- Cost of extending Obamacare enhanced subsidies: CBO and the JCT estimates:
- Direct cost to taxpayer over the next 10 years: $383 billion.
- Increase in interest payments on the federal debt that would arise from the larger deficit: —$48 billion
- 31 percent of the total cost will go to individuals with incomes over 400 percent of the federal poverty level, including those making as much as $599,000 a year.
- Cost of subsidies to illegal immigrants would reach $11 billion.
- Singer: If opiates are killing Americans, why won’t the FDA approve alternatives that are available in other countries.
- Claim: Fasting can help with Type 2 Diabetes. (speculative)
- The cause of most global deaths: heart disease.
Category: Health Insurance
Patients Worry about Seeing Their Doctor, Want More Information During Visit
Americans’ anxiety about seeing their physicians is partly related to our health care system’s utter indifference to transparency caused by a lack of competition. The shortage of primary care physicians certainly doesn’t help. When your primary care physician’s schedule is fully booked you have few other options if you are not getting the information you need to manage your health. I have found that being clear and honest about being price sensitive helps.
Hospital Price Transparency
Effective January 1, 2021, Trump-era federal regulations require all hospitals accepting Medicare payments to fully disclose their standard charge for everything they do. Greg Dattilo and Dave Racer explain how well this requirement is working.
What’s Wrong with the PBM Market?
People who need expensive drugs are being overcharged so that drug insurance premiums can be artificially lowered for everyone – including all the people who don’t need those drugs. In this way, the sick are subsidizing the healthy.