- Lawsuit: Cigna algorithm rejects claims without a doctor even opening a patient’s records.
- Report: CMS’ Medicaid inflation penalty will make generic drug shortages worse.
- Virginia Medicaid paid at least $21.8 million on behalf of 12,054 enrollees after they were already dead.
- An expensive trip: a medically approved, psychedelic renaissance is underway.
- Did Gilead hold a promising HIV drug off the market in order to increase profits? (NYT) Economic theory would say no.
- Australia has “virtually eliminated” HIV transmission in Sydney and elsewhere.
Category: Medicare
Friday Links
- Scott Atlas: what to expect for Medicare for All.
- Unemployment reduces fertility. UI compensation reverses the effect.
- Study: OxyContin marketing in 1996 is related to adverse long-term health outcomes over twenty-five years later.
- Brian J. Miller testimony: lawmakers should foster innovation in the medical field, to ensure the next generation of breakthrough technology reaches patients.
- Medicaid health plans denied physician’s pre authorization requests one out of every eight times — roughly two times the rate under Medicare Advantage.
- Yglesias: Banning background checks increases racial discrimination.
Saturday Links
- Bernie Sanders has a new Medicare for All bill.
- Immortality may not be a blessing.
- Merritt Hawkins: The average wait time for new-patient to see a doctor is 26 days.
- CMS Proposal: Telehealth to Continue Unfettered Thru 2024. (InsideHealthPolicy)
- Social Security is already very progressive: An individual in the bottom fifth of lifetime earners receives a benefit equal to about 80% of their inflation-adjusted pre-retirement earnings. A middle quintile earner receives about 50%, while the top fifth receives 32%.
- Did Obamcare reduce the Disability Rolls? No.
- David Henderson: the reparations debate has everything backwards.
- Words of wisdom from Scott Sumner: The Fed doesn’t battle inflation, it creates inflation… The inflation we’ve experienced over the past few years is almost entirely created by a highly expansionary monetary policy, which drove up nominal GDP.
Friday Links
- We have been advocating OTC birth control for years.
- Adverse selection problems in insurance markets go away if people must insure by household rather than as individuals. At least in Pakistan.
- Is your doctor employed by a private equity firm? (NYT)
- AARP Represents Health Insurers, Not Seniors
- Is compression of morbidity being reversed? Considering 300 diseases in the USA from 1990 vs. 2017, health span (health-adjusted life expectancy) grew by 2 years, but life expectancy grew by 3 years.
- The Health Care Blog goes wacko: “The greatest health equity threat to Medicaid – and Medicare – beneficiaries is the climate crisis.”