- From 2005 to 2023 real health care spending per capita grew by 1.8% per year for the highest income quintile, while there was no change in spending for the lowest income quintile.
- Is New Zealand’s Social Security system better than Australia’s and the US system?
- LA being overrun by Typhus rats.
- The federal government “pays states roughly $9 in federal funds for every $1 they spend on able-bodied, working-age Medicaid expansion adults, compared to an average of $1.33 for every $1 spent on traditional enrollees.”
- Should people be able to bet on clinical drug trials?
Category: News and Events
Shopping for Medical Care is a Hassle, but it Works
If more people began to act like consumers instead of passive patients, more health care providers would begin to compete for their business. For that matter, if more health care providers made it easier to shop for medical care, perhaps more patients would compare prices.
Thursday Links – August 2026
- Paragon: Nearly half of Medicaid expansion enrollees likely do not meet eligibility requirements.
- Why matching funds for Medicaid is a bad idea.
- Why baseball arbitration is different from doctor-insurer arbitration.
- The downside of gain of function research: “A single smallpox virion weighs less than 10⁻¹⁴ grams … if you were unlucky enough to inhale even a few dozen virions and had not been vaccinated, you would probably be infected; absent treatment, you face a case fatality rate of around 30.”
- “Race communism.” It’s the best thing I have read on racial politics.
Chronic Illness
Three-quarters of Americans have a chronic disease, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. More than half of Americans have two or more chronic conditions. Most death and disability in the US stem from these conditions. Ninety percent of the nation’s nearly $5 trillion in annual health expenditures are for people with chronic and mental health conditions.
Just as importantly, most chronic conditions are preventable. So, Kennedy and Trump were right to prioritize chronic disease.
Source: From an anti-Kennedy opinion piece in Health Affairs.