Business and the Left Unite?

There is an interesting article in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine (“What’s the one thing…“) regarding how some business leaders and Democratic politicians are uniting to fight for universal health care. The CEOs want to be relieved of financing a safety net for their employees (i.e.: health insurance and pensions) and the left is…

Income Inequality and Health

The Economist‘s Free Exchange blog has some interesting commentary on income inequality and health (“Healthy, wealthy and wise“).  The post talks about Angus Deaton’s Spring 2003 NBER Reporter Commentary.  In the Reporter, Mr. Deaton states the following: “[In a study by Christina Paxon and I], We focused on the idea that health is determined by…

‘Rethinking Free Trade’ by Lindsay Oldenski

Today, guest blogger Lindsay Oldenski will give her opinion about Alan Blinder’s recent comments regarding free trade and American job losses. Ms. Oldenski is an economics PhD student at the University of California-San Diego (UCSD) and specializes in topics related to international trade. Rethinking Free Trade? By Lindsay Oldenski According to a recent Wall Street…

Single payer commentaries

Tyler Cowen has interesting piece in The New York Times (“Abolishing the Middlemen…“) in which he states that a single-payer system’s cost savings from the reduced administrative and overhead cost may be illusory. The article’s arguments are sound and are similar to the one’s I made in the post titled “Medicare’s (true) Administrative Costs.” The…

Physicians vs. Statisticians

An interesting post by Arnold Kling (“Doctors, Pharmaceuticals, and Statisticians“) reports on a randomized clinical trial which demonstrated that on average, angioplasties have no incremental health benefits once the patient is placed on multiple medications such as beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, statins and blood thinners. Dr. Kling writes: “Doctors think that they add value by giving…

Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes fight Malaria?

According to the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), “[m]alaria is the most important parasitic disease in the world. It kills 3,000 children every day and more than one million each year. The majority of these deaths occur among children under five years of age and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa.” In the most recent…