- The case against taxing the wealthy to save Social Security.
- AEI’s budget projection: “We project that debt-to-GDP will be 135 percent in 2032 and 268 percent in 2052, compared to CBO’s 112 percent and 177 percent, respectively.
- Drugs to treat obesity and diabetes: “We estimate that net prices received by drugmakers are 48–78 percent lower than list prices… faced by some consumers.”
- Diabetes contributed roughly $296 billion to excess health care spending in 2023.
- Social Security replaces about 54 percent of the pre-retirement earnings of an average wage worker. (This is higher than what Social Security tells us.)
Category: Saturday Links
Saturday Links
- AEI on the House Republican (but mainly bipartisan) health bill: “There is nothing objectionable in it, but neither is there anything that might deliver transformative improvements over the status quo.”
- Was this fraud? Sold as a program in which a worker’s payroll taxes would provide for his future retirement benefits, Social Security from day one deposited payroll tax revenues in the Treasury’s bank account and used the funds to pay general government expenses.
- Why do the poor commit more crimes than other people? Turns out, it is not because they have less money.
- In California, the typical cost of assisted living is $173 a day, compared to $400 a day for nursing homes.
- Weight-loss drugs do more than fight obesity; they also reduce heart disease.
Saturday Links
- More details on Biden’s plan to seize drug company patents.
- Update: 2 million, rather than previously reported 1 million, Social Security retirees got clawback letters last year.
- First-ever gene editing therapies approved to cure sickle cell disease.
- Canada’s system of socialized medicine now has the longest wait times to receive medical treatment ever recorded.
- Scholarly studies: consumer directed health plans reduce health care spending by approximately 5–15 percent relative to similar plans with lower deductibles and without spending accounts.