I’m a fan of high-deductible health plans, but the premiums under Obamacare are too high compared to the benefits. Plans should be able to offer annual and lifetime caps on benefits to reduce premiums further. Obamacare’s ban on annual and lifetime benefits is what allowed drug prices and the price of some medical procedures to reach the stratosphere. In addition, with hospitals acquiring physician practices many consumers are being steered to hospital owned facilities which have higher prices.
Category: Medicaid
Friday Links – 1 May 2026
- Surprise: If you overstated your income to qualify for (Obamacare) subsidies last year (they averaged just over $6,000 per person), you will now be required to pay them back.
- Study: Retirement accelerates cognitive decline. (HT: Tyler)
- Why fruit doesn’t taste like it used to,
- What can we learn about humans from the study of chimpanzee warfare?
- “Skinny labeling” occurs when generic companies seek regulatory approval to market a medicine for a specific use, but not other patented uses for which a brand-name drug is prescribed. (Statnews)
- Medicaid and SNAP lost nearly $50 billion to fraud last year.
Wednesday Links – 29 April 2026
- How families are getting health care without health insurance.
- What determines the price of health care?
- The US is one of the most dangerous places in the developed world for walking down the street.
- Two thirds of hospital spending is on items other than patient care.
- More than half of hospitals make money on Medicare.
- One-third make money on Medicaid.
Vox: Medicaid and Food Stamps are Not Corporate Welfare
Medicaid is held up as an example of corporate welfare. Purportedly Walmart and Amazon are costing taxpayers billions of dollars annually by paying their workers too little. Food stamps (SNAP program) are sometimes also held up as evidence of corporate welfare. It is, but not how you think. SNAP boosts profits at retail stores that sell food. It does not subsidize wages. The flawed logic of these arguments is that Walmart and Amazon can pay workers less because low-income families have access to welfare benefits.