The medical news website, Kaiser Health News ran an article about a rural hospital in Oklahoma suing its patients over unpaid bills. This is now an old, familiar story in health care. Hospitals, including nonprofit organizations, sometimes sue patients for delinquent medical debts. Obamacare was supposed to do away with medical debt but many people still have cost-sharing they cannot afford.
Category: News and Events
Friday Links
- Senators propose to remove barriers to telemental health services for Medicare beneficiaries.
- Bidenomics: The typical American household must spend an additional $11,434 annually just to maintain the same standard of living they enjoyed in January of 2021.
- Thanks to a Trump initiative, if wait times for veterans do not meet an “access standard” (e.g., 20 days for primary care and mental health care and 28 days for specialty care), they may seek private sources of care. However, private wait times may be longer than VA wait times.
- A flexible spending account (FSA) or health savings account (HSA) likely won’t cover wearable devices like an Apple Watch or Fitbit, but blood pressure monitors, blood sugar test kits, thermometers, hearing aids and Oura rings—which monitor biometrics primarily focused on sleep—are typically eligible.
- Alex Tabarrok on how much regulation is needed in medical care.
Record-Breaking 2024 Open Enrollment Period Under the Affordable Care Act
21.3 million Americans with high (and likely unaffordable) deductibles and narrow access to doctors and drugs. The vast majority of whom are having their premiums paid, in whole or in part, by taxpayers. It’s worth pointing out that many of the new enrollees are likely people who did not enroll when the premium was 2-4% of their income but do when coverage is given to them for free. The data below does not yet have 2024 (breakdown by income has not been released yet), but I’d bet the trend holds.
Thursday Links
- Can medical expenses be crowdfunded?
- Study of treatment facilities for adolescents with opioid use disorder: nearly 40 percent had no beds immediately available or offered a waitlist, with a mean wait time of 28.4 days. Only 57 percent accepted Medicaid. We are becoming more like Canada every day.
- David Frieman on historical “facts” you have probably heard about (and even seen depicted in movies) that are actually myths. Fun reading.
- The Geothermal energy solution: “There’s 41 times more heat energy in the earth’s crust than that of all known petroleum and nuclear fuel reserves. What’s more, the energy of that sun beneath our feet is carbon-free and potentially available all day, every day.”
- More on abolishing the FDA.