Two different and closely matching explanation of healthcare spending in 2023. One in writing and the other pictorial. The latter is easily explained by itself and also with the written explanation. Increases in cost for Medicare are mostly due the commercial Medicare Advantage. The outcomes of which are no better and can be worst. U.S. […]
The US is one of a small handful of countries that has a statutory limit on the federal debt. It used to be routine for Congress to raise the debt ceiling, but recently, House Republicans have been using the debt ceiling to extract political concessions from Democratic Administrations. While raising the debt ceiling wasn’t in […]
Jobless claims: with a dash of seasonality salt, trending towards weakness – by New Deal democrat As expected, jobless claims declined from one week ago, as the delayed Thanksgiving week seasonality moved out of the numbers. Initial claims declined -22,000 to 220,000, while the four week moving average increased 1,250 to 225,500. With the typical […]
An American First. It’s the Law in WA: Accrued Holding Gains are Income – by Steve Roth originally posted at Wealth Economics Excluding these massive “economic flows” from income simply doesn’t make any sense, in basic accounting terms. Starting with the 2022 tax year, Washington State implemented a first-in-the-nation (7%) tax on accrued holding gains […]
I have been writing on the costs of healthcare in the US for years and also presenting other articles discussing the same issue of cost and care. Over the years, it has not gone away and has only worsened. The 340B program which is supposed to be used to help those in lesser neighborhoods has […]
November 2024 Labor Stats as you can read for yourself. I am interested in seeing how the BLS screwed up on earlier employment reports over a period of time. The graphs show part of that period of time. Everything looks like what it should be. I am not going to start a campaign on what […]
– by New Deal democrat The very important construction data from the long leading housing sector was mixed this morning for November. The most leading datapoint, permits, increased 86,000 on an annualized basis to 1.505 million. Even more importantly, single family permits, which have the least noise and most signal of any of the datapoints, […]
I was happy to see this in my email box. It was a treat to read it. Mr. Krugman is going to have his own substack in the future, having left the New York Times. Paul Krugman on healthcare and the DOGE or healthcare and politics. The evidence of the ACA as Krugman pints out […]
Semaglutides are turning out to be transformative for obesity in the way that statins have been transformative for hypercholesterolemia and anti-hypertensives have been transformative for high blood pressure: they’re not only highly effective but have minimal side effects. From a public health standpoint, there’s every reason to allow Medicare and Medicaid coverage for semaglutides. But […]
Industrial production continues to slide – by New Deal democrat Industrial production declined for the third month in a row in November, down -0.1%, while October was revised downward another -0.2%. Manufacturing production on the other hand increased 0.2% in November, but September and October were revised downward a combined -0.3%, so on net this was another […]