Wednesday Links
Walletectomy. Obamacare veto in Alabama? Hospital appointment scalpers. No more ‘bowling alone’? Colbert on ER debt panels.
Month: May 2012
How to invest your retirement savings and does it matter?
Surprisingly (or perhaps not) most Americans have limited liquid financial resources during their retirement years. From the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health: “…for many households “discussions of whether to purchase an annuity or draw down wealth in another fashion are largely moot; the amount of retirement support that their savings will provide is very limited. For example, nearly…
Does Public Reporting Affect Patient Behavior?
A number of studies have already examined this question. Baker et al. (2003) examined the effectiveness of a public reporting effort in hospitals in Ohio, finding little relationship between a hospital’s report card ranking and changes in its market share. Cutler et al. (2004) examined the effects of reporting quality information about cardiac surgery on…
Do Republicans actually Like ObamaCare?
Joe Paduda has some interesting points: “requiring insurers accept all applicants is favored by most Republicans (according to Politico) but a) some senior Republicans hate the idea and b) there’s zero consensus re how to actually make that work. Do they forbid upcharging for older/sicker people? Adopt some form of risk-adjustment and/or financial transfer among/between insurers based…
Thursday Links
Soda tax and weight loss. Do CHIP expansions crowd out private insurance? How to create an infographic. Milton Friedman and healthcare licensing. Physician EHR usage increased from 17% in 2002 to 57% in 2011. Trends in Medicare and Medicaid spending. Econ blogger survey results.
CoR and Free Money
Free Money Finance hosts the latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk.
Attrition Bias
If you are evaluating the treatment effect of a policy or medical intervention, does it matter if some of your subjects leave the sample? In many cases, the answer is ‘yes’. The Problem As outlined in Grasdal (2001), the effect of the treatment is simply: Δ = E(Y|X, T=1) − E(Y|X, T=0) However, in some…