- New research by Gerald Auten of the US Treasury Department and David Splinter of the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation finds that the after-tax income share of the top 1% has barely changed since 1962. More.
- Is it true that 1 in 8 American households are so poor that someone must skip a meal each month to get by? No, it is not—the real number is more like 1 in 50. More.
- Biden: The expanded child tax credit “cut child poverty in half in 2021.” Proper modeling: expanded CTC alone would have reduced the child poverty rate to 8.3 percent in 2021. More.
- The left-leaning Center for Budget Policies says we need housing subsidies because of market failure in the housing market. In fact, public housing subsidies are anti-marriage: Per HUD data, only 3% of subsidized housing serves “two adults with children.” More.
Category: Health Economics & Costs
Monday Links
- IRA Medicare Part D reforms explained. There is a huge reduction in the government’s contribution to the program that Republicans never talked about.
- Alex and Tyler discuss efficient gift giving.
- A different view of gift giving.
- 6 in 10 Americans have at least one chronic disease.
- Milei is taking his “chain saw” to Argentinian government programs. On the chopping block: the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity.
Report: Self-Insured Employer Plan Prices Not as Low as Insurers
Nearly 100 million people have health coverage through self-insured employer plans. Self-insured health plans are arrangements where large employers take on the risk of their employees’ medical costs rather than purchasing coverage through an insurer. One advantage of self-insurance is that self-insured plans are regulated by the federal government, rather than states laws. In addition, some employers may have healthy workers and can assume the risk of employee health needs cheaper than insuring them.