Friday Links
Scripts-Medco Merger. Are Medicare’s Wellness initiatives a ‘farce’? Medical cost trends: the good and bad news. CMS CHIP Enrollment Reports. My favorite b-ball player joining the Bucks staff.
Month: July 2011
“…every single patent is nothing but crap.”
Planet Money has a very interesting article about software patents and companies who exist for the sole purpose of buying these assets and suing other companies. Computer programmers themselves don’t even like their own patents. In previous posts, I’ve made arguments for limiting patents for pharmaceuticals and the cases for software patents is even stronger.…
Cavalcade of Risk # 136 – Riskiest Sports Edition
The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is up at My Personal Finance Journey. In particular, check out this week’s Top 3 Editor’s Picks. There just might be appearance by your favorite health economist.
Adverse Selection in Germany
In Germany, poor and middle class individuals must use public insurance, but well-off Germans can choose between using public and private insurance. “In Germany, about 90% of the population is publicly insured (Colombo & Tapay, 2004). Buying public insurance is mandatory for dependent employees with a regular employment contract as long as their income does…
Managers of Equality
“In an egalitarian world, everyone is equal, except perhaps the managers of equality. And certainly in the foreseeable future, there will be endless and not unprofitable work for those whose business it is to spell out in ever greater detail the rules of the game of life, and to adjudicate conflict, and to teach the…
Can searching for aliens improve breast cancer detection?
The answer is yes. Project Phoenix is the name of the SETI Institute’s research project to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Project Phoenix uses the world’s largest telescopes (40 to 300 meters in diameter) to scrutinize the vicinities of nearby, sun-like stars. Moffitt researcher John J. Heine, Ph.D., adapted signal detection computer algorithms developed at the…
Friday Links
Primary Care is Dead. Pot critics in Colorado. Wilbon: Pay college players. Money–>Response. Effect of ARVs on QoL. How standards proliferate. How Eric Cantor, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell busted the budget.
The Health Wonk Review’s Heatwave Edition is up
Find the best blog posts from across the health policy wonk-o-sphere as Julie Ferguson host’s this week’s HWR at Workers’ Comp Insider.
Why are we hitting the Debt Ceiling?
According to The American: “Between 1966 and 2007, the entire increase in the size of government relative to the economy resulted from growth in tax-financed health spending. … as a share of GDP, publicly financed health spending in 2007 was five times as large as it was in 1965 (the year immediately before Medicare and…
What most reduces adherence: increasing copayments or decreasing prescription lengths?
According to this article, the answer is: “Both policies decreased medication adherence. The days’ supply policy [decreasing the days supply of each prescription from 100 to 34 days] had a much larger effect on adherence than did the copayment increase. Total Medicaid spending declined from the days’ supply policy, but the copayment policy resulted in…