Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
For nursing homes at least, patients do not seem to have much choice. According to an article by Grabowski and Town: The introduction of the NHQI was generally unrelated to facility quality and consumer demand. However, nursing homes facing greater competition improved their quality more than facilities in less competitive markets…The lack of competition in…
Nyjer Morgan (a.k.a.) Tony Plush comes through with the game winning hit and the Brewers win 3-2 over the Arizona Diamondback to advance to the NLCS. Go Brew Crew!!!
I will be hosting Grand Rounds on Tuesday, October 11. If you wish to participate, please follow these instructions. Submit your post by 11:59pm ET on Sunday. Send the post to: jason@healthcare-economist.com Include the following in your email: your name, your blog’s name, the title of your blog post, a brief, 1-2 sentence summary, and…
CMS has a wealth of publicly available summary statistics regarding enrollment, spending, treatment patterns, cost sharing and other topics for both Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. This information can be accessed through the Medicare & Medicaid Statistical Supplement website. The site includes statistics on the following topics: Personal Health Care Expenditures Medicare Enrollment Medicare Program Payments…
Many health policy researchers talk about bending the cost curve; this means reducing the rate of health care spending below GDP growth. U.S. health spending, however, has consistently grown faster than GDP for nearly a century. Woodward and Wang show that this relationship is surprisingly stable over time, even after the advent of large government…
Colorado Health Insurance Insider hosts a Colorado Nature Edition of the Cavalcade of Risk. Check it out.
5 books you’ll want to read. Medicare Advantage enrollment rises. Brooklyn Nets: A basketball team or a real estate concern? The Invisible Hand. A cure for what ails ya’…the Brewers.
Health Insurance premium inflation is back. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefits Survey 2011, health insurance premiums for single individuals was $5,429 for single individuals and $15,073 for a family plan. Premium growth for single and family plans was below 6 percent per year over the last 5 years (2005-2010). However, between…
A recent Health Economics article by Hsiou and Pylypchuk (2011) examines differences in preventive care and hospitalization use between the United States and Taiwan. The authors find the following: “The rate of preventive care use is much higher in the USA than in Taiwan, whereas the use of hospital and emergency care is about the…