3+ hour, 20+ min ago  (155+ words) A better approach, for both workers and retirees, would be encouraging improved productivity in the health care sector to lower overall costs through more competition, price sensitivity, and enhanced use of artificial intelligence in diagnosis and treatment. In a voluntary…...

1+ day, 8+ hour ago  (575+ words) Health care in the United States is generally excellent, but, in many cases, it is also needlessly expensive. Reform should focus on introducing greater cost discipline to this important sector of the economy so that it imposes less avoidable financial…...

1+ mon, 2+ day ago  (225+ words) About four percent, or six million, of jobs require minimal preparation and little strength, and 14 percent, or 21 million, of jobs require minimal preparation and light strength. Clearly this number of jobs would easily meet the disability law's requirement that appropriate…...

1+ mon, 2+ day ago  (168+ words) The actuaries and economists at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently released their annual National Health Expenditure Accounts for 2024. Excluding the unusual years of the COVID pandemic, the 2024 health share represents a historical high and a break from…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago  (181+ words) The drugs selected this year are the top 15 from CMS's'list'of 50 potential drugs for selection. Should the 20 drugs announced next year comprise drugs 16-35 on this list, sales will be considerably lower'just $10.2 billion, based on the most recent data. (Of course, the…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago  (220+ words) Medicaid spending, accounting for 18 percent of NHE, increased by 6.6 percent.Enrollment declined by 8.6 percent to 84.3 million as states resumed eligibility redeterminations, and per enrollee spending surged by 16.6 percent, partly owing to rising provider payment rates and payments to managed care…...

1+ mon, 3+ week ago  (324+ words) GAO's widely cited estimate of Medicare's "improper payments" " $54 billion per year, at last count " is susceptible to being misinterpreted because of what it includes and excludes. On the one hand, it overstates the problem because, according to the Department of…...

1+ mon, 4+ week ago  (309+ words) Recent changes to Medicare's prescription drug benefit were designed to make coverage more generous for beneficiaries while shifting more financial risk onto insurers. New evidence suggests those changes may have gone further than intended and are likely contributing to omorngoing…...

2+ mon, 2+ week ago  (542+ words) In this blog post, I briefly discuss its direct costs, its fairness, the fraud it engenders, and its adverse consequences for work incentives and for the cost and functioning of the health care system. The post Policy Reasons to Not…...

3+ mon, 3+ week ago  (240+ words) By James C. Capretta The GOP is already signaling directionally where it would like to go, which is toward "individualization" of ACA subsidies. Instead of sending premium credits to health insurance companies, Republicans want to give them directly to eligible households....