Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Health savings accounts (HSAs) have been a major point of contention for health care reformers. Supporters claim that HSAs can reduce health care costs by decreasing the moral hazard problem inherent when third parties—such as insurance companies or the government—pay for medical services. Opponents claims that HSAs will attract rich and healthy individuals, leaving only…
If you are in graduate school, how do can you get your research published? A UC-San Diego Publishing Workshop website has some some advice regarding the best ways to publish your work in top journals. For economists, the two powerpoint presentations titled “Tips for navigating the road to publishing in graduate school” and “Top ten…
I have recently been receiving some comments suggesting that one way to cut health care costs would be to reduce CEO pay. Would cutting CEO pay be beneficial to society? Ideologically, I believe that markets—and not the government—should determine wages of all workers. If the U.S. government were to put a cap on CEO pay,…
Over the past two decades, the share of total Social Security spending accounted for by Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) has increased from 10 percent in the 1970s to 17 percent today. In 2005, cash payment to DI beneficiaries topped $85 billion. Authors David Autor and Mark Duggan try to explain this phenomenon in their…
In recent years, the federal government has attempted to increase access to government provided health insurance. Between 1984 and 2004, the percentage of non-elderly individual with government provided health insurance rose from 13.5% to 17.5%. Over the same time period, however, the percentage of American without health insurance also rose from 13.7% to 17.8%. In…
Robert Laszewski is the president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates. According to their website, the company is: “A policy and market place consulting firm specializing in assisting its clients through the significant health policy and market change afoot. Clients include health insurance companies, casualty insurance companies, HMOs, Blue Cross organizations, hospitals, and physician groups.”…
How much money do health economists make? Using a 2005 survey of about 1500 members of the International Health Economics Association (iHEA), Cawley and Morrisey (2007) attempt to answer this question in a paper release this month in the Journal of Health Economics. For academic careers, the study finds the following mean earnings figures: …
Yesterday, the president of the Dominican Republic Leonel Fernández announced that the DR-CAFTA free trade agreement between the DR and the U.S. will now take effect as of March 1st, 2007 (see RDnoticias.com). Is this a good thing for the DR and the U.S.? A recent Wall Street Journal article (“One Year After CAFTA“) claimed…
Child mortality from unintentional injury or accident has been dropping over the last thirty years. Among children under 5, accident rates resulting in death have fallen from 44 deaths per 100,000 population in 1960 to 18.6 deaths per 100,000 in 1990. For children aged six to twelve years old, the analogous fall is from 19.6…