How much would Medicare for all cost?

This is the question the N.Y. Times posed to five experts in the field. Medicare for all could potentially save money. For instance, if the government could reduce administrative cost, cut prices paid to physicians and hospitals, or reduce drug costs. Typically, however, federal government programs rarely save cost and some of the reduction in…

Should we be spending more on pharmaceuticals?

Perhaps the answer is yes according to research from Frank Lichtenberg. Every year, according to Lichtenberg’s research, drugs launched since 1982 are adding 150 million life-years to the lifespans of people in 22 countries that he analyzed. He calculated the average pharmaceutical expenditure per life-year saved at $2,837 — a bargain, he says.“According to most…

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Health Utility Book (HUB) Can doctors talk teenagers out of risky drinking? Impact of physician disclosures on patient trust. Quadratic voting in practice. Why doctors don’t like email.

Instrumental variables: Can I use patient level IVs to correct for endogeneity in patient characteristics?

Does a treatment improve patient health?  Does a policy intervention improve quality of life?  Does more education increase income?  These are fundamental questions that are difficult to answer with standard observational approaches.  The reason?  Selection bias.  Patients who are sick take medicine; patients who are sicker may take more medicine.  Thus, one could observe that…

Family knows best

Is caregiving by family members superior to paid home health caregiving? According to a paper by Coe et al. (2019), the answer is ‘yes’. We find that some family involvement in home‐based care significantly decreases health‐care utilization: lower likelihood of emergency room use, Medicaid‐financed inpatient days, any Medicaid hospital expenditures, and fewer months with Medicaid‐paid…