Monthly Archives: April 2018

There is such a blizzard of personal corruption in the Trump administration that it’s worth pausing to sort out why Scott Pruitt’s corruption is in a different category from the others. And it's quite a list: HUD Secretary Ben Carson’s $31,000 dining set, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s $139,000 doors, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s subsidized visit to Fort Knox to watch the solar eclipse, VA Secretary David Shulkin’s $122,000 travel junket to Europe, and for that matter, Pruitt’s own $107,000 [...]

So let’s see: The nation's largest retailer is trying to buy one of the biggest and most predatory insurance and hospital conglomerates, Humana. That would give the combined entity a staggering amount of market power, and reduce competition among insurance companies. Supposedly, the proposed merger increases efficiency by providing more walk-in clinics, more cut-rate drugs, as well as pressure on hospitals to restrain costs and prices. But the efficiencies are bogus. Hospitals cross-subsidize expensive patients where they don’t fully [...]