Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

State Medicaid Reported Enrollment Compared to CMS’s Reports and Covid’s Impact on Medicaid

I get commentary (in my emails) from xpostfactoid who writes on healthcare issues and also does a yeoman’s function not found elsewhere  in reconciling ACA signups, the differences between the penalty-mandate vs no penalty-mandate, Medicaid signups by state in both expansion and non-expansion states, and lately the impact on Medicaid due to the Covid-19 pandemic. […]

Medicaid Expansion 2018

Four states had the Medicaid Expansion on the ballot this last election and another is still fumbling around with expanding it.. The Good Idaho: Idahoans approved Idaho Proposition 2, an initiative requiring the state to submit an amendment to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in order to implement the Medicaid expansion no […]

More On the Real Reason Healthcare Insurance Companies Are Now Encouraging Obamacare Enrollment

In light of some of the comments to my post yesterday arguing that that the real reason that healthcare insurance companies are now madly encouraging Obamacare enrollment is fear of a pro-public-option or pro-single-payer political juggernaut, I want to make clear that by single-payer I do not mean Medicare-for-all.   Single-payer would be, in essence, “the […]

In the Short Run, We Are All Dead. At Least According to That New Oregon Medicaid Study.

Well, we AB types–readers and writers, alike–are familiar with John Maynard Keynes’s famous line that “In the long run, we are all dead.”  By which he either meant that economists, if they are to be useful, must try to predict and recommend short-term government policies that avoid or help end current, severe economic downturns, rather than […]

Medicaid Austin Frakt, Aaron Carroll and Kevin Drum are Good for the USA

by Robert Waldmann An important study of the effect of Medicaid on health was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.  The study was based on a genuine experiment where some people were given Medicaid and other people weren’t based on a lottery.  Unfortunately, the results were communicated with a NEJM  press release and […]

Rep Marsha Blackburn’s snow job. Explains how Social Security money flows

I was watching C span Washington Journal this morning.  Rep Marsha Blackburn was the guest.  I got to listen to her explanation of how the Social Security funds flow and just had to post the clip.   Copied from the transcript of the clip: THEIRS MONEY THAT GOES TO MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY AND I THINK […]

The "Fiscal Cliff" and the Coming Retirement Crisis of the Middle Class

On January 1, Congress approved a tax and spending bill to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff” combination of tax hikes and spending cuts that would have created deflationary pressure on the United States (though Yglesias questioned the conventional wisdom of whether it would necessarily cause a recession). Let’s take a look at the deal in […]

Let’s try to stick to the real world when we talk about Medicaid,

The Incidental Economist addresses election snippets that keep on going, just like in the movies.  Read the whole thing: Let’s try to stick to the real world when we talk about Medicaid, by Aaron Carroll: (Note: Paul Krugman cites here. Tyler Cowen responds here. I respond to Cowen’s response here.) Tyler Cowen had a piece […]

Health Care Thoughts: Another Major Event

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Another Major Event On the 23rd the Obama administration will publish the administrative regulations for Medicaid expansion. http://www.medicaid.gov/Federal-Policy-Guidance/Downloads/REG-03-16-12.pdf As reported by Modern Healthcare, eligibility will be simplified to an income test as a percentage of the federal poverty level. This may expand Medicaid by as many as […]