As the dismantling of public health programs & agencies continues, worth remembering:

1) SNAP reduces childhood obesity www.nber.org/system/files...

2) LIHEAP helps people become more energy-secure onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... & reduces evictions www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Much appreciated. Unfortunately, nothing since January has been a "heart" situation

Thanks so much Miranda

This morning, I was notified that I was being terminated from ASPE due to the ongoing reductions in force in HHS. It's sad to end this chapter, having worked on so many important projects.

I'll be looking for new roles; please give me a shout if anything comes your way!

Not even mildly! Mostly understanding why some PDE records can look odd

A big benefit of working with federal contractors responsible for data munging is that you learn a LOT about how data is generated. This is especially useful with some big claims datasets. Knowing the process of how a row is created is invaluable.

Veterans Health Administration Benefit Value Has Little Effect on Reliance Relying on veteran survey responses and novel actuarial data, the authors examine the relationship between benefit value and reliance on the Veterans Health Administration.

🚨New Paper 🚨
In AJMC, Alli Dorneo, Steve Pizer, Christine Yee and I examine relationship btwn MA benefit value relative to VHA & reliance on VHA services.

Tl;dr higher MA value increases MA enrollment, but cond. on MA, no change in reliance

www.ajmc.com/view/veteran...

Thank you!

Proud to officially be an associate editor at
Health Affairs Scholar as of this month!

If you have policy-relevant papers across a wide range of health policy areas (e.g., MA, drug pricing, Medicaid), consider submitting to HAS!

www.healthaffairs.org/health-affai...

The 2025 Economic Report of the President | CEA | The White House Today, the Council of Economic Advisers under the leadership of Chair Jared Bernstein released the 2025 Economic Report of the President, the 79th report since the establishment of CEA in 1946. The 20...

Happy ERP day! The 2025 Economic Report of the President is out now! Chapters cover a wide range of topics incl. remote work and K-12 ed - be sure to check it out. I'm presenting the health policy chapter at Brookings next Wed, links below #econsky #healthpolicy
www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-...

Really awesome to see some of the work I've done at ASPE cited in the Economic Report of the President

www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-...

aspe.hhs.gov/reports/expa...

At least in Medicare! Though I don't think anyone still has a good explanation for it.

Something often unappreciated: (without googling) by how much % did Traditional Medicare per capita spending grow from 2010 to 2019?

Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Cornell Collaborative for International Development Economics Research (CIDER), Cornell University CIDER: The Cornell Collaborative for International Development Economics Research (CIDER) is a new cross-campus venture at Cornell University encompassing 23 faculty from multiple units across the Cor...

We are hiring predocs!! Come join us: cornell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/CornellCaree...

#econsky PLEASE RT!

@aaronsojourner.org what was the version of @econ_ra here again? Sorry I forgot!

Hi #econsky
👩‍⚕️👨‍⚕️ I would like to organize a session on the labor market of health care workers at the 2025 @ashecon.bsky.social conference

I need one more paper (abstract) that fit this theme!

If this is you, respond here or email me so we can connect!

It's not communist enough, obviously

Timeline cleanse!

Second time in a few months that I've been confused for another bald white guy at work. Time for Minoxidil?

A thread about being wrong:

5 years ago, we wrote a paper about how how newly enfranchised 16-year-olds vote in Austria. But we were wrong.

This year, @elisabethgraf.bsky.social, @schnizzl.bsky.social, Sylvia Kritzinger and I are setting the record straight: authors.elsevier.com/c/1juT5xRaZk...

I was actually going to suggest Andrew's paper on MA! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Question for the health policy folks here:

Next semester, I'm teaching for the first time an MPH course on The Politics of US Health Policy. Does anyone have:

A) A reasonably up-to-date syllabus for such a course that I could see, or

B) An article (or articles) they'd like me to assign?

Thanks!

It was an absolute gut punch. I still remember the only time I met him in person as a lowly RA. Had such a great conversation, and he seemed genuinely interested in talking and hearing what I thought.

Bill was a smart and talented researcher, but more importantly, just a good human being.

It'll generally affect PDPs more than MA-PDs because MA-PDs tend to have more generous benefits. My thinking is that'll make that generosity difference smaller. The study did assume that people get a standalone PDP if they don't get MA-PD.

I'd bet that with the 2k oop cap in Part D going into effect next year and the end of partial LIS, the MA OOP savings may start looking different.

Yea, OOP strictly defined is almost certainly lower with Medigap. Premiums is where you end up seeing a difference (also not sure if other analyses usually include Part D OOP or not)

There have been some estimates from industry showing that MA has lower total OOP+Premium spend on avg. Take with a grain of salt obviously, but I'd bet that's likely right. Though not a massive difference.

That's the key point. This is TM with no supplemental insurance vs MA. Though one point Vabson made on Twitter was that on average, the Medigap premium should basically equal the OOP savings from Medigap.

Expected Out-Of-Pocket Costs: Comparing Medicare Advantage With Fee-For-Service Medicare - PubMed We compared the generosity of Medicare plans in terms of out-of-pocket costs attributable to cost sharing and premiums, including both basic and supplemental services. From 2014 through 2019, projecte...

Good recent study here! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39496086/

Doesn't give total dollar amounts but OOP is ~18 to 24% lower in MA. One could do a back of the envelope calculation not at 530am ;)

Paging health economists #EconSky 📉📈! If you have a paper on caregiving (elderly and disabled) and are intending to go to#ASHEcon2025 @ashecon.bsky.social, please ping me as I am looking for a third paper for my student's session.