- Ideal population for the earth: is 8 billion too many or too few?
- Claim: Clinton era adoption law is devastating for Black families.
- Fraudulent unemployment claims in a single year of Covid reached $11 billion in New York.
- Because cannabis is illegal under federal law, only one US facility has been allowed to do research on it.
- Paragon lays out goals for the lame duck Congress.
- Is cannibalism a healthy diet?
Category: Consumer-Driven Health Care
Cuts to Medicare in the IRA Bill
Writing in the WSJ, Casey Mulligan and Tomas Philipson point out something that almost all commentary has overlooked. Seniors are about to be hit with a double whammy: higher drug prices at the pharmacy and higher premiums for Part D drug insurance:
We estimate that beginning in 2025, plan subsidies—specifically, the reinsurance subsidies for the beneficiaries with the most drug spending—will be cut $30 billion, out of revenue that currently totals about $110 billion. With $30 billion less to finance prescription benefits, something will have to give. Plans currently have far too little profit to span the chasm that the Inflation Reduction Act opens between expenses and revenue…
This is a nice companion to the article Linda Gorman and I wrote for The Hill a few weeks ago.
A Hospital Stay (but in Your Own Home)
Years ago, I worked in a long-term acute care hospital. We employed social workers whose job was discharge planning. They charted out where to move patients once they had been treated by our hospital. This process was started before patients were admitted. Patients with no clear path to move elsewhere were not admitted. Our average length of stay was in excess of 30 days. At that time our type of facility was PPS exempt and cost reimbursed based on a TEFRA limit (see p. 71 for more information).
HSAs Under Obamacare
Paragon’s updated report …contains 2023 plan information and a distributional analysis from the actuarial firm Milliman. Giving lower-income exchange enrollees an additional way to use their ACA subsidy expands Americans’ welfare since some enrollees would prefer an HSA deposit over the reduction of their plans’ cost-sharing components.