It has been 15 years since I had dental insurance through work. At the time my dental coverage cost $34 a month and had a $250 deductible. It provided one free teeth cleaning per year with routine dental care paid at 85%. Oral surgery, crowns and root canal procedures were covered at 50%. The maximum benefit was $2,500 a year as I recall. My dentist wouldn’t even take it. The next year I dropped coverage because it wasn’t worth the $408 annual cost.
Category: News and Events
Monday Links
- Insurers have made out like bandits under Obamacare.
- Paragon study: The cost to the taxpayers of Obamacare is $36,798 per additional private insurance enrollee.
- The leader of Hamas is headquartered in Qatar – the same country that hosted the World Cup.
- Tyler Cowen (channeling the Economist) on why Argentina may elect a libertarian president.
- Who is better at keeping food safe? Public health agencies? Or the restaurants themselves?
- Reducing hospital costs without hurting patients.
Saturday Links
- Arthur Laffer: requiring health care providers to post prices for their medical services could save more than $500 billion a year.
- A disappointing discovery: Jim Jordan was willing to Jordan increase the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions – benefiting wealthy taxpayers in blue states – in order to get votes for the speakership.
- Study: repealing Certificate of Need laws leads to more hospitals in urban and rural areas.
- $233 million: what blue states receive that they wouldn’t receive if federal grants reflected these state’s population losses.
NYT: Are Supervised Drug-Use Facilities the Answer to Drug Overdoses?
Let’s assume there is a risky product, of which the government wants to discourage consumption. The good is dangerous, not infrequently killing people accidentally. The substance is of dubious quality, highly regulated yet poorly made and inconsistent. The products within this category are mislabeled, misbranded and often adulterated with harmful chemicals and other additives. Yet, these goods are popular among some people, becoming habit forming both psychological and physiological. The goods are blamed for social ills, including crime, homelessness, shiftlessness, poor health and even death. How should government discourage consumption of products like this? I’m talking about illegal drugs of course.