Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Today is opening day. The first day of the season where the Milwaukee Brewers will win the World Series. In honor of opening day, I’ve put together an all-star team of health wonk blog posts. To find out more information about a baseball player, you typically examine his statistics. To find out more information about…
In a post last week in honor of the NCAA tournament, I mentioned that universities should start paying college players. It looks like this is already happening: “Four former Auburn football players say in an ‘HBO Real Sports’ report scheduled to be broadcast Wednesday night that they were paid thousands of dollars during their college…
Research by the Dartmouth Atlas team has indicated that Medicare spending is concentrated regionally. States such as Florida spend much more per beneficiary than do doctors who treat similar patients in low cost states like Minnesota. A recent paper by Reschovsky and co-authors, however, has determined that variation in supply-induced demand is not a major driver…
According to the CMS website, Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) are private, mostly not-for-profit organizations, which are staffed by professionals, mostly doctors and other health care professionals, who are trained to review medical care and help beneficiaries with complaints about the quality of care and to implement improvements in the quality of care available throughout the spectrum…
One of the key components of health reform is expanding Medicaid eligibility to more individuals. My comments on the Health Reform provisions were expanded Medicaid coverage was that it was just taking the same poor system and expanding the coverage to more people. However, the cost of these additional people may be lower if they…
CMS Punts on EPO. How $20/shot turned into $1,500/shot. Hospitals + Katrina = Lawsuit. Why isn’t Sidney Moncrief in the Hall of Fame? ASCs reduce hospital revenues, costs, and profits.
The National National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) recently selected its five finalists for their Annual Health Care Research Award. These studies include the following: Amitabh Chandra, Jonathan Gruber, Robin McKnight. “Patient Cost-Sharing and Hospitalization Offsets in the Elderly.” American Economic Review 100(1): 193-213. Mark Duggan, Fiona Scott Morton. “The Effect of Medicare Part D on Pharmaceutical Prices…
Natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornados are some of the most devastating events any city can endure. These disasters compromise the health of many residents due to lack of food and clean water, injuries and contagious diseases. For most of the history of the U.S., federal assistance to communities hit by diasters took…
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National Product (GNP), and National Income measures attempt to measure how much economic activity took place during a specified amount of time (usually a year). Yet many people do not know the difference between these measures. Today, I’ll briefly review these differences by describing how they are calculated by the…
The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is up at My Personal Finance Journey.