Large hospital systems often complain about Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. Just last year some large hospital systems reported dropping or threatened to drop major MA plans run by health insurers. One complaint is low reimbursement, but arguably a more irritating business practices by MA plans is excessive prior authorization and slow payments. Breaking up with an MA plan runs the risk of shutting out thousands of potential patients. A strategy more large hospital systems are exploring is establishing their own MA plans.
Category: Health Economics & Costs
Monday Links – 26 January 2026
- Insurers blame hospitals and drugs companies for rising health care costs.
- Why lower prices do not necessarily lower health care spending.
- Obamacare penalizes marriage. Thanks to Devon Herrick for the pointer.
- The federal government’s increasing share of spending has grown from 32 percent to nearly 50 percent today.
- “French supertax on wealthy raises only a quarter of planned revenue,”
- 2025 was far and away the worst year for measles cases in the 21st century.
- Deporting workers lowers our GDP.
- Three bills offer Health Savings Account solutions for the Obamacare impasse in Congress.
Thune comes under GOP pressure to bypass Democrats on health care
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is coming under increasing pressure from Senate Republican colleagues to bring health care legislation to the Senate floor amid fears of a Democratic wave in November. Conservatives are pushing the GOP to move a package similar to President Trump’s new health care reform proposal through the budget reconciliation process, which would allow it to avoid a Democratic filibuster and pass the Senate with a simple majority.
Saturday Links – 24 January 2026
- A Trump trade deal that is good for the US and the UK.
- There is supposed to be a $2,000 cap on Medicare enrollee drug spending. So how do some people reach the cap after spending only $1,200?
- How to reform the food stamp program.
- Kotlikoff on entitlement programs:
Earn or save $1 too much and, depending on the state, lose thousands of dollars in your own or your family members’ Medicaid benefits. Hold $1 too much in assets and forfeit thousands in Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Earn an extra dollar in a Medicaid non-expansion state and receive thousands of dollars in otherwise unavailable [Obamacare] subsidies.
In 2023, a record 62 million Americans smoked pot; 17 million now use it daily or near daily. One in 12 young adults used a hallucinogen; one in 18 misused prescription stimulants such as Adderall. Another 2.6 million Americans over 12 took meth. Overdoses still claim the lives of 70,000 Americans annually; the majority died using synthetic opioids like fentanyl. HT: Arnold Kling