- In 2023, the U.S. spent $4.8 trillion on healthcare. As much as half of that massive expenditure, $2.4 trillion, paid for activities unrelated to patient care called BARRCOME – bureaucracy, administration, rules, regulations, compliance, oversight, mandates, and enforcement.
- Medicare physician payments declined substantially from 2001 to 2024 — a whopping 29%.
- Currently, physicians are the only Medicare providers who do not receive annual, inflation-based payment updates.
- Head of the International Longshoremen’s Association explains what the strike is all about, along with a video showing how dockworkers can be replaced by automation. (it’s a long way from On the Water Front.
- Cato study: Marijuana doesn’t make you crazy.
- An Elon Musk device is allowing the blind to see.
Category: Medicare
Medicare’s Bribe to Coax Part D Insurers Not to Raise Their Premiums on the Eve of the Election Will Be Costly For Taxpayers
Yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its analysis of a newly announced Biden-Harris program intended to paper over the flaws of the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA). Based on CBO estimates, this election-year stunt to artificially lower the cost of seniors’ Part D premiums will cost taxpayers at least $7 billion in 2025, including $2 billion in additional interest on our already ballooning debt. If implemented as planned, this program could cost taxpayers more than $21 billion over the three-year demonstration.
Source: House Budget Committee
Thursday Links
- A Fauci aide who taught a coworker how to destroy government records to avoid complying with FOIA requests is taking the Fifth before a congressional committee.
- The real issue in the port workers strike is not wages, it’s automation.
- Why McDonald’s burgers taste better (different?) outside the US.
- The nanny state: number of US counties in which government transfers are more than 25% of personal income.
- Humana tumbles as insurer faces $3 billion hit to revenue over lower Medicare star ratings (Statnews)
- Medicaid is no longer for the poor: Enrollment as a percentage of the U.S. population has more than tripled, rising from around 8% in the late 1980s to nearly 27% by 2022, while the poverty rate remained relatively stable.
Tuesday Links
- Florida doctor accused of fatally removing the wrong organ from a patient has license suspended.
- The average chief executive in a publicly traded health care company earned $11 million. The median was $4.1 million. (StatNews)
- Nonprofit hospitals avoided paying $37.4 billion in taxes in 2021.
- The penalty for not signing up for Medicare drug coverage: Those not enrolling in a Part D or Medicare Advantage plan or entering these programs after they are initially offered at age 65 pay an additional monthly “drug coverage premium” penalty equal to the monthly cost of the plan in perpetuity. That is a big financial stick!