Stories Causing Atlas to Shrug, April 22, 2014 Edition

• Because of welfare loss, Americans at every income level face a lifetime marginal net tax rate greater than 50%. 

• At 1.5 times the minimum wage ($32,100), working couples get to keep less than 20 cents out of each dollar they earn.

• Why We Spend So Much on Rx: Medicare pays doctors a 'commission' based on drug cost.  The more expensive, the greater a doctor's reward.  

• Obamacare in New Hampshire: 10 of 26 hospitals booted out and only 1 carrier participates. Fostering competition, eh? 

• Paul Krugman's claim of 17,000 deaths due to a failure to expand Medicaid is "outrageous & flies in the face of years of careful study by real economists." Dr. John Goodman dissects Krugman's claims, again.  

• Quiz, Canada or the U.S? Some physicians who work for hospitals say they’ve been asked to see patients every 11 minutes.  

• Medicare kept paying dozens of doctors even after those doctors were suspended or terminated from state Medicaid rolls or charged with fraud.  

• While open enrollment for coverage under the Affordable Care Act is closed, many of the newly insured are finding they can’t find doctors, landing them into a state described as “medical homelessness.”

Hat Tip to Dr. John Goodman and Dr. Kris Held for pointers to the above stories.