- We are already soaking the rich:
- The top one percent pay almost half of the income tax.
- The top five percent pay almost two-thirds of the income tax.
- The top 10% pay over 75% of the income tax.
- The top half pay 97.7%
- Around bats that eat insects, infant mortality goes down.
- Many new FDA-approved products experience long delays before Medicare agrees to pay for them.
- “The best prediction is that the Harris plan [generous child tax credit without a work requirement] could lead well over a million parents to exit employment.”
Category: Saturday Links
Saturday Links
- What the classical thinkers thought about mental health.
- More than 300 hospitals are deploying or preparing to dispatch paramedics, nurse practitioners and other medical staff to treat patients at home instead of in hospital settings, a service widely referred to as hospital at home. They get paid the same hospital-stay rate. (WSJ)
- George Halvorson calls MedPac report “fake news.”
- More on diet and dementia. Study: an anti-inflammatory diet reduced the risk of developing dementia by 31 percent.
- 450 agents and brokers suspended for enrolling and switching people in exchange plans without their consent.
- Is RFK Jr right? Is a surge in chronic diseases, cancer, neurodevelopmental disorders, metabolic syndrome, and Alzheimer’s disease caused by Big Sugar, Big Ag, Big Pharma, and the cabal of government sycophants who do the bidding of their corporate sugar daddies?
- “Social capital” for individuals increases with market income and decreases with government transfer payments.
Saturday Links
- Henderson: the case for immigration.
- Why inequality can be a good thing.
- Chronically ill patients with high deductible health plans are highly sensitive to out-of-pocket costs for telemedicine.
- Harris would add $1.7 trillion to federal spending. And that doesn’t include Medicare for All.
- When drug companies assist patients in paying for their drugs, should that assistance count toward the patient’s insurance plan deductibles and coinsurance?
- Unintended consequences: Could the IRA bill lead to increased enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans?
Saturday Links
- “The projected $4.7 billion spent on migrant services in FY 2025 either eclipses or approximates what New York City will spend on core public services such as sanitation and the fire department.”
- Organ transplants: “While most organs are delivered successfully, some organs are delayed in transit, lose viability, and have to be thrown away. Some just get lost, too.”
- What’s wrong with the IRA bill: “Electricity prices have skyrocketed by 30% since 2021, rising 13 times faster than in the previous seven years. Meanwhile, gas prices have more than doubled since Biden took office. Rising energy costs have also been a major driver of food inflation, forcing Americans to spend over 11% of their disposable income on food—the highest percentage in three decades.” (Recommended)
- More than four years since the advent of Covid, public authorities keep pushing health practices contrary to medical and scientific knowledge.
- Goldman Sachs estimates that taxpayers will shell out a staggering $1.2 trillion—over three times the initial prediction—to fund the IRA’s green energy subsidies.
- Biden exaggerates the benefit of price negotiations for 10 drugs: “overall numbers tied to the amount Medicare actually pays for drugs that show discounts of roughly 22% on the 10 drugs collectively, compared to what the program paid last year. That’s more modest than the exaggerated discounts based on list prices that show price reductions of up to 79%.” And patients only pay a small fraction of the 22%. (STAT: gated)
- Charles River Laboratories, a top research contractor that helps drug makers with clinical trials, warns that pharmaceutical companies are slashing research and development owing to the IRA’s drug price controls. (WSJ)