Friday Links
My co-author is worth knowing. You can’t cap demographics. Matt Damon‘s efforts to provide clean drinking water. Regional variation in hospice care for cancer patients. The greenest building.
Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
My co-author is worth knowing. You can’t cap demographics. Matt Damon‘s efforts to provide clean drinking water. Regional variation in hospice care for cancer patients. The greenest building.
According to the Commonwealth Fund: “An 11-country survey focusing on health care access, cost, and insurance coverage found that adults in the United States are by far the most likely to go without care because of costs, have trouble paying medical bills, encounter high medical bills even when insured, and have disputes with insurers or…
The latest Cavalcade or Risk is up at Colorado Health Insurance Insider. The Healthcare Economist leads off this Thanksgiving edition with my detailed account the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform proposal to reduce the federal deficit.
The increased use of long-term care (LTC) services has been one of the forces increasing health care cost and utilization. Currently, 10.3 million Americans use LTC services. The Kaiser Family Foundation provides a summary of LTC Services and Supports in the U.S. Who uses LTC? One can divide LTC services into those who receive care…
How occupational licensing affects the cost of goods and services: “After Hurricane Katrina leveled the pine forest that had been their sole source of income, Benedictine monks in Louisiana wanted to support themselves by making and selling coffins. Unfortunately for the monks, in Louisiana only a licensed undertaker can sell coffins. It’s the law, enforced…
The Problem Many times, researchers wish to transform the dependent variable of a regression in order to estimate parameter values. Performing the transformation, however, complicates the calculation of the expected value of the dependent variable on the untransformed scale. Assume, the Yi is the dependent variable. Assume the function g is used to transform the…
How well does Medicare measure quality? Not very well, especially across different treatment settings. According to a RAND report: “Only 10 clinical conditions are addressed by reporting programs for more than one setting. Three clinical conditions are included in programs for three settings: (1) acute myocardial infarction, (2) perioperative/surgical care, and (3) urinary incontinence. Seven…
The BBC reports that Nobel Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from house arrest. Ms. Suu Kyi has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years. The country Burma (also known as Myanmar), has been ruled as a military dictatorship for the past twenty years. The military suspended the Burmese constitution in September…
What happens when four math majors start a dating site? Google Maps creates/settles Nicaragua-Costa Rica border dispute. Where do Americans go to smoke? Defense to Offense. Cigna CEO: Don’t repeal U.S. health law.
Yesterday, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform released a proposal for reducing the national debt. The full report can be found here and relies on five key pillars. These are: Enact tough discretionary spending caps and provide $200 billion in illustrative domestic and defense savings in 2015. Pass tax reform that dramatically reduces…