A study of 28 expensive specialty drugs found that among Medicare enrollees covered by Part D drug insurance, the out-of-pocket spending by patients ranged from $2,622 to $16,551. And those are annual costs!
Over the past two decades the American public has become increasingly polarized. So much so, that it’s hard to bring up a public policy topic that doesn’t immediately cause discord.
Yet there is...
We have not one, but 50, health care systems, and they are not alike. Without any change in federal law, some states are making radical changes that are lowering costs, increasing quality, and making health care delivery more efficient.
"In economic terms, the flip side of a subsidy is a penalty. If you give a subsidy to people who make one choice, you are effectively imposing a cost on everyone who makes a different choice."
According to its supporters, a primary benefit of Obamacare is protecting people who enter the individual market with pre-existing conditions. Yet people who leave an employer plan and shop for insurance in the individual market today will face three unpleasant surprises: higher premiums, higher out-of-pocket costs, and more limited access to care than a typical employer plan provides.
The Cuban plan is similar to an idea once proposed by Milton Friedman and later by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein. In a nutshell, people would be responsible for health bills up to a certain percent of their income, and government would pay everything above that
Looking at COVID-19 protection policies from an economic rather than an emotional perspective allows policymakers to see how limited resources can be used to achieve the greatest common good.
People are more careful when spending their own money than when spending someone else’s money. Second, virtually all the patient-pleasing innovations that have occurred in recent years are for services people buy with their own money. Third, when patients are spending their own money, they get the full benefits and bear the full costs of their own decisions."
