Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Who has more scientific publications: the U.S. or China? Is digital health a social science? How do U.S. healthcare prices compare to the rest of the world? Does continuing medical education work? What is the cost of defensive medicine fears? What does an effective lobbyist look like?
Hank Stern has posted A Midsummer Night’s Health Wonk Review at InsureBlog. The HWR reviews the latest and greats posts from the health wonk-o-sphere. In this edition, you can learn about Association Health Plans, the pros and cons of a number of mega-mergers in the health sector, and the effect of GOP plans to end Obamacare, among others.…
Many of Medicare’s alternative payment models are based on the premise that there is a lot of waste in health care. If that is the case, we could reduce cost with little to no effect on quality. While that would be nice, is that really the case? Consider two articles from the most recent edition…
As of 2015, only 8 percent of US adults ages thirty-five and older had received all of the high-priority, appropriate clinical preventive services recommended for them. Nearly 5 percent of adults did not receive any such services. This is from a recent Health Affairs paper by Borsky et al. (2018). This is despite the Affordable…
Medicare provides health insurance for 58.4 million Americans. To provide health care to largely elderly Americans, it spent $710 billion in 2017. One key question is, does the federal government have the funds to continue to support this program as the baby boomers retire? According to the 2018 Medicare Trustees report, the answer is increasingly…
Healthcare Economist was named as one of the Top 50 medical blogs of 2018. In fact, we were listed first among the Healthcare Laws and Policies blogs. Thanks to the Cables and Sensors website for this recognition.
In econ-speak, we are looking to measure the elasticity of plan switching with respect to premium increases. This elasticity is in essence how much would a 10% change in premium affect the likelihood of plan choice change. If the answer is 10%, the elasticity is -1. If the answer is a 5% increase in plan…
Having health insurance is great. It largely protects people against financial losses that accrue when you become ill. It provides coverage for medical services. And improves patients health. Well, that last one is only true if health insurance allows you to access care. When health insurance provider reimbursement is low as is the case for…
Will 1 in 4 of Earthlings soon be obese? How quickly do patients need physicians follow-ups after hospitalization? Is there adverse selection in California’s individual health insurance market? Does continuity of care matter? An example in home health. Success at BC/BS value-based care program?
This weekend, one of the biggest conferences in medicine is taking place: the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Conference. On June 1, just prior to the conference commencing , I participated in an interesting half-day workshop in Chicago centered around better understanding of the value of innovation in oncology. The workshop was sponsored by…