Lambert here: Shocker, huh? I remember thinking, when Obama said buying health insurance on the wonderful website would be like buying an airline ticket, “Oh! Price collusion!” So far, that hasn’t panned out (that I know of). But now it turns out that ObamaCare has encouraged another great feature of the airline industry: consolidation.
Read more...It’s remarkable to see the level of obvious self-dealing at Mylan persist as long as it has. Be sure to read about how the former CEO was permitted to let his son use the company jet on behalf of his rock band.
Read more...What won’t the Clintons do if the price tag is high enough? Now Bill is playing drug detailman.
Read more...Ancien regime levels of corruption wherever you look.
Read more...Although the press isn’t covering the story, Covered California shows that ObamaCare is still a troubled program (unless rental extraction is your priority).
Read more...This post serves to illustrate how “economics says” has become a magic talisman in political discourse. Invoking it generally results in the audience accepting what follows, even when it is patent nonsense. Here we see how an editorial writer abjectly misapplied economic theory to justify super-high drug prices.
Read more...Via the work of the Health Care Renewal website, we’ve warned of the push for corporatized medical care and the danger that poses to patients. Here is another push to extract profit from bodies, that of private equity’s new appetite for primary care practices.
Read more...Health care management seems to believe it delivers health care, as opposed to facilitating those who really deliver it: Doctors and nurses.
Read more...A new article in ComputerWorld (hat tip Chuck L) describes how the screw-ups resulting from lousy electronic medical records are large and frequent enough to have caught the attention of attorneys.
Read more...This interview, with Teresa Ghilarducci, who the Wall Street Journal called “the most dangerous woman in America,” discusses how and why pensions are under stress, and what can be done to fix them. While she agrees that the retirement crisis is real, she also argues that it is eminently fixable, particularly since there really is no free lunch. The alternative, of widespread poverty among the aged, also imposes costs on government and society.
Read more...Medicare seems to have the same sort of things wrong with it that ObamaCare does. Readers?
Read more...The short answer is not that many, and not that much. But that was not entirely unexpected.
Read more...Take note of what drove the doctors to strike: not just cutting pension funding as the administration gets lavish increases, but also workplace conditions, specifically restrictions that get in the way of patient care.
Read more...An Academy Health Blog post last week set both Lambert’s and my “something is wrong with this picture” alarm bells ringing. And it turns out for good reason.
Read more...Why CBO scoring was the wrong question to ask about ObamaCare
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