Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Most workers have employer-provided health insurance. The old have Medicare and the poor Medicaid. Children have SCHIP and veterans have the VA. But what about the people who fall through the cracks? What about individuals who work for small businesses who don’t offer insurance, entrepreneurs, or illegal immigrants? Where can they get health care? An…
Links for a Rainy day in the Bay (Area): German physician require an extra €9,044/month to move from an urban to a rural practice. Global healthcare fraud and error costs: $260 billion The difference between workers comp and group health. Do workplace wellness programs decrease medical costs? The proportion of oncologists that support comparative effectiveness…
Most women gain weight after marriage. However, this may not just be do to having a child. The New York Times reports on a recent study by Annette Dobson in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. They find that “[a]fter adjusting for other variables, the 10-year weight gain for an average 140-pound woman was 20…
Merrill Goozner of GoozNews writes the following: The share of health care costs borne by individuals has remained fairly steady over the past several decades, and that is the prime argument behind conservative and economist claims that making patients have “more skin in the game” will drive health care costs lower. That ignores the fact…
Avedis Donabedian has a revealing article regarding how to assess quality in the medical profession. His 1988 JAMA and 2005 Milbank Quarterly articles include the following important points: Physician quality is not only technical. Interpersonal skills are also important. The patient must communicate information to the physician and the physician must provide information to the…
With the recent devastation in Haiti, many celebrities have advocated donating money to the non-profit Partners in Health. What is this organization? Is it the best place to donate your money? Almost 4 years ago, the Healthcare Economist endorsed PIH as a great place to donate your money in my post “Are you ready to…
The California HealthCare Foundation has an almanac entry on Children’s Health Coverage Facts and Figures. Eligibility requirements for these programs is described in this table. Other key findings include: The proportion of children without health insurance continued to decline through 2007, though the pace of improvement has slowed. Nearly 80 percent of California’s uninsured children…
How does one evaluate a physician’s efficiency level? This process has five main dimensions. Which resource use measurement methodology to use. There are two main profiling methodologies: per capita and episode-based. How to account for differences in patient health status. This is done through risk adjustment. However, choosing the proper risk adjustment method is crucial…
Military Health Care: private (for contractors) vs. public (for enlisted) The end of ‘pay for delay‘ Why does small business oppose the current health care reforms? A cadillac tax…unless you’re in a union. People with schizophrenia in developing countries fare better than those living in industrialized nations. Ouch.
In the past, this blog has reported the average salaries of recent economics PhD graduates. For Econ PhD graduates in 2009, we can update these figures as follows using more recent data. For instance, below are the average (median) starting salaries of recent economics grads by the type of institution by which they were hired.…