Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Soda taxes seem like a sensible tax. Most studies show that soda is not healthy and taxing something that leads to negative health benefits seems like a reasonable policy. A key question, however, is whether soda taxes–more formally known as taxes on sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs)–lead to a reduction in soda consumption and healthier eating…
New Year’s Eve is a day with significant alcohol consumed. In fact, New Year’s Eve falls behind only Mardi Gras in terms of the number of drinks consumed for that holiday. According to the National Institute of Health, excess alcohol consumption has a number health consequences including impacts on the brain, heart (increased risk of…
One piece of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandated that health insurance plans for individuals with yearly premiums exceeding $10,200 or family health insurance plans with premiums exceeding $27,500 would be subject to a tax. The tax originally was set to start in 2018, but has since been postponed to 2022. The Kaiser Family Foundation…
The Trump tax bill–potentially known as the “the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act“– includes provisions such as increasing the standard deduction and reducing the number of tax brackets from 7 to 4. Additionally, a number of deductions are removed–such as capping local and state property tax deductions at $10,000 and only allowing mortgage interest deductions for…
Maybe yes. According to City Journal: This year, the Finnish government hopes to begin granting every adult citizen a monthly allowance of €800 (roughly $900). Whether rich or poor, each citizen will be free to use the money as he or she sees fit. The idea is that people are responsible for their actions. If…
Here’s a graphic from the NIHCM foundation summarizing where federal revenues come in an where they are spent. As you can see about one quarter of the budget is spent on Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP and ACA Subsidies and another quarter is spent on Social Security. This is not news if you have been reading the Healthcare Economist diligently…
While we are waiting for the King v. Burwell verdict, which could repeal large sections of Obamacare, the house of representatives has already approved rolling back some ACA provisions. Modern Healthcare reports: Lawmakers postponed final passage of the proposed Protecting Seniors’ Access to Medicare Act despite a majority voting in favor of the bill. The…
Each year, the Tax Foundation ranks states based on their business tax climate. The full report is available here. The 10 best states in this year’s Index are: Wyoming South Dakota Nevada Alaska Florida Washington New Hampshire Montana Texas Utah Why are these the top-ranked states? “Wyoming, Nevada, and South Dakota have no corporate or…
Today the Supreme Court upheld the large majority of Affordable Care Act (a.k.a., Health Reform, ObamaCare, ACA) including the individual mandate. Why was the individual mandate allowed to remain in the law? According to Justice Ginsburg and others, it is a form of a tax. “Justice Ginsburg makes clear that the vote is 5-4 on…
In The New Republic, Peter Orzag argues that to fix our budget mess, we need less democracy. Specifically, he argues that implementing the following four recommendations more consistently would improve the budget situation. Progressive tax code Permanently link taxes to the unemployment rate Backstop rules Independent institutions I have my doubts…