- CBO: 6.2 million people will become uninsured due to the Medicaid unwinding as about 15.5 million people transfer away from the program. In Priceless, I argued that we should have government funded premium support for private insurance instead of privately managed Medicaid.
- Both Biden and Trump favor industrial policy. Here is why economists are skeptical.
- Why giving to public health in poor countries is sometimes better than giving people cash. (Yglesias)
- One in five adults experience chronic pain. (NYT) it may not be all in your mind, but your mind is definitely involved.
- More from the CBO: federal tax subsidies for employer-provided health insurance cost $2,075 per person in FY 2023 — significantly less than the federal cost of both Medicaid expansion ($7,069) and Obamacare premium subsidies ($6,169).
- Paragon: The expected drop in Medicaid enrollment, as people migrate to employer plans, is a large net positive for the federal budget.
Category: Health Economics & Costs
Dollar General to Open Retail Clinics
Progressives and people on the left often criticize dollar stores as contributing to so-called food deserts. Food deserts are parts of towns and rural areas where no large grocery stores want to operate. In addition, the presence of a dollar store supposedly makes an area less desirable for full-service grocers. The logic makes little sense to me: Dollar stores are supposedly bad because they’re not full-service grocers. Yet, full-service grocers don’t want to operate in food deserts because stores in the area are unprofitable but competition from dollar stores makes them even less profitable. What?
Thursday Links
- Sanders reintroduces single payer Medicare bill.
- Memories: CBO trashed the single payer idea.
- Monica’s story: woman nearly died because of Georgia’s Certificate-Of-Need laws.
- Of the 355,000 nurse practitioners licensed in the United States, 88% are trained and capable of providing primary care. Yet in nearly half the states, “scope-of-practice” laws prevent that from happening.
- Rational health reform: a basic bundle of services publicly financed for all, while allowing individuals to “top up” by purchasing additional coverage.
- Why we need work requirements: Medicaid covers almost one in three Americans, or around 100 million people. Able-bodied adults make up more than 40% of that total.
FTC Cracking Down on Drug Company Consolidation
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is scrutinizing mergers more carefully than in the past. The federal agency is currently trying to block a merger between Amgen and Horizon Therapeutics.
In its lawsuit, the FTC said that if it allowed Amgen’s $27.8 billion purchase to go through, Amgen could pressure the companies that manage access to prescription drugs — pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs — to boost the two extremely expensive Horizon products in a way that would inhibit any competition.