Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
âCan you imagine if a Wal-Mart store operated like Americaâs health care system? You would walk into the store and there would be a huge array of merchandise. But you would not be able to tell the products apart. You would not know how much they cost. And in the end, you would not know…
As a resident of Southern California for the last 3 years, I have gained intimate knowledge of the price of perfect weather: traffic. How do you fix traffic in a “a sprawling mid-density city” such as Los Angeles or San Diego? This Sunday’s L.A. Times (“How to fix traffic”) gives some suggestions that most economists…
Anna Gorman was faced with a terrible decision: remove her ovaries and be faced without a life with the children she desired, or keep the ovaries and face a 54% higher chance of ovarian cancer and 81% chance of breast cancer. Mrs. Gorman has the BRCA1 genetic mutation which puts her at great risk for…
For those who were interested in my post earlier today on water quality in developing nations, NPR’s Marketplace has an interesting story on the high level of pollution in China’s lakes and rivers.
The San Diego Union-Tribune recently reported (“Doctors balk…“) on pediatricians concerns regarding the rising costs of vaccines. The article begins: “The soaring cost and rising number of new vaccines, doctors say, make it increasingly difficult for them to buy the shots they give their patients. They also say that insurers often don’t reimburse them enough,…
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…
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…
Politicians are faced with a serious dilemma in the near future: reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and spend billions of dollars on a single-payer government health program or fail to renew the program and leave many children uninsured and many constituents angry. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports (“Several Lawmakers…“) that the SCHIP…
Approximately one year ago today, I wrote about whether or not non-profit hospitals should be tax exempt (“Should Non-Profit Hospitals get a Tax Break?“). Generally, I concluded that they should not. Flash forward to March 2007 and we see that The New York Times has an article titled “In Shriner Spending, A Blurry Line of…
As an economist with libertarian leanings, last week was a great one to display the imperfection of government action. Below are some of the lowlights: Scooter Libby was convicted for leaking the identity of a CIA agent (Washington Post article). A Justice Department audit found that “the FBI broke the law to secretly pry out…