I have often told the story about the time my wife unknowingly tried to schedule a CT scan at a nearby hospital outpatient department. As luck would have it, prior authorization is all that saved us from a huge bill, of which her share was going to be $2,700. I quickly found a free-standing radiology clinic that had a contract with Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of Texas for $403. Oddly enough, BCBS was willing to approve a scan at either facility. Nobody called her to explain the huge mistake she was about to make by getting a diagnostic scan at a hospital-owned facility. Here is the thing: Health insurers, Medicare and Medicaid pay hospitals higher prices for the same services that are available elsewhere for a fraction of the cost. Neither do payers alert patients that cheaper alternatives exist.
Category: Health Economics & Costs
Tuesday Links
- Tyler Cowen: Against banning TikTok.
- JAMA meta study analyzing 107 other studies debunks alcohol’s health benefits.
- Study: people who get free money are less likely to work.
- Sweden was the one country that refused to lock down during the pandemic. The result: it has the lowest excess deaths in all of Europe.
- Health Affairs Study: Medicare Advantage plans record of limit discretionary utilization while delivering higher-quality care than traditional Medicare – but the difference has narrowed.
Monday Links
- Trustees: Social Security to run out in 2033; Medicare runs out in 2031.
- The earth’s population just passed 8 billion. Why some scholars think that’s good.
- Awards for dysfunction in health care.
- Judge: Obamacare preventive medicine freebies are out: Five things to know. Why the mandates were a waste of money anyway.
- What preventive procedures would patients pay for with their own money?
Equal Occupational Fatality Day
“Equal Pay Day” calculates how much longer women must work going into this year, to earn what men earned last year, on the average. It occurred on March 14 this year, and was highlighted in Washington, D.C. with the usual liberal fanfare.
Naturally, the calculation ignores the fact that men and women work in very different occupations.
To demonstrate how much that matters, American Enterprise Institute scholar Mark Perry has calculated how many more years women would have to work in their selected occupations before they achieve the same death rate that men endured last year.