- Open source programming is making AI impossible to regulate.
- After raising $90 million, Black Lives Matter is on the verge of bankruptcy. Question: Do any of the corporations that contributed really care?
- Zeke Emanuel megatrend prediction number 1: We will see a merging of insurers and providers.
- Zeke Emanuel megatrend prediction number 2: We will see an uprooting of the payment system in Medicare Advantage – the one place where prediction number 1 is actually occurring.
- Between 1997 and 2011, 85% of the increase in real per capita Medicare spending was on newly created procedure codes marking additional medical services. There is no fiscal restraint on these spending increases.
Category: Medicare
Are Weight-Loss Drugs Right for Medicare?
Should Medicare cover weight-loss drugs under Part D plans? Currently Medicare drug plans do not cover drugs for weight-loss.
Medicare coverage of obesity services and treatments currently includes obesity screening, behavioral counseling, and bariatric surgery, but not drugs that are prescribed for weight loss. The 2003 law that established the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit explicitly prohibits Part D plans from covering drugs used for weight loss, along with some other types of drugs, including agents used for cosmetic purposes or hair growth, fertility drugs, and drugs prescribed to treat sexual or erectile dysfunction.
Friday Links
- CBO: 6.2 million people will become uninsured due to the Medicaid unwinding as about 15.5 million people transfer away from the program. In Priceless, I argued that we should have government funded premium support for private insurance instead of privately managed Medicaid.
- Both Biden and Trump favor industrial policy. Here is why economists are skeptical.
- Why giving to public health in poor countries is sometimes better than giving people cash. (Yglesias)
- One in five adults experience chronic pain. (NYT) it may not be all in your mind, but your mind is definitely involved.
- More from the CBO: federal tax subsidies for employer-provided health insurance cost $2,075 per person in FY 2023 — significantly less than the federal cost of both Medicaid expansion ($7,069) and Obamacare premium subsidies ($6,169).
- Paragon: The expected drop in Medicaid enrollment, as people migrate to employer plans, is a large net positive for the federal budget.
Thursday Links
- Sanders reintroduces single payer Medicare bill.
- Memories: CBO trashed the single payer idea.
- Monica’s story: woman nearly died because of Georgia’s Certificate-Of-Need laws.
- Of the 355,000 nurse practitioners licensed in the United States, 88% are trained and capable of providing primary care. Yet in nearly half the states, “scope-of-practice” laws prevent that from happening.
- Rational health reform: a basic bundle of services publicly financed for all, while allowing individuals to “top up” by purchasing additional coverage.
- Why we need work requirements: Medicaid covers almost one in three Americans, or around 100 million people. Able-bodied adults make up more than 40% of that total.