half a century and directing more than a billion dollars annually, there is limited evidence of the Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) program’s effectiveness at reducing geographic disparities in access to care or health outcomes.