I often write about the time my wife almost got a CT scan at a hospital outpatient clinic not realizing she had arbitrarily picked the second most expensive service location. Inside the hospital is the most expensive location. The hospital business office told her they would have to get prior authorization from her health plan before they could schedule the scan. That also gave the hospital a reason to calculate her cost-sharing and inform my wife that she was expected to pay $2,700 prior to the service. That was not even the price, just her share of the bill after her deductible was met.
Category: Medicare
Monday Links
- “Dopamine is probably the most famous neurotransmitter in the brain…. It has a long history, and a lot of baggage.”
- Could the government’s price negotiations actually make drug prices higher?
- Social Security’s Financial Reality Is Worse Than Reported: “Despite nearly 20 years of declining and low actual fertility rates, currently sitting at 1.62 births per woman, the Trustees have just this year lowered somewhat the ultimate fertility rate from 2.0 to 1.9 children per woman…”
- How we pay for health care: Total federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and individual market subsidies alone amount to $1.67 trillion per year…. In addition, income tax exemptions for employment-based insurance reduce federal revenues by over $300 billion per year.
- Controlling the cost of insulin: the market works better than government.
Saturday Links
- How much is Medicare spending on the new weight loss drugs?
- Data suggests only about 30 percent of the reported COVID-19 deaths were “from COVID-19” as the underlying cause.
- Drug induced deaths among Blacks is soaring. Is an open border the reason?
- More evidence that Fauci lied and covered up Wuhan Lab funding.
- Why Biden is wrong about wanting to repeal TCJA (the Trump tax cuts).
- Far more people drink alcohol than consume marijuana; but more people consume marijuana than consume alcohol on a daily basis. (WaPo)
- Ambroxol is a miracle drug for coughs and colds. It has been in wide use since 1979, and is available nearly everywhere in the world as a generic. But not in the U.S.
- Electrical impulses are helping paralyzed patients move.
Thursday Links
- Officials believe hundreds of people … posed as customers in dozens of businesses across Chicago and elsewhere, all hoping to win favorable immigration status by becoming “victims” of pre-arranged “armed robberies.”
- Thanks to Medicare, Americans 65 and older in 2022 received medical services worth more than twice as much as those received by Americans aged 25 to 64 ($14,310 vs. $7,096) but paid less in premiums and out-of-pocket costs ($2,216 vs. $2,586).
- Study: Fewer child care regulations are associated with women having more children. (HT: Tyler)
- Robin Hanson continues his debate with Scott Alexander.
- Zero Tolerance laws (setting strict alcohol limits for drivers under age 21) have positive, lifelong effects on the health and income of adolescents.