Tag Archives: Health Insurance

from Dean Baker I’m not one to generally tout the wisdom of the economics discipline, but it actually does offer some useful insights into the likely motive for the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare (UHC). According to media accounts, the suspect, Luigi Mangione, was angered by his own and others’ experiences being turned down when submitting claims for healthcare service. United and other insurers make a profit by restricting the claims they pay, so their profit...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Access to Birth Control Versus Affordable Birth Control- Choose Wisely…: I didn’t get yelled at enough on Twitter for making this point so I wrote a thing.

By James Kwak The Congressional Budget Office’s assessment of the Republican health care plan, as passed in the House, is out. The bottom line is that many more people will lack health coverage than under current law—23 million by 2026—even though the bill allows states to relax the essential health benefits package, which should in theory attract younger, healthier people. This is not a surprise. I just want to comment on the role of markets in all of this, which I think is not fully...

By James Kwak The Congressional Budget Office’s assessment of the Republican health care plan, as passed in the House, is out. The bottom line is that many more people will lack health coverage than under current law—23 million by 2026—even though the bill allows states to relax the essential health benefits package, which should in theory attract younger, healthier people. This is not a surprise. I just want to comment on the role of markets in all of this, which I think is not fully...

By James Kwak After the dangerous clown show that has been the Trump White House, it’s comforting to return to some good, old-fashioned conservative policymaking: bashing the poor to cut taxes on the rich. I’m talking, of course, about the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Health care financing can sometimes seem like a complicated topic. Adverse selection, risk adjustment, blah blah blah. But it’s easy to understand the American Health Care Act or, as it is sure to be...

By James Kwak After the dangerous clown show that has been the Trump White House, it’s comforting to return to some good, old-fashioned conservative policymaking: bashing the poor to cut taxes on the rich. I’m talking, of course, about the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Health care financing can sometimes seem like a complicated topic. Adverse selection, risk adjustment, blah blah blah. But it’s easy to understand the American Health Care Act or, as it is sure to be...

There has been for quite a while now discussions on why younger voters prefer Bernie over Hillary in the Democratic contest (see this WAPO piece from last year, or this in the NYTimes, or this more recent by Nate Silver). Maybe someone already noted this before and I missed it, but it seems that the obvious answer is related to Bernie's proposals on health (Medicare for all) and education (tuition and debt free college). The other issues do not have an evident difference in their effects...

Source: WEO, IMF Nothing earth shattering. Just the size of the average government spending as a share of GDP between 2001 and 2015 in a few developed countries, all of which, but one, have comprehensive health coverage. So it's reasonable to assume that if the US wanted that (healthcare for all), it would have to increase spending to something closer to 40% of GDP, for all levels of government, rather than the current 35% or so. Nothing implausible about that (wink, wink, nudge, nudge,...

Away for while, and back in full meta-post. I guess all posts are comment on another post, this one is just one more degree of separation. So Krugman sides with Hilary over Bernie. Let's extend Obamacare, rather than get Medicare for all. The reason is mainly political calculation. It would be impossible to get a single payer system covering everybody. The power of insurance companies, and pharmaceutical firms, combined with the insidious role of money in the political process, implies that...