- How China went capitalist.
- “How is it that the working population is increasingly burdened by health insurance premiums and poorer coverage, while the senior population is shielded from cost increases even as Medicare coverage has improved?”
- New Penn-Wharton study shows per-capita federal spending on each age group:
- Seniors: $43,700
- Children and young adults: $4,300.
- There are three types of primary care. The most wasteful: prevention and screening services.
- Californians pay billions of dollars a year in fuel taxes and vehicle fees to maintain the second worst highway system in the nation.
Category: Medicare
Medicare Hospice Fraud is Rampant, in California and Elsewhere
House Republicans are going after rampant hospice fraud in the Medicare program in California. The only problem is that they are targeting a deep blue state rather than fraud in all 50 states. Hospice fraud and abuse is widespread in the Medicare program.
Saturday Links – 28 March 2026
- Active-selection (where seniors are forced to choose between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage) is better than default selection (where seniors are assigned to one or the other when they fail to make a choice).
- Benefits of forced saving over pay-as-you-go Social Security.
- KFF survey: “Six in ten adults (61%) who buy their health coverage on the ACA Marketplace say it is very or somewhat difficult to afford their deductibles and out-of-pocket costs for medical care and half (51%) say it is difficult to afford the cost of health insurance premiums each month.”
- One reason the UK is considering assisted dying: they are rationing hospice care. (Bloomberg)
- Melania: some day a robot like “Plato” will replace ordinary classroom teachers.
- The “Surprise Test Paradox.”
- While opioid overdose deaths are down, cocaine use is up.
Monday Links – 23 March 2026
Lifetime Social Security and Medicare benefits will exceed $1.3 million (in 2026 dollars) for average-income couples who retired in 2020 at age 65. When adjusted for inflation, this amount is twice what a similar couple received in the late 1970s. That figure is expected to double again to about $2.6 million for a millennial couple now aged 30 to 35. Roughly extrapolating, the total would surpass $4 million by the time my youngest grandchildren turn 65. If they earn above-average incomes, they could receive $5 to $6 million.