- Johns Hopkins prof: arguments for letting the covid-era subsidies expire. (WSJ)
- French pensioners now have higher incomes than working age adults.
- The Economist says nicotine makes you smarter and has no downsides.
- Roughly 55% of the $276 billion of global pharmaceutical research and development investment in 2021 was by companies headquartered in the United States, compared with just 29% to Europe.
- Mississippi and Louisiana now have better reading scores than all blue states.
Category: Health Economics & Costs
Democrats Fight to Extend Obamacare Costly Middle-Class Subsidies
Democrats in Congress are desperately trying to keep Obamacare on life support. The latest scare tactic is from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), which estimates that Obamacare premiums will rise 114% without extending the so-called enhanced subsidies.
TrumpRx Reinvents the Wheel, but that is OK.
Today the White House announced TrumpRx, a drug-buying website. Earlier in the summer Trump called on drug companies to participate in a direct-to-consumer drug platform. The following was reported by the Wall Street Journal:
TrumpRx would allow people to pay cash for certain drugs directly from a government website, at a discounted price negotiated by the government. Trump said the site would be operated by the government. Pfizer, in a statement, referred to the website as TrumpRx.gov.
Employer Health Care Down; Obamacare Coverage Up
The annual BLS survey of employer-sponsored benefits shows that the share of workers with access to medical benefits increased to 74% this year from 71% in 2019. That’s good news. Yet curiously, the share of workers who participate in employer medical plans among those with access to them—i.e., the take-up rate—has fallen to 65% from 73%.
Source: Wall Street Journalv