Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
A number of companies, such as 23andMe, allow individuals to sequence their own genes in order to attempt to determine if they have an elevated risk for certian diseases. This sector has largely been unregulated…until now. The Economist reports, On November 22nd the FDA…sent a stern letter to 23andMe, a genetic-testing firm. Despite “more than…
What happens if you’re having Thanksgiving dinner and the topic turns to health care. Or worse, the status of Healthcare.gov and the Obamacare Health Insurance Exchanges. What do you do? How do you sound in the know, even if you’ve been slacking off any haven’t ready my blog for months? The Wall Street Journal provides…
‘Vaccinate your child!’ says CAP. Most health apps of limited value. Drug look-alike list. $1 trillion. Digital awards. California vs. Healthcare.gov
What is the GDP of Azerbaijan? What is the Estonia’s exchange rate? Is inflation a problem in Sri Lanka? To answer all these questions, you need a variety of macroeconomic variables from each of these countries. Further, these measures must be standardized across countries. Wouldn’t it be nice if this data exist? It turns out…
If you are an avid reader of this blog, you’ve heard about nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs). What you might not know is how they popularity has grown over the past decade. A paper by Strange (2013) cites the following statistics: With more than 85,000 PAs and 150,000 NPs eligible to practice, their…
The experiences of this period…led me to adopt a theory of life, very unlike that on which I had before I acted, and having much in common with what at that time I certainly had never heard of, the anti-self- consciousness theory of Carlyle. I never, indeed, wavered in the conviction that happiness is the…
Hank Stern has posted a fresh edition of Health Wonk Review at InsureBlog – and it’s a special one: Health Wonk Review: Pre-Thanksgivukkah edition. What is Thansgivukkah? Hank explains: This year (2013/5774), the first night of Chanukah falls on Thanksgiving, and that happy (if confusing) confluence of events won’t happen again for another 78,000 years. This…
Where has public policy gone in the last few years? Popular policies include move towards more bundled payments, the creation of accountable care organizations, additional funding for comparative effectiveness research (CER), evidence-based medicine (EBM) and value-based purchasing programs that link payments to various quality metrics. With health care costs rising, payers are looking to decrease…
Prostate screening inaccuracies. What is the cancer drug fund? ACA: “I don’t really think you could stop this law.” Writing with Parkinson’s. Rate shock part II. Kobe & biologics. Hospital shooting.
A paper by Li and Laxminarayan (Health Econ forthcoming) examines an interesting question: Are physicians sensitive to drug prices faced by their patients? In an ideal world, physicians act as perfect agents for their patients, taking into consideration their medical needs and financial constraints. In reality, the choice of drug and whether a generic or brand-name…