This month’s index covers housing inflation in San Francisco, airline costs, tulip prices relative to wages, and a potpourri of numbers on healthcare.
Housing units in San Francisco in 1980: 316,608
Housing units in 2014: 386,610
Relative growth per year: <1%
Median monthly rent in San Francisco for a one bedroom apartment: $3,700
Monthly rent for a one bedroom apartment in 1980 based on 2015 prices: $1,376
Dollars spent in 2018 by Southwest Airlines on jet fuel: $4.6B
Dollars spent in 2018 by Southwest Airlines on salaries, wages, and benefits: $7.6B
2018 Fuel costs per available seat: $22.23
Average cost of fuel per flight, 2018: $3,350
Average cost of fuel per flight, 2014: $4,232
Fuel as a percentage of Southwests operating costs: 25-40%
At peak prices in 1637, the sales prices of some tulips in Holland relative to the annual income of a skilled craftsman: 10x
The percentages of pharmacy rebates the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates Pharmacy Benefit Managers will keep given changes to rules for Medicare and Medicaid: 15%
CBO’s estimated cost to taxpayers over 10 years: $177B.
According to a study by the Rand Corporation, the average multiple of Medicare paid by commercial insurance for inpatient hospital stays: 2.4x.
Hospital stays per 1,000 for those with employer-sponsored insurance: 58
The average cost of a hospital stay for the commercially insured (rounded to nearest $1,000): $20,000
The number of the last 8 Cheesecake Factor (ticker: CAKE) earnings calls on which medical costs are discussed: 7
GM’s other post-retirement (OPEB) liabilities in 2018: $5.4B
OPEB liabilities per car sold in the US in 2018: $1,790
Interest in “Reference Based Pricing” based on Google trends as of May 2019 (scale of 0 to 100): 57
In May 2015: 12.
Photo by John-Mark Smith on Unsplash
