Health plan premiums more than doubled in price since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) made health coverage, well, unaffordable. A 50-year-old with an ACA plan must pay 129% more today than a dozen years ago. During this same period, employee health plans rose in price by about half that amount (68%). This data is based on work by the Paragon Institute.
Category: News and Events
The National Residency Matching Program is Like Musical Chairs for Physicians
It is that time of year again for March Madness, but I am not talking about college basketball. I am referring to the other March tradition that is maddening for graduating medical students and patients across the nation. I am referring to the National Residency Matching Program (Match), when nearly 50,000 medical students discover where and in what field they will complete their training. Whichever residency program they match determines their career trajectory.
Monday Links – 23 March 2026
Lifetime Social Security and Medicare benefits will exceed $1.3 million (in 2026 dollars) for average-income couples who retired in 2020 at age 65. When adjusted for inflation, this amount is twice what a similar couple received in the late 1970s. That figure is expected to double again to about $2.6 million for a millennial couple now aged 30 to 35. Roughly extrapolating, the total would surpass $4 million by the time my youngest grandchildren turn 65. If they earn above-average incomes, they could receive $5 to $6 million.
Saturday Links – 21 March 2026
- Capretta: About 40 percent of total health spending is for services that are amenable to consumer discretion in the sense that they are relatively routine, involve high volumes of patients, allow for a degree of choice of provider, and involve some choice of timing.
- Better at hacking than the world’s best hackers: AI.
- Education: (HT: Arnold Kling)
Reading skills among US students [are] now at the lowest levels ever measured. One third can’t even read at a basic level. “They can’t write a sentence,” laments one frustrated teacher. “They don’t know what state they live in. They don’t know what region of the country they’re in. They have no background knowledge. Most of them don’t know who the president is.”