I'm a research associate at Duke University Margolis Center. I used to be Richard Mayhew, a mid-level bureaucrat at UPMC Health Plan. I started writing here and have not found a reason to stop.
The Society of Actuaries went through the Health Care Cost Institute data recently and produced an amazing graphic: In the individual market, utilization of inpatient services increased dramatically in 2014 and 2015, while the average cost per inpatient procedure went down. pic.twitter.com/2KCDFQDNVM — HCCI (@HealthCostInst) July 17, 2019 This graph shows the number of inpatient […]
The Congressional Budget Office came out yesterday with their cost estimates on Senate Bill 1895 which contains the surprise billing legislation. Their estimate is that this is big money over a decade with most of the effects happening off of the federal budget: Title I, Ending Surprise Medical Bills. CBO and JCT estimate that, […]
Last week, the ACA was in court again. The state of Texas is the lead plaintiff arguing that since the mandate tax has been reduced to zero, it is no longer a tax and therefore the entire ACA is unconstitutional and needs to be struck down. Yeah, this is bananapants but it sounded convincing to […]
BREAKING: Alexander Acosta stepping down as Labor secretary https://t.co/tkjNavjDNU — POLITICO (@politico) July 12, 2019 Open Thread
The least expensive premium (net of any applicable subsidy) determines the size and health status of the individual market ACA risk pool. We assume that the marginal buyer is flipping a coin as to whether or not they want to buy insurance. These buyers tend to be healthy and price sensitive. The point of the […]