Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Let us assume that there are two types of people: smart people an dumb people. Smart people’s test scores are normally distributed about 80% and dumb people’s tests scores are normally distributed about 40% on their test. If we observe the test score of one person, how do we know if they are smart or…
Medicare is inefficient and expensive. Medicare has been expanded through Medicare Part D, which covers prescription drugs. Can expanding an inefficient, expensive system be a good thing? Gary Becker argues yes. Since drugs have high fixed research costs but low marginal costs, having the government pay for drugs can increase innovation. In fact, a working…
In this blog, I have written about the Swiss (part one, part two) and Dutch healthcare system extensively. Both systems have a “regulated competition” where insurance is mandatory and insurance companies are mandated to provide a specific insurance benefit package. In the Swiss system, 85% of medical expenditures are financed by insurance premiums and 15%…
Devon M. Herrick writes an article (“Why rent…“) creating a clever analogy comparing HSAs to equity in a house. He likens traditional health insurance to renting a home, while having a Health Savings Account (HSA) is more like owning the home. Making contributions to HSAs in essence gives you “equity” towards future health care expenses.…
Last Friday I was the keynote speaker for the Pinal County (Arizona) Health Care Delivery System – 2008 Conference. The conference had an interesting mix of speakers (see agenda). Speakers included Lisa Garcia, the Assistant County Manager of Health and Human Services, two academics from the University of Arizona (Gary Hart and Keith Joiner), and…
A recent article in the Journal of Health Economics found that increasing Medicare reimbursement may have no meaningful effect on hospital use or patient outcomes. “There is widespread concern about the quality of health care in the US, and the effect of provider payments on the quality of care is an important and unsettled issue…
Most people do not understand what a health economist is. Where do they work? What do they do? How do they spend their time? How are they trained? A paper by Morrisey and Cawley (Health Econ 2008) attempts to answer this question. The authors conducted an online survey to achieve a better understanding of what…
David Williams of the Health Business Blog reviews an article from the Boston Globe (“Immigrants…“) stating that immigrants reduce the cost of health care. How can this be with so many immigrants relying on government programs and free clinics to receive their care? While it is true that immigrants are consumers of medical care, they…
Many economists espouse utilitarianism as a superior ethical framework to proposed alternatives. A paper in Nature magazine finds that “Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements.” Maybe there is some merit to the paper…economists have always been a strange breed.
The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is up at Insurance Yak. Some of my favorite articles include: InsureBlog finds a health insurance plan that costs $350 – $480 per year. Of course, there are $100 deductibles and 80%-90% coinsurnace, but this does seem like a good deal. This is pet insurance. The Fundmastery…