Hospitals are the most expensive place to get medical care in the health care industry. Hospitals consume nearly one-third of health care expenditures, accounting for more than $1.33 trillion a year. I often advise people to never get anything done at a hospital if they are physically able to go anywhere else. For example, my wife unknowingly started to make an appointment for an outpatient CT scan at a nearby hospital.
Category: Health Economics & Costs
Thursday Links
- Why we need Association Health Plans for small businesses and gig workers: Less than one-third of small companies are even offering heath insurance to their employees.
- Why doctors so aggressively pushed the Covid vaccines.
- Sanders/Cassidy bill would speed genic drugs to the marketplace.
- Mattel is making a Barbie doll with Down syndrome: “It’s set to join existing dolls with behind-the-ear hearing aids, a wheelchair, alopecia and a prosthetic limb within the company’s heavily diversity and inclusion-focused line.”
- Against bringing back the Woolly mammoth.
- An early estimate of the cost of Covid from Harvard: $16 trillion!
Wednesday Links
- Health advocacy groups: the unwinding of the health emergency Medicaid coverage rules could be a “health equity and civil rights disaster.” InsideHealthPolicy (gated)
- Ruling from the nanny state: FDA okays dogs at outdoor dining.
- Study: What If tax-subsidized, employer-provided health insurance were instead financed by a universal payroll tax? The wages of college-educated workers would be 11% lower and those of non-college workers would be 3% higher.
FDA: Eye Surgeons Need to Inform Patients about Lasik Risks
Ophthalmologists tend to view corrective eye surgery as routine, something which everyone with poor eyesight can benefit from. Although there are many types of corrective eye surgery Lasik is probably the best known and most widely used. My wife went for an eye surgery consultation only to discover the surgeon’s waiting room was about as busy as Grand Central Station. The ophthalmologist viewed the surgery as so routine that he didn’t really spend much time consulting with her. She ended up talking to him briefly and his staff for much of the overview. The experience did not sit well with her, and she decided against the surgery.