Insurers are blamed for strategies to avoid paying too much for health care, while the providers of health care don’t suffer as much hate. The reality is: we’re all guilty. We all have perverse incentives to overconsume, price gouge or refuse to pay. The goal of health reform should be to align all three party’s incentives to better work together.
Category: Health Insurance
Monday Links
- Direct primary care for Medicaid.
- Senators demand release of NIH study on transgender care.
- Preauthorization denials: they are twice as high in Medicaid as they are in Medicare Advantage.
- Study: hospital upcoding in 2019 (relative to 2011 coding practices) was associated with $14.6 billion in hospital payments, including $5.8 billion from private health plans, $4.6 billion from Medicare, and $1.8 billion from Medicaid.
- Relative to employer small-group plans, Marketplace plans paid 6.9% lower doctor fees, 13.3% lower hospital fees, and were 26.3% lower outpatient prices.
Saturday Links
- Has Trump’s election sparked more vasectomies?
- Why is the US growing faster than other countries, even though our students do worse on test scores?
- Walmart says it can now offer same day delivery (including pharmaceuticals) to 86% of all US households.
- Study: Substantial Medicare price reductions in the medical device industry over 20 years led to a 29% decline in new product introductions and an 80% decrease in patent filings.
- Are drug expiration dates meaningless?
- Some people on X are cheering the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s murder.
Friday Links
- Tim Cook thinks Apple health apps could save your life.
- Cato video on Pain Management: Federal and local drug task forces have arrested doctors whom they accuse of overprescribing opioids. This has led to a situation where many physicians either undertreat pain or choose to abandon their long-term pain patients.
- Biden pushes out over $100 billion in clean energy grants as term comes to an end.
- Minnesota study: Commercial payers and Medicare Part D plans—and patients—fund 85% of 340B revenues in Minnesota. Hospitals reap 77% of the benefits.
- Flu Shots Increase Susceptibility to Common Cold.
- With over 120 million Americans suffering from inadequately treated hypertension or diabetes and a never-ending shortage of primary care practitioners, now is the time to expand access to OTC drugs.