Healthcare Economist Manifesto

Last week, I officially graduated from the University of California-San Diego with a Ph.D. in Economics. After 5 years of advanced education, how would I reform the current health care system?  What principles are essential to a well-functioning health care system?  I answer these question below in the “Healthcare Economist Manifesto.”   Healthcare Economist Manifesto…

How to pay doctors: As a Merchant or a Guardian?

The book Systems of Survival (review) describes two moral structures: commerce and guardianship.  Jane Jacobs describes the ethics of Commerce as a moral syndrome equal, antagonistic, and complementary to the ethics of politics, or Guardianship.  Commerce provides the economic engine and the ethical framework for trade, technological advance, and individual rights that combine to make governments…

CoR #80

The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is up at Supporting Safer Healthcare.  My favorite posts include: Price pharmaceuticals like software licenses. DMCB on co-op health insurance. The NHS ponders mandatory, private long-term care insurance.

Obama Address to AMA

President Obama addressed the American Medical Association in Chicago today.  His goal was push through his health care reform agenda.  On Saturday, his Weekly Address also focused on health care reform.   What is this agenda and how will it be paid for?  Obama wants a public health care plan for the uninsured.  The total cost…

Tanner on Obamacare

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Michael Tanner is not a big fan of some health care reforms that are being proposed.  He reviews recent health reform proposals in his Obamacare article.  I review a few of his arguments below. Employer Mandate.  Tanner believes employer mandates are a bad idea and I wholeheartedly agree.  Large firms can…